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More "Snap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scarce to know these insults were for him; But never swerved his gaze from Jochanan. Then, in God's language, sealed from these dumb brutes, Swiftly and low he spake: "Be of good cheer, Reverend old man. I deign not treat with these. If one dare offer bodily hurt to thee, By the ineffable Name! I snap my chains Like gossamer, and in his blood, to the hilt, Bathe the prompt knife hid in my girdle's folds. The Duke shall hear me. Patience. Trust in me." Somewhat the authoritative voice abashed, Even ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... by observing the odd and mixed collection of things the poor people brought with them, some of the more bulky articles of which were not admitted on board. The Jew harpies were on the quays ready to snap them up, giving little or nothing in return. I thought that it was a great pity that there were no means to enable these poor people to obtain better information before they left home, to have saved them the expense of dragging so much useless lumber about with them. ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... I follow you up to your attic, and watch you and see you go to sleep, you need not blush or giggle or snap. I would not do you any harm; your eyes would plague me. And besides, I do not entirely fancy you. You are not fresh. You are boxed up too much. But I trust that some lusty careless fellow, regardless of consequences, looking not too far ahead, and following the will of his race—I ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... came the conviction that the baby had been laughing at them for their terror of Mrs. Kant. He was curled up on a chair by the fire, looking at them with his wide eyes over his shoulder, and he seemed to say, "I don't care a snap for the woman—why should you?" The blue ball was on the floor at the foot of the chair, and the firelight leapt upon the frieze that Peter had so carefully chosen—giants and castles, dwarfs and princesses running round the room in ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... like a particularly wakeful one," she returned, mischievously. "I am glad you are not ill. I feared you were when I heard you snap on the light." ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... on his dress suit," said Shem, "and snap the whip when Marjorie rides around the ring. You know just the way they do ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... liberty and that of his companion. It is needless to say that the sole motive of my interference in this matter is to obtain these details. Now, from long experience I know all the trickery and treachery of the Italian nature. Once free, this man might snap his fingers in my face and refuse to speak. After the formalities of the law have been duly complied with, I wish the prisoners remanded to their cells and informed that their liberation will take place only when Peppino has given me the ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... to the taste! how it bites back again! and is there any other sound like the snap and crackle with which it salutes the ear on being plucked from the stems? It is a threat to one sense that the other is soon to verify. It snaps to the ear as it smacks to the tongue. All other berries are ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... A sharp loud snap, and the top of the tree came down, the big leafage hiding Ned; but he was standing up close to the broken-off tree, which was now like a thick pole, and rubbing himself hard, with the sailors about him, when the lookers-on ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... saddle-bow, Two aged pistols he did stow, Among the surplus of such meat As in his hose he cou'd not get. These wou'd inveigle rats with th' scent, 395 To forage when the cocks were bent; And sometimes catch 'em with a snap As cleverly as th' ablest trap. They were upon hard duty still, And ev'ry night stood centinel, 400 To guard the magazine i' th' hose From two-legg'd and from ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... Brooks is. She's a far better model of married life for me to contemplate just this moment than you, dear Judy. I think that such a spectacle as you and Jervis is a menace to society. You look so happy and peaceful and companionable that you induce a defenseless onlooker to rush off and snap up the first man she meets—and ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... idyllic," the girl forced herself to say lightly, but her teeth met with a snap, and her fingers gripped the rough surface of the stones, for she remembered how Trenholme had said of her that she "reveled in the sunlight, in the golden air, in the scents of trees ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... round the village you might have some one in who'd murder you. People have been murdered before now for less than this. I shall speak to the vicar about it." And she put it in her purse, shut it with a snap, and took ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... him; he knew this as well as another and cared not the snap of his big, blunt fingers. There was remarkably little of the sentimental about Blenham. He was a capable lieutenant for such as the master of the Packard millions, he earned and received his increase in wages ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... hand on his sword. 'Bah!' he say, coming forward—'bah! I will speak for madame. I will speak. I have been silent long enough.' He come between the two, and, raising his sword, he strike the time-piece and smash it. 'Ha! ha!' he say, wild with drink, 'I have you both here alone.' He snap his fingers under the Intendant's nose. 'It is time I protect my wife's name from you, and by God, I will do it!' At that M'sieu' Doltaire laugh, and Cournal turn to him, and say, 'Batard!' The Intendant have out his sword, and he roar in a hoarse voice, 'Dog, you shall die!' But M'sieu' ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... rooms of the bungalow for sake of the fire insurance and as a precaution against thieves, and to keep the lawn watered and clipped and the dust off the furniture. They admitted that they had a snap, for they were seldom disturbed in their leisurely caretaking routine save in the winter. Even Mary V always tired of the place after a month or two in it, and would pack her trunk and "hit the ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... impatiently. "Probably they'd cut me, and all that sort of thing. I understand their point of view, exactly, but I'm not here to play the social game, and I shall talk to whom it pleases me. Do you or Gordon MacRae honestly believe I care a snap ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... o' theirs," said Harry, "so long as they get their own work done? There's scarce one on 'em as hasn't more land already nor he can keep as should be, and for all that they want to snap up every bit as falls vacant, so as no ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... a sharp snap and the knife that Jackson held went flying through the air. Captain Jack's powerful fingers had broken the man's wrist. At the same moment Captain Jack drove his right fist into Jackson's face. Then he got to his feet and faced ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... at heart, Grant went out into the sunshine. He was snap-shotted a dozen times by press photographers. One man, backing impudently in front of him in order to secure a sharp focus, tripped over the raised edge of a cartway into a yard, and sat ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... worst comes to the worst, he can only lead them to the hut; and they won't find much worth taking, there. When we once get out to the blacks, we can snap ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... came, roaring away like a young porpoise, and heaving the foam right over our mast-heads. I knew what would happen, and so it did. Just as easily as the big shark in Port Royal harbour would swallow a nigger boy, she made a snap at the ship and bolted us all, masts and spars and hull, and I felt as how we was all a-being crunched up in her jaws. I woke with a start, which made me almost jump clean out of my hammock, all over in a cold sweat, and right glad I ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... paddock from here, if you follow the belt of the sheoak trees over there. It's a house just like those things in Gabblebabble township. There's a yellow sheep dog, who's very good tempered, and a black one that made a snap at my tail the other day. There is an old grey cart horse, an honest fellow, but rather dull; and a bay mare who is much better company. There is a little red cow who is a great friend of mine, ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... his eyes, and caught a fleeting glimpse of a white flag waving arrogantly on the edge of a wall of rock nearly a mile above his head. Then his eyes closed with a snap, and his face wrinkled spasmodically. Gus threw him the towel, and uncommiseratingly watched him wipe out the offending soap. He felt too blue himself to take stock ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... feet, and often changed a hostile Reichstag or Diet into an assembly of men eager to do his bidding, but that it was his firm grasp on the realities of life and his supreme command of everything which makes for true statesmanship. His policies were not based on snap judgments, they were the result of serious thought. All this showed in his speeches, and made him one of the most powerfully effective speakers ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... "you could photograph the clouds, Pete. Suppose you took a snap-shot of the sky every day, at the same time, for a year, it would make a ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... to this greatness of mind; so that, becoming the slave of her own feelings, she is easily subjugated by those of others. Thus degraded, her reason, her misty reason! is employed rather to burnish than to snap her chains. ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... a wild boar, should charge upon the dog, as it stood about fifteen paces off, and strike him in the side with its head; the dog, leaping dexterously entirely over the badger, awaited a second and third attack, and then made his antagonist chase him all round the garden. If the badger managed to snap the dog's hindquarters, an angry tussle ensued, but never resulted in a real fight. If Caspar, the badger, lost his temper, he drew off without turning round, and got up snorting and shaking and with bristling hair, and strutted about like an inflated turkey-cock. ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... truly, to do what thee thinks of, in open day, is a thing not to be thought on by men that have soft places in their bosoms. Nevertheless, I think, according to thee own opinion, we being strong men that have the wind of the villains, and a good cause to help us, truly, we might snap the poor man they have captivated out of their hands, with considerable much damage to them besides, the murdering rapscallions!—But, friend," he added, seeing Roland give way to his eagerness,—"thee spoke of the ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... closed with a snap, but Tredgold and Chalk made no move. Glued to their seats, they stared blankly at the door, until the rigidity of their pose and the strangeness of their gaze began to affect the ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... look about for something to eat, and they at once snap at a fly or bug which comes in their way. Here we have the picture of three little chickens reaching for a spider that ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... prisoners, was led to a wood and lashed by arms and legs to a couple of hickory trees that had been bent by a prodigious effort and tied together by their tops. The lashing was cut by a rifle-ball, the trees regained their straight position with a snap like whips, and that was the way Gilbert Gates came ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... have received the name tucano from the noise they make, which resembles "tok-kan" very sharply pronounced and with a snap at the ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the white man's devil-water" (rum). "You are like dogs in the Hot Moon when they run mad and snap at their own shadows. We are only little herds of buffaloes left scattered; the great herds that once covered the prairies are no more. See!—the white men are like the locusts when they fly so thick that the whole sky ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... told him that a few of us would certainly be present, and thanked him kindly. When he was gone I told the boys, and they wanted to give three cheers, but I got them to keep still, and we talked all the afternoon of the soft snap we had struck, and cleaned up for the party. My intention was to pick out half a dozen of the best dressed, recruits, those that could make a pretty fair showing in society to go with me, but they all wanted to go, and there was no way to prevent it, so all but one Irishman, that ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... low, yelling like demons, and keeping up a continuous volley. They were well armed with white men's guns. Neale worked the lever of his rifle while he looked ahead for an instant to see where his horse was running; then he wheeled quickly and took a snap shot at the nearest Indian, no more than three hundred yards distant now. He saw where his bullet, going wide, struck up the dust. It was desperately hard to shoot from the back of a scared horse. Neale did not ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... scanned the switches, inserted his key into the Security lock, and turned it with a final snap, forcing a bar home through the handles of all of the switches to prevent their unauthorized operation by anyone until the official Security key should again release them. In the meantime, no function could ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... to the kangaroo-hound, who opened and closed its jaws like a steel trap, and gulped the gift with portentous solemnity, and absolutely without visible sign of any emotion whatever. The hound showed only watchfulness. Finn heard its jaws snap, and could almost hear the gulp which disposed of each morsel. The sight and the sound gave an edge to the Wolfhound's already keen appetite, and, almost unconsciously, he drew nearer and yet nearer to the gunyah, crouching low to the ground as he moved, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... eyes, and presently he was nodding. Presumably he dreamed, for once he roused himself to snap at a fly, when there was no fly. Rufe, however, was wide awake, and busily canvassing how to account to Birt for the lack of a message from Nate Griggs, for he would not confess how untrustworthy he had proved himself. As he reflected upon this perplexity, he ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... there was no danger of fire. She opened the outside door and glanced around. There was an autumnal chill in the air, but there were no mysterious shadows creeping about in the yard below that might presage burglars. Then she bolted the door with a snap, and stood a moment in the ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... longed to reach it almost as much as did Ned. "Ah, mate," he exclaimed, when I told him that we had little more than one day's journey more on horseback to perform; "let us once get our craft built and afloat, and we may snap our fingers at the Cashibos, and any ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... man, "that sneak will get in ahead of you, and then a snap of your little finger for your chance of getting the job ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... not longer, to go on the way he's been going," said John M. Gibbs, with a vicious snap of ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... came just now. The rope strained as if it would snap; the bows of the nuggar were buried in foam, and the men hauling were forced to take the corporal's hint, and keep their breath for ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... immediately behind me, and turning saw a splendid stag and three does not twenty feet away. They saw us and turned, and I had scarcely caught my breath after the surprise when they were many more than twenty feet away, and there was barely time to snap my shutter on them before they, disappeared over the ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... couple of running bowlines were prepared. Higson dropped the tempting morsel, and let it sink down deep, then rapidly drew it up again. Quick as lightning the shark darted at it, and down his throat it went, his jaws closing with a snap which made Higson draw up his leg. The monster's sharp teeth, however, could not bite ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... recriminations, although he had paid us many thousands of dollars in fees and we had saved him many more in judgments. He still owed us a large sum of money, but Gottlieb had tied up his property in such a fashion that the old fellow was judgment-proof. He was thus able to snap his fingers in our faces, a fact that naturally intensified our hard feelings against him. We cherished our anger until an appropriate occasion should present itself for getting even with him, which occurred sooner than any of us, least of ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... Mameluke—was carefully examined, lest there might be some flaw or crack in the steel. The head-strap was buckled to its proper tightness, and then the reins were minutely scanned. These were of the hair of wild horses' tails closely and neatly plaited. Leather might snap, there was no fear of breaking such ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... sweat running off his face and mingling with the blood from his arm; and then the man rose up, head and shoulders against the sky, and he knew his would-be murderer was Lynch. Wunpost held his gun against the light until the sights were lined up fine, then swung back for a snap-shot at Lynch; and as the rifle belched and kicked he caught a flash of a tumbling form and clutching hands thrown up wildly against the sky. Then he stooped down and ran, helter-skelter down the wash, regardless of what might be in his way; and as he plunged ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... own house he set the shiny acorn on the table. I expect he set it down hard, for all at once, with a little snap, it opened!—exactly like ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... SAILOR. How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort of tree to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there's none but the crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort of weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at sea. Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there's another in the sky—lurid-like, ye ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... time these preparations were completed, the sharp-starred winter night had settled down upon the solitude. In all the vast there was no sound but the occasional snap, hollow and startling, of some great tree overstrung by the frost, and the intimate little whisper and hiss of Pete's fire down in the trench. Disposing a good bunch of boughs under his head, Pete lighted his pipe, rolled himself in ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the martyred Stevens these words struck panic. But as he opened his mouth to protest, the catastrophe occurred. There was a snap, and the toboggan shot downward. Bound as he was, the victim could see below him a brick wall right across the path of his descent. He was helpless to move; it was useless to cry out. For all that, as he felt in imagination the crushing shock of his head driven like a battering-ram ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... look greedily toward Transylvania!... From what I can see I'm sure these Bulgars will be first to give up the ghost, although when I talk to Kovalsky and hear the whine of these Wienfloss Kwabins I feel sure that they will be first to snap for peace!... I am writing this in a elaborately furnished dugout that has been abandoned by some German officers—I KNOW this because I found several tubes of Erbswurst tucked in one of the berths. With a little water ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... clothes. She had heard from Nazeby, that I had had on a fresh frock every day. I don't know who could have written to her. She has got to look much older in the two years we have been abroad and the corners of her mouth shut with a snap. Perhaps it is having to spend part of ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... columns were rising to a considerable height above the sea. We stood amazed, thunderstruck, at the presence of such a herd of marine monsters. They were of supernatural dimensions; the smallest of them would have crunched our raft, crew and all, at one snap ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Without the Atlantic and Pacific, right here in St. Louis? And all the work of those men they are prosecuting and fining and trying to put into jail? Why, if the President had his way, he'd lock up every man that had enough sense and snap in him to do things, and he'd make this country like a Methodist camp meeting after the shouting is over! There's no ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... or anybody—who wouldn't?" asked the Guardsman, as the cloud dispelled from his face at hope coming so quickly from this unexpected quarter. "Why, it's as good as the Bank of England. Harker take it?—-he'll snap at it. Only try him and see his greedy eyes glisten. What could Harker get by selling me up?—absolutely nothing. Besides, it would do him harm by letting others know how harshly he served me. Oh, no, Harker will not sell me up if he can find ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... had left him alone. The supreme moment had arrived. He sought to collect his faculties, but could not. It is chiefly at the moment when there is the greatest need for attaching them to the painful realities of life, that the threads of thought snap within the brain. He was in the very place where the judges deliberated and condemned. With stupid tranquillity he surveyed this peaceful and terrible apartment, where so many lives had been broken, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Frenchmen were as busy as bees. We could hear the crackle and snap of wood as they seemed to be tearing it out of the counting-house; and then it was evident what they had been doing, for a torch danced here and there, and stopped in one place and seemed to double in size, to quadruple, and at last there was a leaping flame ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... are always ready to eat," replied his Mother; "you know that they are caught by bait. This bait is a bit of a clam or a little worm, put upon a sharp hook. The fish snap at the bait, and the hook catches them in the mouth. Come, little hungry fish," added his Mother, "and I will give you something to eat; but I will not put it on a hook ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... anything our friends had ever seen. I think that a man's friends often take away the freshness from sights that otherwise might move him. I've never been to Europe but what with magazine pictures and snap shots and Mrs. Grover, who never forgot that before she married Grover she had travelled for a whole year, I haven't any special desire to visit London or Paris. I suppose it would be different if I ever went but even then I don't think there would be the ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... YANK keeps his mocking tone—holds out his hand.] Shake—de secret grip of our order. [Something, the tone of mockery, perhaps, suddenly enrages the animal. With a spring he wraps his huge arms around YANK in a murderous hug. There is a crackling snap of crushed ribs—a gasping cry, still mocking, from YANK.] Hey, I didn't say, kiss me. [The gorilla lets the crushed body slip to the floor; stands over it uncertainly, considering; then picks it up, throws it in the cage, shuts the door, ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... elegance and gentility, that Mr. Chitling, bestowing numerous admiring glances on his legs and boots till they were out of sight, assured the company that he considered his acquaintance cheap at fifteen sixpences an interview, and that he didn't value his losses the snap ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... almost, in Bideford. I should pity the person who dared pick a flaw in the story, in the hearing of a Bideford man, woman, or child. Why, I believe even a Bideford dog would understand the insult, and snap! ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... strong. Hill's plan worked out as he had expected—at least in so far as the state convention was concerned—for delegates pledged to him were chosen. Cleveland's supporters, however, denounced the "snap convention" and a factional quarrel arose between the "snappers" and the "anti-snappers"; outside of New York it was so obvious that the snap convention was a mere political trick that the Hill cause was scarcely benefited ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... and you'll have something of the same sensation as I had. Holding it thus, I could feel its head jerking this way and that, violently, and its tail, long and lithe, lashing at my wrist. The little claws were trying to tear, but they were evidently softish. I could hear, or thought I could, the snap of its little jaws. It was about the nastiest sensation that I ever experienced. I don't know why I thought that it was venomous, but I did. I tried to smash the thing in my hand—tried again and again, and I have a good grip—but might just as well have tried to crush a piece of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Holland's desk squeaked something, and he took time enough to snap, "No. I told you, Miss Mikhail, I was not to ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... hands and shortly afterward the vehicle dashed into a side street. It appeared as likely a place as any for his purpose; John Steele, hardly waiting for the man to draw rein, leaped out as far as he might. He landed without mishap, heard a whip snap furiously, and darted back into a doorway. He had just reached it when the other cab drew near; for an instant he felt certain that he had been seen; but the pursuers' eyes were bent ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... souffre douleur, with vehemence proportioned to his own annoyance. It was a fierce lecture upon general listlessness, want of manliness, spirit, and perseverance, indifference to duties he had assumed. Nonsense about feelings—a fellow was not worth the snap of a finger who ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... proper escort. The gate at the back stairs, which gave on the landing and had been placed there years ago for the protection of little children long since able to take care of themselves, was as strong as ever and shut with as clever a snap, so that there was no danger by that way. There were also guards on all the fires, and an ornamental bar across each window to prevent little rash creatures from ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... can't do us much harm. The only person who might make it disagreeable is Lord Blackadder, and I snap my fingers at him." ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... of a boxer up came the great white forearm, and the spear only glanced along the hair. Like the stroke of a serpent the long neck shot upward, the furious jaws crunched into the shaft, and with a sharp side-shake, snap! snap! in three pieces flew the splintered wood. Now for ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True
... last season when what is trivially called "the cold snap" came upon us. I had five horses eating themselves silly all the time, and I am not going to speak of it. I don't consider it a subject to be treated lightly. It was in about the thickest of it that I heard from a man I know in Ireland. He is a little old horse-coping sportsman ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... Moseby's mounted guerillas attack'd a train of wounded, and the guard of cavalry convoying them. The ambulances contain'd about 60 wounded, quite a number of them officers of rank. The rebels were in strength, and the capture of the train and its partial guard after a short snap was effectually accomplish'd. No sooner had our men surrender'd, the rebels instantly commenced robbing the train and murdering their prisoners, even the wounded. Here is the scene, or a sample of it, ten minutes after. Among the wounded officers in the ambulances were one, a lieutenant ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... heather, before the sudden drop of your staunch companion, and a rigidity in all his limbs, satisfy you that you have at last compelled the bird to squat under that wide holly-bush, from whence you kick him up, and feel some little exultation as you bring him down with a snap-shot, having only caught a glimpse of him through the evergreen boughs, as he endeavoured to escape by a rapid flight at the opposite side ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... our going, to which our little friends were all invited, and a happy, merry band of children played out under the trees, and ate the goodies so generously provided. Just before breaking up, we all joined in playing our favorite game of "snap the whip," and with screams and laughter, one after another of the weakest ones rolled over in the soft grass. The last night at Willow-spring wound up with a grand frolic, ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... home his leg had swollen very much, and was so painful that he could hardly limp along; for Juno had taken no passing snap, but a great strong mouthful. He concealed his condition from his mother for that night; but next morning his leg was so bad, that there was no longer a possibility of hiding the fact. To tell a lie would have been ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... he was through. Grim's finger was on the slide button. It closed with a snap behind him, cutting off ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... b, b, b![69] Very often, however, the designer is satisfied with one surprise, but I never saw a good illuminated border without one at least; and no series of any kind was ever introduced by a great composer in a painting without a snap somewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's drawing of Rome with the large balustrade for a foreground in the Hakewell's Italy series: the single baluster struck out of the line, and showing the street below through the gap, ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... of lap-dog, and among them the tiniest little Italian greyhound,—not more than eight inches long. This last was like a porcelain toy dog, and looked brittle, as if its thin legs would snap if much handled. I did not think it a pretty pet; it seemed ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... honestly say that to live is Christ? If so, our hope is valid, and will not yield when we lean heavily upon it for support in the ford over the black stream. If our hope is built on anything besides, it will snap then like a rotten pole, and leave us to stumble helpless among the slippery stones and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... looked as if we should save them, which had seemed impossible a short time previously, from the ugly way in which the shrouds tightened, and the after-stays sung, as if they were stretched to the last limit, showing that the slightest increase of the strain on them would snap them like pack-thread. ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... weather treated Florence to what Aurora and Estelle called a cold snap. Their surprise and indignation were extreme. That Italy, sunny Italy, should feel herself free to have these alpine ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Doris. "Keep you health, snap your fingers at care and sorrow, do your duty on work-days and drink till you are jolly in honor of the god on holidays, and then all will be well. Those who do all they are able and enjoy as much as they can get, make good use of their lives ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... muffled voice calling to them. Marjorie flung the doors open, and, save for the dresses, it was empty. She stared in for a moment, still hearing the movements of someone beyond, and at last the sound of a snap; and as she withdrew her head to exclaim to Alice, the young man walked into the room through ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... place. Or if, after due opportunity had been given, his Lordship showed no desire to avail himself of the opening, then the privilege should have fallen to the examining counsel. If he in turn waived it, it should have been open to counsel on the other side to snap up the chance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... out of the air came a humming sound. It grew louder and louder, and the boys felt a strange suction of wind which made them hold tightly to the rail for fear of being pulled overboard by some uncanny force. There followed a loud snap and a crash, and the mast began ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... the bees' most deadly enemies. They will sit at the mouth of a hive and snap up bees ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... that was snap snapping in the evening breeze not ten feet away. It was no more than an ordinary camp marking-flag; but the regiment, always punctilious in matters of millinery, had charged it with the regimental device, the Red Bull, which is the crest of the Mavericks—the great Red Bull ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... earth, Since Freedom had her birth, Have to their subject nations said, "Stand still;" So, from the Polar Bear, Comes down the freezing air, And stiffens all things with its deadly chill. He who doth God resist— God's old antagonist— Would snap the chain that binds all things to him; And in his godless pride, All peoples would divide, And scatter even the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... manner was, interspersing her narrative with baby nonsense and endearments, and Mr Robins forgot his errand, which was, after all, only a pretext, and stood half-listening, and more than half back in the old days of memory, and once he so far forgot himself as to snap his fingers at the child, and touch one of its warm, little hands, which immediately closed round his finger with a baby's soft, tenacious grasp, from which it required a ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... that one saucer had fallen into a mountain lake. This came to me secondhand. The lone witness was said to have rushed over to his car to get his camera as the disk approached. When it plunged toward the lake, he was so startled that he failed to snap the picture until the moment it struck. This story sounded so flimsy that I didn't bother ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... the common abuse of you is absurd. I have heard grave and industrious persons declare emphatically that any one who allows himself to fall under your sway debars himself utterly from every chance of success. Fiddlesticks! I snap my fingers at such folly. What do these gentlemen say to the case of FIGTREE, the great Q.C.? Everybody knows that FIGTREE is, without exception, the most indolent man in the world. Let any doubter walk down Middle Temple Lane and ask the first young barrister he meets what he thinks of FIGTREE. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... touches the brim of the hat. A hunting guard, fastened at the back of the hat brim and between two habit buttons is better than an elastic caught under the braids of your hair, for when an elastic does not snap outright, it is always trying to do so, and in the effort holds the hat so tightly on the head so as sometimes to give actual pain. The hunting guard is no restraint at all unless the hat flies off, in which case it keeps it from following ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... little afraid of him," she went on, after she had had a little cry, "I'd ask him. But likely as not he'd peck at me—old peckjabber!" and here she laughed through her tears as she thought of the Caravan in their little sunbonnets. "Or p'r'aps he'd snap me up! I've often heard of snapping people up when they asked too many questions, but seems to me it never meant anything so awful as that before"; and she was rambling on in this way, laughing and crying by turns, when at this moment Bob Scarlet ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... hear) that God designedly killed this man? Many or most persons do believe this; I can't and don't. If you believe so, do you believe that when a swallow snaps up a gnat, that God designed that that particular swallow should snap up that particular gnat at that particular instant? I believe that the man and the gnat are in the same predicament. If the death of neither man nor gnat is designed, I see no good reason to believe that their first birth or production should ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... a cold and hungry man; but I at length obtained admission to the house of a German tailor, and, explaining my condition, offered to pay him liberally for the privilege of becoming his guest until the cold snap was over. He examined me closely, and having made, as it were, a mental inventory of my features, dress, &c., exclaimed, "Mine friend, in dese times nobody knows who's which. I say, sar, nobody knows who's ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... man dances he should laugh and crow and snap his fingers and make faces; otherwise, he is not dancing at all, he is taking exercise. No person should be allowed to dance without first swearing that he feels only six years of age. People who admit to feeling more than ten years old should be sent to hospital, and any one ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... waste- paper from the colonel's basket in ord'ly-room whin ut's emptied. Bein' but a shlip av a girl she went pink at seein' me, an' I twisted me moustache an' looked at a picture forninst the wall. Niver show a woman that ye care the snap av a finger for her, an' begad she'll come ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... cakes and puddings they would quarrel. I don't believe that either chapkin E'er thought at lunch to fold his napkin, And if one biscuit graced the platter 'Twas ever less than fighting matter, Or if they'd beans—no doubt they had 'em— They failed to snap a few at Adam. I fear me as they ate their salade They hummed some raw primeval ballad, And when the Serpent came to dinner, They made remarks about the sinner. No doubt they criticised the cooking And hooked the fruit when none ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... at, say f. 6-3, and with a "speed" film (glass plates are utterly out of the question on the trail), it is possible to make a snap-shot at one twenty-fifth of a second on a clear day, around noon, even in the dead of winter, in any part of Alaska that the writer has travelled in. There are those who write that they can always hold a camera still enough to get a sharp negative at even one tenth of a second. ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... to put on a new rope," declared Joe. "The act went so well when I seemed about to fall, that I'm going to keep that feature in. I'll rig up a catch on the severed cable. At the proper time I'll snap it loose, seem to fall, swing by the dangling bar as I did before, and land on the platform that way. It will be more effective than if I did ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... did. All I know is that it was an Indian, and that he was watching us. I noticed his tracks some distance back, and also noticed that just before we reached this point they turned abruptly into the underbrush. As we stood looking down that hole, I heard a twig snap, and knew he was close at hand. I thought I might surprise him, but, as I said, he was too quick for me, and I only caught a flying glimpse of ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... a corner a burning taper put a halo about the head of a priest, burnishing his shining bald skull, his white surplice, and the open book before him. "Amen" he chanted; the book was closed with a snap, the light moved up the apse, some dark figures of women rose from their knees and passed quickly towards the door; a man saying his prayers before a chapel also got up, making a great clatter ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... He heard the twigs snap beneath him, a drooping branch struck him hard; and then he gasped with horror. In front there opened up a deep black rift in which appeared the tops of trees. Seeing it was too late to pull up, he shook his feet clear of the stirrups. He felt the horse plunge down, there was a shock, and he ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... like a misunderstood child. "But," he blundered on, "don't you see it's the only thing you can do—anyhow, to marry me? If you won't accept money, why it's a pity and a waste, but I want you enough to snap you up without a franc. You must marry me, dear. Think what I gave up ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Snap, our dog," added Freddie. "The gypsies might take him, 'cause he does tricks and was once in ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... out on the Nicholson pavement in the centre of the pretty square that you will remember if you have ever been in Cleveland. The bags were filled from a wagon-load of sand and hitched with snap-catches about the edges. So they stood about in a circle. Then the aerostat, as the great bag is called, was unrolled and spread evenly over this. An oiled-muslin tube was tied to the neck, and its other extreme to a gas main in a hole which some of ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... archdeacon would have been made to take some other boat or to stay in Calais, or that I myself, by being delayed on my homeward journey, should have been led into some other temptation, though perhaps smaller? Had I not better snap him and have done with it? Is there enough chance of good result to make it worth while to try the experiment? The general consensus of opinion is ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... clearing where the shade of the trees has little effect, stands an old water power mill. It is simply an "average view," and you can safely snap it with ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... and other things. Again she searched by the feeble light of her candle, but could see no exit. Suddenly she saw something else, however, for stepping on what she took to be a rock, to her horror it moved beneath her. She heard a snap as of jaws, a violent blow upon the leg nearly knocked her off her feet, and as she staggered backwards she saw a huge and loathsome shape rushing away into the darkness. The rock that she had trodden on was a crocodile which had its den here! With a little scream she retreated to her stair. ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... gun up to my shoulder, both barrels loaded with Eley's red wire cartridge No. 6, I gave him a snap shot, and had the satisfaction of seeing him keeled well over, not wing-tipped or leg-broken, but fairly riddled by the concentrated charge of something within thirty yards. Turning as quick as light, I caught a fleet sight of the other, which by a rapid zig-zag was now ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Thompson many a year Ago, commenced his bright career, And took the ebbing of the tide, Which into golden waves did glide; He man'd his craft and steered her well O'er placid calm and tossing swell, And independent of the gale Hath snap'd his oar and furled his sail. 'Twas just above "the whitefish hole," How dear that spot is to my soul! There Allan Cameron and I Together many a day did hie, To haul the silvery shining prey From out the whirling eddy's spray; In July, '32, to land, I drew two barrels with ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... the future, to take much notice of Jim. Mary used to speak to me about it sometimes. 'You never take notice of the child,' she'd say. 'You could surely find a few minutes of an evening. What's the use of always worrying and brooding? Your brain will go with a snap some day, and, if you get over it, it will teach you a lesson. You'll be an old man, and Jim a young one, before you realise that you had a child once. Then ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... said. "And now I don't know how you feel, but I've had about enough of this. My nerves aren't what they were. Something may snap any minute." ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... how many vows, promises, engagements, and resolutions thou madest before God, to turn, if he would release thee from thy affliction, and take off his rod from thy back; and yet, how thou didst, like the man possessed (Mark 5:1-5), break and snap in twain all these chains of iron, with which thou hadst bound thy soul, and that for a very lust and sin. Here also, will be opened before thee, how often thou hath sinned against thy light and knowledge; how often thou hast laid violent hands on ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... snap at my neighbor, nor at his wife, nor his child, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor do harm ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... with my right, and as Smith sprang upright in bed, eyes wildly glaring, I wrenched with all my might. Upward my gaze was set; and I glimpsed a yellow hand, with long, pointed finger nails. There came a loud resounding snap; an electric spark spat venomously from the circular opening above the bed; and, with the cord and lamp still fast in my grip, I went rolling across the carpet—as the other lamp became ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... don't intend to get killed if I can help it. (Still more determinedly.) Do you understand that? (He locks the door with a snap.) ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... how you snap 'er too sudden!" he would exclaim if the little fingers moved too freely. "Look out, I say! Dis ain't none o' yo' pick-me-up-hit-an'-miss banjos, she ain't! An' you mus' learn ter treat 'er wid rispec', caze, when yo' ole gran'dad ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... some brave man—a brother to him who first ate an oyster—put up the window out of bravado to snap thereby his fingers at the forms of darkness, and being found whole and without blemish or mark of witch upon his throat and without catarrhal snuffling in his nose, of a consequence the harsh opinion against the ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... monotonously to her as through dull banks of fog. She made up her mind that if she were asked any questions by either of them she would not reply, and that she would not look at either of them, and then she thought that she would snap and stamp her feet and say that she hated him, that he had looked down on her because she worked for his aunt, that he had meanly been ashamed of and cut her because she was poor, that he had been going with another girl all the time he was going with her and that he only pursued her ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... laugh and scream around that fountain, and snap torpedoes and fire-crackers, and shout with wild delight when the rockets shot up into the sky, or the burning wheels span round and round, scattering showers of real fire right in among the crowds ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... a farce. The King affected not to see him, let him kneel on. Richard did kneel on, as stiff as a rod. The King talked with obscene jocosity, every snap betraying his humour, to Prince John; he scandalised even his bishops, he abashed even his barons. He infinitely degraded himself, yet seemed to wallow in disgrace. So Richard's gorge (a tender organ) rose to hear him. 'God, what wast Thou about, to let such a hog be made?' he ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... one only finds in persons callous to all passions. It is thus that provincial dilatoriness, which is so freely ridiculed in Paris, is full of treachery, secret stabs, hidden victories and defeats. These worthy men, particularly when their interests are at stake, kill at home with a snap of the fingers, as we, the Parisians, kill with cannon ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... and then, almost simultaneously, each began—the process was sub-conscious—to regard this meeting not as an isolated and inexplicable event, but as something resulting from a perfectly logical chain of circumstances. Jill perceived that the presence in the apartment of that snap-shot of herself should have prepared her for the discovery that the place belonged to someone who had known her as a child, and that there was no reason for her to be stunned by the fact that this someone was Wally ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... out his hand ... an' he can have any girl he wants, even if her people are of the best. He might be havin' a very different wife from yourself! Truly, a man's patience can't bear everything! It'll snap sometime! Pride, arrogance, recklessness—that's what it is in you! Either ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... eternal perdition in its most terrible form as the most certain of all possible facts, and of its own imminent danger of hopeless, irreversible doom—seeing itself, to employ his own image, hanging, as it were, over the pit of hell by a thin line, which might snap any moment—been portrayed in more nervous and awe-inspiring language. And its awfulness is enhanced by its self-evident truth. Bunyan was drawing no imaginary picture of what others might feel, but simply telling in plain unadorned language what ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... trees, but at last he gained the mastery, and swung himself down from the saddle. Already several mounted men were clustered about something, while just before he joined them there was another crash, and a little thin smoke drifted among the trees. Then, he saw one of them snap a cartridge out of his rifle, and that a horse lay quivering at his feet. A man stood beside it, and Grant was speaking to him, but Breckenridge scarcely recognized ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mast-heads to the sky. More and more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping heave of the windlass is answered by a helping heave from the billows; till at last, a swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... seemed to close with a snap around his brain. The next moment, they had receded an immeasurable distance, and in limitless wastes of exhausted being he stood alone. What time had passed when he came to himself he had not an idea; it might have been hours for anything his consciousness was able to tell him. But, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... The Chancellor is now crowded with all the canvas she can carry, and at times her topmasts threaten to snap with the pressure. But Curtis is ever on the alert; he never leaves his post beside the man at the helm, and without compromising the safety of the vessel, he contrives, by tacking to the breeze, to urge her on at her ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... longer than he, Cutler, had worn shoulder-straps, that the next thing to go would probably be his sergeant's bars, whereat Murray went red to the roots of his hair—which "continued the march" of the color,—and said, with a snap of his jaws, that he got those chevrons, as he did his orders, from his troop commander. A court might order them stricken off, but a captain couldn't, other than his own. For which piece of impudence the veteran went straightway ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... you false, what will you do?" Finot ended. "Suppose that some Minister fancies that he has you fast by the halter of your apostasy, and turns the cold shoulder on you? You will be glad to set on a few dogs to snap at his legs, will you not? Very well. But you have made a deadly enemy of Lousteau; he is thirsting for your blood. You and Felicien are not on speaking terms. I only remain to you. It is a rule of the craft to keep a good understanding ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... broad In my discourtesy, nor prudish neither (Since, really, I can hardly quite suppose With all your ghostliness you follow me), I feel no such attraction. Or if one Bows to my sympathy for the briefest space, Snap—it is gone! And, worst of all to tell, What broke it is not in the least dislike But utter ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... specious air of being on the side of the artist. It has the charm of its acquired taste, and it can corrupt because it can speak with an authority unknown in Philistia. Because it pretends to care about art, artists are not indifferent to its judgments. Culture imposes on people who would snap their fingers at vulgarity. With culture itself, even in the low sense in which I have been using the word, we need not pick a quarrel, but we must try to free the artist and the public too from the influence of cultivated opinion. The liberation will not be complete until those who have already ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... Patricia was irresistible as she pleaded and mocked and scolded and coaxed and laughed and cried, all in one bewildering breath. Her plan was simple; it was to slip out of Matocton at dawn, and walk to the near-by station. There they would take the train, and snap their fingers at convention. The scheme sounded preposterous in outline, but she demonstrated its practicability in performance. ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... o' us; twins an' all. When us brung Phyllis down de riveh yo' ma wuz dead ag'in sellin' heh, an' when us git win' dat de Co'teneys want' a nuss yo' pa he dat glad he snap his fingehs. 'Us'll rent Phyllis to 'em!' he say. 'Dey's Hendry Clay Whigs; dey'd ought to treat heh fine.' (Dat wuz his joke.) An' yo' ma make answeh: 'Ef dey don't, us kin take heh back! Betteh dat dan sell heh! Nobody o' de Hayle blood shayn't do ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... fellers is talkin' now? Nix. You go into the village gay with these Schwabs by the sewer line, I guess." Truxton pricked up his ears. "The old man has had a hole chopped in the sewer here, they tell me, and it's a snap to get into the city. Not very clean or neat, but it gets you there. Well, so long! They're ready, I see. They don't monkey long when they've got a thing to do. I'd advise you not to be too stubborn when they get you to headquarters; it may go easier with you. I'm not so ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... branch; the clinched fist was the symbol of a pledge or deposit; the right hand was the gift of faith and confidence. The indenture of covenants was a broken straw; weights and scales were introduced into every payment, and the heir who accepted a testament was sometimes obliged to snap his fingers, to cast away his garments, and to leap or dance with real or affected transport. [50] If a citizen pursued any stolen goods into a neighbor's house, he concealed his nakedness with a linen towel, and hid his face ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... friendships may be broken, yet abide they friends at heart; Snap the stem of Luxmee's lotus, and ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... called melodramatic rant. The House of the Seven Gables would be rejected by a sixpenny magazine, and Jane Eyre would not rise above a common "shocker." Hence the enormous growth of the Kodak school of romance—the snap-shots at everyday realism with a hand camera. We know how it is done. A woman of forty, stout, plain, and dull, sits in an ordinary parlour at a tea-table, near an angular girl with a bad squint. "Some tea?" said Mary, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... went out. Sally switched off the light with a snap as she passed. Out in the hall she stopped and held her husband's arms hard. "Hush!" she whispered. They both listened. They heard this, in the faintest plaint of ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... on the horn of his saddle. Thompson's right hand hung at his side. Racey had told the truth when he spoke of Thompson as a good snap shot. He was all of that. And he was fairly quick on the draw as well. It would seem that, taking into consideration the position of Thompson's right hand, that Thompson had a shade the better of it. Racey thought so. But he hoped, ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... 10th. From Temple Camp to Catskill. Passed a worm also a piece of a ginger snap. Passed a smell like a kitchen. Found a rubber heel in the road. A dead bug was upside down in a puddle. Met a fence. Saw something that looked like a snake but it was a shoe-lace. Had a soda in Catskill. Had another—raspberry. Saw a flat tire as ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... continually moving around among them, on the watch for delinquencies of all kinds. Some of these minor potentates are white and some black. As a rule, Mr. Young gives the blacks the preference and on strictly business principles, too. "The colored men have more snap, and can get more work out of their own people," he says. By means of these sub- overseers, large numbers can be transferred from one part of the farm to ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... now," Cleer answered, with girlish persistence. And her father looked round at her sharply, with an impatient snap of the fingers, while Mrs. Trevennack's eye was fixed on him now more carefully and more ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... fairly on the march, and the camp was abandoned, these starving hangers-on would hasten to the deserted fires, to seize upon the half-picked bones, the offal and garbage that lay about; and, having made a hasty meal, with many a snap and snarl and growl, would follow leisurely on the trail of the caravan. Many attempts were made to coax or catch them, but in vain. Their quick and suspicious eyes caught the slightest sinister movement, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... thoroughly well, that, hang me if I was not completely brought to. And all for escorting my dear one from Lady Maria's house to her own! Well, the walk was worth it—though the old crocodile was on the watch for us, ready to snap; had got wind of the secret, somehow, a secret unspoken even between us two. This first and last interview took place on the flags, in front of No. 17 Camden Place, Bath. Oh! It was a very one-sided affair from the beginning, and ended abruptly in a door being banged in my face. Then I heard ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... set to work. Snap, snap, snap, went the bowstrings on all sides. Then the sharp little teeth began on the feathers that winged the poisoned arrows. Soon the feathers lay in ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... rippled through the body of the rider and came to his head with a snap that jerked his chin down against his breast. The stallion rocked back on his hind legs, whirled, and then flung himself deliberately on his back. A sufficiently cunning maneuver—first stunning the enemy with a blow and then crushing him before his senses returned. But he landed on nothing ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... man; "they're all gone. It's kind of lonely, but we're doing some chopping for the road, and we'll be right here with money saved when work begins in spring. Bought a piece of fruit land, part on mortgage, at a snap, and with good luck we'll have it clear when we ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... year, betrays himself. "Did he come down out of the heaven on that bright March morning when he told us so softly and plaintively that, if we pleased, spring had come?" Sometimes he is here a little earlier, and must keep his courage up until the cold snap is over and the snow is gone. Not long after the Bluebird, comes the Robin, sometimes in March, but in most of the northern states April is the month of his arrival. With his first utterance the spell of winter is broken, and the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... as it should be. But the climax was reached when he unearthed a barking, snarling old Cynic, Menippus by name, and thrust his company upon me; a grim bulldog, if ever there was one; a treacherous brute that will snap at you while his tail is yet wagging. Could any man be more abominably misused? Stripped of my proper attire, I am made to play the buffoon, and to give expression to every whimsical absurdity that his caprice dictates. And, as if that were not preposterous enough, he has forbidden me either ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... of our social circles Mrs. Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs. Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap, and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise! avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that, should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should have drunk the blood of James? ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... blood-stained deck, in a gory uniform trimmed with skulls and cross-bones, and order his enemies to be thrown one by one into the sea. "The shark awaits your car-casses!" spouted the imaginary desperado with a vicious snap of his teeth; and when Aunt Greg interrupted by asking him to bring in an armful of kindling, he glared at her like the Red Rover himself. Poor Aunt Greg! how little she guessed what was ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... the animals made straight for the canoe, and the watchers trembled as they looked, for it was evident that one snap of the creatures' huge jaws would cave in the side of the canoe as if it ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... could not do it. I thought about my poor mother, and wished she was here to lick my sore ears. Though she was so unhappy herself, she never wanted to see me suffer. If I had not disobeyed her, I would not now be suffering so much pain. She had told me again and again not to snap at Jenkins, for it ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... the Stock Yards to do a week's-reporting. That Christmas-week was one of the coldest ever seen in this climate. The young man's unweathered ears and nose were badly frost-bitten. But notwithstanding this great obstacle of a cold snap he made a success of his expedition. His reports demonstrated that the Bible and Plutarch had not been sown on stony places, and that good English could be used in reporting the standing and prospects of a retail firm as well as in a memorial to Congress. When ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... of his fleeting visit. Something inside them had broken with a snap; they gripped their tools more freely, more courageously; and they had seen their handicraft pass before their eyes like a species of technical pageant. For a long time the wind of the passage of the great bird hung about the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... straight neck and ragged hips; and gray "Lady Suffolk," "extending" herself till she measured a rod, more or less, skimming along within a yard of the ground, her legs opening and shutting under her with a snap, like the four blades ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... as I could make my fingers fly in setting up the camera, and getting a focus, the second moth's head was out, its front feet struggling to pull up the body; and its antennae beginning to lift, when I was ready for the first snap at ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the production of your work. You may rely on my practical talents for that purpose and have implicit confidence in me. If Weymar should prove too mean and poor, we shall try somewhere else; and even if all our strings snap (which is not to be expected), we may still go on playing if you give me full power to organize an unheard of music or drama festival, or whatever the thing may be called in any given place, and to ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... to both these generous outbursts, was comprised in a snap of his fingers in the direction supposed to have been taken by ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... You say you have something you want to say to her, and then you snap into it. I don't see how it can fail. If I were you, I should do it in this rose garden. It is well established that there is no sounder move than to steer the adored object into rose gardens in the gloaming. And you had better have a couple ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... the foot of the hill. What it was, he could not tell, but it did not belong to a single one of the infinite similar noises of the place with which he was so familiar. It was neither the rustle of a leaf, the snap of a parted twig, the drone of an insect, the dropping of a magnolia blossom. It was a vibration merely, faint, elusive, impossible of definition; a minute notch in the fine, keen ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... and the Prince were driving home from the Chapel Royal, St. James's, in passing along the Mall, near Stafford House, amidst a crowd of bowing, cheering spectators, the Prince saw a man step out and present a pistol at him. He heard the trigger snap, but the pistol missed fire. The Queen, who had been bowing to the people on the opposite side, neither saw nor heard anything. On reaching the Palace the Prince questioned the footmen in attendance, but neither had they noticed anything, and he could judge for himself that no ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Masai leaders to be brought before him, administered to them a very severe reprimand. Did they think that we should continue to be friends with thieves and robbers? Had he not told them that the swords which we had given to their leitunus would snap asunder like glass if drawn in an unrighteous cause? And in the war with the Kavirondo and Nangi were not the Masai in the wrong? 'We have saved you from the just punishment with which you were threatened, for the ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... saw the Battalion back in the trenches again at Lincoln Reserve and Midland Reserve, "D" Company being in Snap Trench. There was a heavy gas-shell bombardment by the enemy on the nights of the 12th, 13th, and 14th, the Battalion suffering heavy casualties, also intermittent shelling during the day and night, while there was, ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... silent, it was not very easy to talk: but sledging is always a silent business. I remember a long discussion which began just now about cold snaps—was this the normal condition of the Barrier, or was it a cold snap?—what constituted a cold snap? The discussion lasted about a week. Do things slowly, always slowly, that was the burden of Wilson's leadership: and every now and then the question, Shall we go on? and the answer Yes. "I think we are all right as long as our ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... all so d—-d peart on mathematics, and such things, that you want to snap me up on every opportunity, but I guess I've got something this time that'll settle you. Its something that a fellow gave out yesterday, and Colonel Iverson, and all the officers out there have been figuring on it ever ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... do. Again we drew blank. "Never heard of you." All we could get out of him was, "You had better bed down in the station and await events." Poor devil! so worn with work and worry that he looked as if a simple little De Aar dust-devil would snap his backbone if it touched him. So we were turned adrift again in the old iron heap to swell the army of vagrants who live by ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... fate should thus break at a stroke the meshes of habit, should stoop to play the advocate of his secret inclinations, seemed to promise him the complicity of the gods. Once in a lifetime, chance will thus snap the toils of a man's making; and it is instructive to see the poor puppet adore the power that connives ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... hand against a heart I love? Were it for you to mourn your wilful death, With such a bitterness as would be ours, The wish would ne'er have crossed you. While we're bound Life into life, a chain of loving hearts, Were it not base in you, the middle link, To snap, and scatter all? Shame, brother, shame! ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... thread is absurd. What he would have gained would have been a feeling of physical inconvenience during the quiet passages, and terror during the tremendous scenes of passion at the thought that the string might snap. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 't is only her plan to catch, if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production on a new construction; she has baited her trap, in hopes to snap all that may come, with a sugar-plum.' His opinion in this will not be amiss; 't is what I intend my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have said, and all ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... ruin and the forest together. But first promise not to interrupt me. If you snap the golden threads of thought, they will float away on the air like the film of the gossamer, and I shall never be able to ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... like a percussion-cap. The shoulder-blades, the elbows, the wrists, and the finger-joints are all made to fire off their muffled volleys; and then, placing one knee between our shoulders, and clasping both hands upon our forehead, he draws our head back until we feel a great snap of the vertebral column. Now he descends to the hip-joints, knees, ankles, and feet, forcing each and all to discharge a salvo de joie. The slight languor left from the bath is gone, and an airy, delicate exhilaration, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... cane at a sharper angle until it bent in upon itself, threatening to snap, and flung one gray-spatted ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... A snap of the whip, horses prancing, and with the notes of the horn waking the echoes in the hills, we drove out from "Redstone" just after luncheon and commenced the first stage of our sixty-mile drive to Normandie-by-the-Sea, ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... might happen here now, with the same certainty of impunity," continued Duchesne, lighting his pipe, the snap of the match making us all start. "D'Ardeche, your lamented relative was certainly well fixed; she had full scope here for her traditional ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... Stripping to shirt and drawers, I stowed everything in the knapsack and tied that safely in the fore peak. Then I swung out. Before I was a half mile out, I fervently wished myself back. But it was too late. How that little, corky, light canoe did bound and snap, with a constant tendency to come up in the wind'e eye, that kept me on the qui vive every instant. She shipped no mater; she was too buoyant for that. But she was all the time in danger of pitching her crew ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... undo yer plaits," she said, opening and shutting the bright scissors with a snap, as ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... then, is the remedy? Will Mr. BLACKBURN fix it? Must all our fiction travel from the cultured Continent? Or dares we snap our fingers at this haughty ipse dixit, And read our inartistic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... and closed the box with a snap, a strange pallor coming over her white, set face. The general looked gravely at her, and then, raising his hat, with a "Till we meet again," walked ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... this manoeuvre, and at the third onslaught I saw to my horror that the roots were loosening. I heard some of them snap, and a crack appeared in the ground not far from the bole. Fortunately Jana never noted these symptoms, for abandoning a plan which he considered unavailing, he stood for a while swaying his trunk ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... acclivity. Below her, far below, Confederate shells were constantly striking the base of the hill. A mile away black squares checkered a slope; beyond the squares a wood was suddenly belted with smoke, and behind her she heard the swinging signal flags begin to whistle and snap in the hill wind. She had sat there a long while before Captain West spoke to her, standing tall and thin beside her; some half-serious, half-humorous pleasantry—nothing for her to answer. But she looked up into his ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... get ready for the next caller, when I came at him and made him wire the General Manager of the line. The operator was sitting right outside the door, and when the answer came I just took it in—it gave the whole snap away, clear as ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... much at least, that a boat could be turned by means of the rudder; so he began to experiment upon this part of the vessel. He palled the rudder towards him. The boat turned, and as it turned the sail began to flap, and toss, and snap, in such a way that he grew exceedingly nervous. Suddenly a puff of wind came, and the sheets where whipped out of his nerveless hand, while the sail thus ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... think you're that smart? Jest becuz you stuck up a tourist you think you're cock o' the North Woods—with them two foxes lyin' out for to snap you up? Hey? Why, you poor dumb thing, Jake runs Canadian hootch for a livin' and Leverett's a trap thief! What could you do with a pair ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... any patience to lose. What the hell does he expect me to do?" Dave asked hotly. "Snap my fingers thus, yell abracadabra and give him ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... would not be drawn into an argument this time, and Eleanor decided that it must be something important, indeed, when Bob would not snap back at her. There had been times at home when Barbara had secrets that she feared others to share, then she would keep ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... overhearing us, understood him as well as I, and called out to me that William was right, and it was our best way to change our course, and stand away for the bay, where it was ten to one but we should snap her ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... when we—M. Rochez and I—came face to face with them. My friend raised his hat, and I did likewise. Mademoiselle Leah blushed and the ogre frowned. Sir, she was an ogre!—bony and angular and hook-nosed, with thin lips that closed with a snap, and cold grey eyes that sent a shiver down your spine! Rochez introduced me to her, and I made myself exceedingly agreeable to her, while my friend succeeded in exchanging two or three whispered words with ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of interest, must have suggested to one overhearing him from an adjoining room, for instance, the operation of a telegraphic instrument. He gave to every syllable the value of a rap and certain words he terminated with an audible snap of his teeth. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... touch-holes. Mine was delivered to me in this innocent state. Oh! that was a great mortification on field-days, when we were allowed to incorporate with the —- and —- Volunteers, whilst all the big lads actually fired off real powder, in line with real men, to be obliged to snap a wooden flint against a sparkless hammer. A mortification I could ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs. Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs. Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap, and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise! avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that, should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should have drunk ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... days must reach evening at last, The hills all climbed, the creeks all past; The tired herd droops in the yellowing light; Let them loaf if they will, for the railroad's in sight So flap up your holster and snap up your belt, And strap up your saddle whose lap you have felt; Good-bye to the steers from the long chaparral, For there's a town that's a trunk by ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... would have stood still—he seemed about to do so—but from the distance, somewhere on the road he had just traversed, came a howl, long-drawn and terrifyingly familiar. Joshua heard it, jumped sidewise, jerked at the halter and, as if playing "snap the whip," sent his would-be captor heels over head over the edge of the bank and rolling down the sandy slope. The halter flew from Brown's hands, he rolled and bumped and clutched at clumps of grass and bushes. Then he struck the beach ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of him. This will be a lesson to him. He will be more careful in future how he leaves Ogden at the mercy of anybody who cares to come along and snap him up.' ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... Daily Press, Chained to their party posts, or fetter-free And running amuck against old party creeds, On-howl their packs and glory in the fight. See mangy curs, whose editorial ears Prick to all winds to catch the popular breeze, Slang-whanging yelp, and froth and snap and snarl, And sniff the gutters for their daily food. And these—are they our prophets and our priests? Hurra!—Hurra!—Hurra!—for "Liberty!" Flaunt the red flag and flutter the petticoat; Ran-tan the drums and let the bugles ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... it. Opposition thus overborne by superior strength, Wilhelm heard the clatter of von Brent's footsteps down the dark passage, and next instant the door was closed with a bang, and it seemed to the young man that the house had collapsed upon him. He heard his sword snap and felt it break beneath him, and he was gagged and bound before he could raise a hand to help himself. Then when it was too late, he realised that he had allowed the heat and fervour of pursuit to overwhelm his judgment, and had jumped straight into the trap prepared for him. ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... the designer is satisfied with one surprise, but I never saw a good illuminated border without one at least; and no series of any kind is ever introduced by a great composer in a painting without a snap somewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's drawing of Rome, with the large balustrade for a foreground in the Hakewell's Italy series: the single baluster struck out of the line, and showing the street below through the gap, simply makes ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... our charge; but, you see, we do not understand these fellows. One knows what regular infantry can do against cavalry, and it may be we shall find that these Arabs are not to be ridden over as easily as we think. When you have got to reckon with men who don't care the snap of a finger whether they are killed or not, you never can count upon an easy victory however badly they may be armed, and however undisciplined they ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... wet and rough day. According to an article which appeared in the "Westminster Gazette," and was reprinted in our local "War Office Telegram," there is always a cold rough snap from October 20 to October 25. The first date was correct, and I trust the latter, which is to-morrow, will be as accurate, for we are miserable. Geese are crossing in ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... desperation, while the confederates pressed them with that old-time Southern vigor and valor that no amount of courage could withstand. Both armies stood at extreme tension, and the cord must soon snap one way or the other, or it seemed as all would be annihilated, Longstreet seeing the desperate struggle in which Kershaw and Humphreys, on the right, and Hood's old Texans, on the left, were now engaged, sought to relieve the pressure by a flank movement with such troops as he had at his disposal. ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... Toad gave up and went home, where he sat under a big mullein leaf the rest of the day, feeling very miserable and lonely. He didn't have appetite enough to snap at a single fly. Late that afternoon he heard a little noise and looked up to find all his old friends and neighbors forming a circle around him. Suddenly they began to dance ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... which look like cork and smell like cheese. It has to be cleaned, passed through a machine that tears it into bits, then between rollers before it is ready to be manufactured. It is not elastic like rubber; it may be stretched; but it will not snap back again as rubber does. It is a remarkably good nonconductor of electricity, and therefore it has been generally used to protect ocean cables, though recently rubber has been taking its place. It makes particularly excellent ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... are to fight Frenchmen, like ourselves; poor chaps who have done no harm, except that they stick to their clergy, and object to be dragged away from their homes. I am no politician, and I don't care a snap for the doings of the Assembly in Paris—I am a soldier, and have learned to obey orders, whatever they are—but I don't like this job we have in hand; which, mind you, is bound to be a good deal harder than most of you expect. It is true that they say there ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... discouraged and laid hold of the bell-handle again, pulling it out as far as it would come and letting it fly back again with a snap. The same results followed as when Schmidt had made the same attempt. There was a distant tinkling followed by total ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... think about those things yet. But she is wonderful, and I love her. It is all very well for you two," he continued earnestly. "You are both over thirty, and confirmed bachelors. I'm only just twenty-four, and I've never cared for a girl a snap of the fingers yet. I don't care any more about knocking about. Of course, I've done a bit at it like everyone else, but Isobel has knocked all that out of me. I should be quite content to ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the company, curling down with a silky swish, and unfurling again with a snap, like a broad-lashed whip. The greatest one was rosy red, and on it was a gallant ship upon a flowing sea, bearing upon its mainsail the arms of my Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of England. Upon its mate was a giant-bearded man ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... folly," she answered, laughing. "Whether you be rich or poor, prince or peasant, she cares not a snap of her finger. Ciel! is she not a republican, has she ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... feelings while thus entangled by a bond of enduring material, a bait for a fierce brute which eagerly pressed forward to snap at me. Believe me, boys, this was not the happiest moment of my life. I knew no reason why I should resignedly submit to so undistinguished a fate. My knife, however, was in the boat, so that my release could only be attained ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... could only see your hidden face!' roared Juon, throwing himself with all his might on Black Mask. 'You devil, you, I'll tear your mummery off for you!'—and he gnashed at his opponent's face with his teeth, trying to snap his ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... day he alone, of the prisoners, was led to a wood and lashed by arms and legs to a couple of hickory trees that had been bent by a prodigious effort and tied together by their tops. The lashing was cut by a rifle-ball, the trees regained their straight position with a snap like whips, and that was the way Gilbert Gates came ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... been funny if it hadn't been so dramatic. The two men sprawled on their bellies like snakes, neither of them daring to take time to stand, each, in the snap of a finger, striving with every tendon and muscle to reach something that lay just beyond his finger-tips. I found myself actually laughing—they looked so like two fish just out ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... to see Father Payne one morning about some work. He was reading a book with knitted brows: he looked up, gave a nod, but no smile, pointed to a chair, and I sate down: a minute or two later he shut the book—a neat enough little volume—with a snap, and skimmed it deftly from where he sate, into his large waste-paper basket. This, by the way, was a curious little accomplishment of his,—throwing things with unerring aim. He could skim more cards across a room into a hat than anyone I ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the forenoon began, when a lad of sixteen placed a marble between his thumb and finger, and, with a snap, sent it rolling across the floor. As the tall and handsome teacher saw this act, he arose from his seat, and, without a word, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... When the teamster did snap into action his manner indicated that he knew how to handle balky oxen. First he cracked Mr. Kyle smartly over the bridge of the nose. "Wo haw up!" was a command which Kyle tried to obey in a flame of ire, but a swifter and more violent blow across the nose sent him back on his heels, his eyes shut ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... their way into the beams and rafters of some old building. How close the air was in the stifling passage through which he was crawling! The scene changed, and he was climbing a slippery sheet of ice with desperate effort, his foot on the floor of a shallow niche, his hold an icicle ready to snap in an instant, an abyss below him waiting for his foot to slip or the icicle to break. How thin the air seemed, how desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking of Mont Blanc, it may be, and the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which he remembered ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... common Bite with him to lay Suspicions that he was favoured by a Lady's Enemy, that is some rival Beauty, to be well with herself. A little Spite is natural to a great Beauty: and it is ordinary to snap up a disagreeable Fellow lest another should have him. That impudent Toad Bareface fares well among all the Ladies he converses with, for no other Reason in the World but that he has the Skill to keep them from Explanation one with another. Did ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Roy slept, and swooping down on the poor little yawl, then wrapt in calm repose, she heeled us over on our beam-ends, and after fastening her clumsy, rusty anchor in my mizen shrouds (which were of iron, and declined to snap), she bore me and my boat away far off, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... only made of wood and it won't hurt a bit. We shall just snap and crackle and go off almost like fireworks and then we shall be ashes and fly away into the air and see all sorts of things. Perhaps it may be more fun than ...
— Racketty-Packetty House • Frances H. Burnett
... may be broken, yet abide they friends at heart; Snap the stem of Luxmee's lotus, and ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... door to. It shut with a rasping snap; and at the same moment a great body from without thundered against it with terrific violence, and a deep voice roared like the sea when thwarted of ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... had sunk into the soft banks of a small, ditch-like spring branch. Mr. Stewart had to stay on our wagon to hold the bronco, but all the rest, even Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, gathered around and tried to help. They hitched on a snap team, but not a trace tightened. They didn't want to unload the game in the snow. The men lifted and pried on the wheels. Still ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... trick of the old woman's, wasn't it, giving you the shake that way? Everybody thought you were her pet weakness. We used to envy your soft snap. Did you get the ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the meanest of his own dependents as a self-deposed officer, liable to any man's arrest, and, ipso facto, a suppliant for his own mercy. The stern and haughty Cassius, who had so often tightened the cords of discipline until they threatened to snap asunder, now found, experimentally, the bitterness of these obvious truths. The trembling sentinel now looked insolently in his face; the cowering legionary, with whom "to hear was to obey," now mused or even bandied ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... and keep the couple separated long enough to secure a divorce and compromise Sir William with Sadie Farnum, and then she would be ready to snap her fingers at all danger ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... nor of mace, which tastes of soap. I have known of cases where parents claimed that their children were not fond of such things. Believe them not. I liked pie, but not pudding; the rich, heavy fruit-cake of weddings, good, honest gingerbread, the brisk, crispy heat of the brittle ginger-snap, but not "plain cake,"—absurd viand! It is of the essence of cake not to be plain. As well say, acid sweetness. Nor did I like the hereditary election-cake of my ancient State and city. Fat pork I could not swallow; nor onions nor cabbage,—gross, indelicate vegetables! And even now, as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... the goddess to whom they prayed their heathen prayers. And as Bill Smiles was watching them, the lips of the figureheads moved; they all began to pray. But all at once their lips were closed with a snap when they saw that there were men on the Sea-Fancy. They all came crowding up and nodded and nodded and nodded to see if all were drunk, and that's when they made their mistake about old Bill Smiles, although he couldn't move. They would have given up the ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... a snap as he realized that on no account must he reveal the real motive for this ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... especially in whaling operations, cutting in, flensing, &c., a hole is cut in the blubber, the eye of the purchase strop passed through and toggled. In cold weather especially it is preferred to the hook, which at low temperatures is apt to snap suddenly, and is, moreover, heavier to handle. The term is also used for putting the bights of the sheets in the beckets. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... have been safe enough if the limb had been a good one, but it wasn't, and when Mr. Possum ran along it, before he could even get ready to swing, "crackle, snap," went the limb and down went Mr. Possum into a barrel of whitewash Mrs. Rabbit had ready to use on her ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... first man; "they're all gone. It's kind of lonely, but we're doing some chopping for the road, and we'll be right here with money saved when work begins in spring. Bought a piece of fruit land, part on mortgage, at a snap, and with good luck we'll have it ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... Bess, but with rather a vicious snap. "We couldn't get along, of course, without having a parcel of boys around. 'Morning, ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... old hulk and—twenty years, did you say? Why, the damned old scoundrel! After all he has seen and—" His jaws closed suddenly with a snap, and his eyes narrowed into ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... foliage below the waist, like plump nymphs escaping the rude pursuit of gods. Their bareness and boldness startled the convent-bred girl, even horrified her. She was the last to leave the omnibus, and then, instead of pushing in with her fellow-passengers to secure a room before others could snap up everything, she lingered a moment on ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hed come off, the feet w'u'd ha' come with 'em! An' now away we go,—Laura an' me. Around the bend—near the medder where Si Barker's dog killed a woodchuck last summer—we meet the rest. We forget all about the cold. We run races an' play snap the whip, an' cut all sorts o' didoes, an' we never mind the pick'rel weed that is froze in on the ice an' trips us up every time we cut the outside edge; an' then we boys jump over the airholes, an' the girls stan' by an' scream an' tell us they know we're agoin' ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... wears off the burr and makes the stamping come out cleaner and finer. When patterns are so large that they have to be folded, iron out the creases before using them. After using the patterns for powder stamping, snap the pattern to shake the powder from the perforations. After using the patterns for paint stamping they should be washed thoroughly with naphtha until the perforations are all perfectly clear. Keep the naphtha away from the fire. After the pattern has been washed, ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... and looked forward to a ranch in a mountain dingle, a patch of corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely and contemplative age in the green shade of forests. "Just let me get down on my back in a hayfield," said he, "and you'll find there's no more snap to ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and bent the dizzy, tapering masts till they threatened to snap. But the bark bore bravely through it, while the huge waves seemed bearing her down to those ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... and independent little person she was, nor did he know that each day during the week she had expected him to ride over, and had finally told herself point-blank that it did not matter the least snap of her fingers whether he ever came or not. Naturally, she did not know what had kept him away or that he had even wanted to come. Now that she had heard his remark about a lost horse and a long walk she was burning ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Jupiter shrunk to three quarters of its present diameter, or 64,800 miles, then its surface gravity would exceed the earth's nearly five times. With one half its present diameter the surface gravity would become more than ten times that of the earth. On such a planet a man's bones would snap beneath his weight, even granting that he could remain upright at all! It would seem, then, that, unless we are to abandon terrestrial analogies altogether and "go it blind," we must set an upper limit to the magnitude of a habitable ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... to be either one thing or the other. She doesn't care that"—a snap of the fingers—"for this man Otway, and she knows he doesn't care for her. But she's playing him against you, and you must expect more of it. You ought to make up your mind. It ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... fact that your majesty will soon call upon the city for a loan to make up the Lady Mary's dower, it would be wise not to antagonize them in this matter, but to allow Master Brandon to remain quietly in confinement until the loan is completed and then we can snap ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... aggravatingly. 'Do you think you'll cure the neighbourhood with that marriage?' he exclaimed. 'Before another two years Catherine will be following her sister's example. They all go the same way, and as they end by marrying, they snap their fingers at every one. These Artauds flourish in it all, as on a congenial dungheap. There is only one possible remedy, as I have told you before: wring all the girls' necks if you don't want the country to be ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... madness, and now her brain was dumb and dark as though it had been shut into a blank-walled cell. She stood with her hands hanging. She had no will nor wish to pray. The knowledge had come to her that if she went out and looked this winter Pan in the face, her brain would snap, either to life or death. It would burst its prison ... She stared, wide-eyed, dry-eyed, through the immense cold height of air up ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... to say that he will marry her and snap his fingers at the old squire, who, for some reason best known to himself, is no admirer of the ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... ingeniously but very simply guarded against it by causing two little folds of the lining of the blood pipes to stick up both where the vena cava enters the heart and where the aorta leaves it, so as to form little flaps which act as valves. These valves allow the blood to flow forward, but snap together and close the opening as soon as it tries to flow backward. While largest and best developed in the heart, these valves are found at intervals of an inch or two all through the veins in most parts of the body, allowing the blood ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... Tsar himself on this side of the world, but when his inspections and reforms are concluded, and he is one of the wealthiest men in Russia, he will return to St. Petersburg and become so high and mighty that a princess would snap at him. And you aspire! I never ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... shall not make haste to blame it. There are few places, few occasions among us, in which a novelist can get a large number of polite people together, or at least keep them together. Unless he carries a snap-camera his picture of them has no probability; they affect one like the figures perfunctorily associated in such deadly old engravings as that of "Washington Irving and his Friends." Perhaps it is for this reason that we excel in small pieces with three or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... data} are called 'trampolines'. Trampolines are notoriously difficult to understand in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this term that the trampoline that doesn't bend your brain is not the true trampoline. See also {snap}. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... prove it to be other than that of his wife was quickly dispelled. His worst fears were true, His Frances—his wife of more than a score of years, his pretty sweetheart through all those days, was false to him! As he fell back against the wall something seemed to snap in his breast; a groan of misery arose to ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... great information from such an assemblage, but 'twas but a snip-snap of talk—remarks passed from one to another, but served as it were on massy plate—long words, and too many of 'em. Dull, my dear, dull! And so 'twill always be when people aim to be clever. They do these things better in France, where they ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... God. There are plenty of other bonds that draw us to one another; but these, if they are not strengthened by this deepest of all bonds, the affinity of souls, that are moving together in the realm of light and purity, are precarious, and apt to snap. Sin separates men quite as much as it separates each man from God. It is the wedge driven into the tree that rends it apart. Human society with its various bonds is like the iron hoop that may be put around the barrel staves, giving them a quasi-unity. The ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... than either Watson or Bunny ever did with my father or my grandfather, else I should not be in the business which now occupies my time and attention," said Raffles Holmes with a cold snap to his eyes which I took as an admonition to hew strictly to the line of honor, or to subject myself to terrible consequences. "With that understanding, Jenkins, I'll tell you the story of the Dorrington Ruby Seal, in which some crime, ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... the caddy with a snap, "that Providence had willed to send the dear old fellow into the world twenty years later than it did. In that case I should not at all have minded trying to be a comfort ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... understand, friend Pancho, that I make no row. The other themself make the row, the shindig. They make the dance, the howl, the snap of the finger, the oath, the 'Helen blazes,' the 'Wot the devil,' the 'That be d—d,' the bad language; they themselves finger the revolver, advance the bowie-knife, throw off the coat, square off, and say 'Come on.' ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... weight of metal. Sturdee reached Port Stanley on 7 December. Von Spee, who had been refitting at Juan Fernandez, left it on 15 November, possibly fearing the Japanese approach, and made for Cape Horn and the Atlantic. His plan was to snap up the Canopus and the Glasgow, get what he could out of the Falklands, and then proceed to support the rebellion in South Africa. Early on 8 December he unsuspectingly approached Port Stanley, not discovering the presence of Sturdee's squadron until it was too late. He then made off north-eastwards ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... of estimating Stover simply by his lack of weight, without taking account of the nervous, dynamic energy which was his strength. Consequently, at the snap of the ball, he was taken by surprise by the wild spring that Stover made directly at his throat and, thrown off his balance momentarily by the frenzy of the impact, tripped and went down under the triumphant Dink, who, unmindful ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... was at this game, and did not know that the master was in the next field, watching what was going on; over the hedge he jumped in a snap, and catching Dick by the arm, he gave him such a box on the ear as made him roar with the pain and surprise. As soon as we saw the master we trotted up nearer to see what ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... glances at a subject that will not bear examining, with which he gently hints at what cannot be directly insisted on, with which he half conceals, and half draws aside the veil from some of the Muses' nicest mysteries. His Muse is, in fact, a giddy wanton flirt, who spends her time in playing at snap-dragon and blind-man's buff, who tells what she should not, and knows more than she tells. She laughs at the tricks she shews us, and blushes, or would be thought to do so, at what she keeps concealed. Prior has translated several of Fontaine's ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... to try her out on a straightaway first, before I take you in," Bland leaned to shout. "Tell the girl she can be ready to snap me when I come back. I've got to test out the controls, and I want you ready to grab 'er if she don't stop right along here somewhere. ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... momentous importance. Only five, however, could play at the game; and Sawny Dablerdeen, who always played on two small pipes, and paid sundry small pipers to do a deal of blowing, seemed in the greatest fuddle. And then there was my Lord John Littlejohn, as crusty a little snap as ever declaimed against tyrant in one breath, or turned a political summersault in another;—bricks to the back-bone was he, and all for old England, though he was not bigger than one of Betsy ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... like a man whose very life hangs but on a thread that the next minute may snap asunder. Whither would you lead me? Is it ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... lady. Perhaps not so easy to deal with as he had hoped. But how wealthy. Only the consciousness of great wealth would make her snap her fingers in this manner at the Droitwiches. Lotty, on being questioned, had been vague about her circumstances, and had described her house as a mausoleum with gold-fish swimming about in it; but now he ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... sent their syces on ahead with their guns, rode at dawn to the Residency. In front of the building a group of camels lay on the ground, burbling, blowing bubbles, grumbling incessantly and stretching out their long necks to snap viciously at anyone but their drivers that chanced to come near them. At the hall-door Mrs. Norton stood, dressed in a smart and attractive costume of khaki drill, consisting of a well-cut long frock coat and breeches, with the neatest of cloth gaiters and dainty but serviceable boots. To ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... saluted one of them; but the modest maidens said never a word! It was not their way to speak; only the gay calico ponies pranced about and sportively threw back their ears to snap at the horses of the two ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Eb let me look at his tobacco-box—a shiny thing of German silver that always seemed to snap out a quick farewell to me before it dove into his pocket. He was very cheerful and communicative, and joked a good deal as we lay there waiting in the firelight. I got some further acquaintance with the swift, learning among other things that it had ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... be rude to a lady, Miss Fortune and I can't agree; So I flew without wings from green Erin— Is there anything green about me? While blest with this stock of fine spirits, At care, faith, my fingers I'll snap; I'm as rich as a Jew without money, And free as a mouse in a trap. For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... body cut from the gallows the Chinaman plumped into the black hole below, carrying his tail in his teeth. The trapdoor turned over, shutting down with a snap. The swarthy little gentleman from San Francisco sprang nimbly from his perch, caught something in the air with his hat, as a boy catches a butterfly, and vanished into the chimney as if drawn up ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... apprehended what he meant immediately; and Captain Wilmot, who lay very sick in his cabin, overhearing us, understood him as well as I, and called out to me that William was right, and it was our best way to change our course, and stand away for the bay, where it was ten to one but we should snap her in ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... fond imagination, he saw her large, mischievous, dark eyes snap, and heard the merry peals of her laughter as she flitted about the garden in former years. Surely it was better thus—that she should remain blithe and happy like the birds, as God had ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... oldest of the Chelsea pensioners; it distracts one between pity, terror, and disgust, but is altogether absorbing; one watches it as one would watch some feeble ancient piece of mechanism, still working, which may snap at any moment. In such a personation, make-up becomes a serious part of art. It is the picture that magnetises us, and every wrinkle seems to have been studied in movement; the hands act almost by themselves, as if every finger were a separate actor. The passion ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... o'clock." Quite out of breath, at last he discovered it lying on the floor a whole arm's length away from the bed. Only with a really acute stab of pain did he finally succeed in reaching it. Then with fingers fairly trembling with effort, he opened forth and disclosed a tiny snap-shot photograph of a grim-jawed, scrawny-necked, much be-spectacled elderly dame ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... smashing the boats and dragging all loose gear to leeward. Over she heels—over, over, over! The yards are nearly up and down. The men cling desperately, as if to an inverted mast. And well they may, especially on the leeward arm that dips them far under a surge of water which seems likely to snap the whole thing off. But the Victoria's cargo and ballast never shift an inch. Her stability is excellent. And as the heaving shoulder eases down she holds her keel in, just before another lurch would send her turning turtle. A pause . . . a quiver . . . and she begins to right. ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... "you shall have blood to suck. But we'll leave the English be. France first, then our dogs will take a snap at the flag on the citadel yonder." He nodded in the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... snapped tightly to the case, and Mac reached for the whole business. The spare light was a maintenance problem in itself. Question: How to retrieve a fountain pen sized object, when it's held by a small snap and the retriever is encumbered by three pairs ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... late. Teddy had jammed into the corral fence, and ground his rider's knee till the torture of the pain had distracted his attention. Once more then swept round the ugly stub nose, and the yellow teeth fastened in the leather chaps with a vicious snap that did not entirely miss the flesh ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... as party politics, except in the distribution of minor offices, when the claims of good and faithful jackals on either side would have to be considered. And my heart grew sick within me, and I longed for a Man to arise who, with a snap of his strong fingers, would snuff out the Little Parish-Pump Folk who have misruled England this many a year with their limited vision and sordid aspirations, and would take the great, unshakable, triumphant command of a mighty Empire passionately ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... built on mutual prejudices, seldom attains to this greatness of mind; so that, becoming the slave of her own feelings, she is easily subjugated by those of others. Thus degraded, her reason, her misty reason! is employed rather to burnish than to snap her chains. ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... all ambition. No; I won't just say that. But you appear, Mr. Darrin, either to have lost some of your snap or ambition, or else you have gone ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... from one to the other, darkly. In a kind of dull fierce passion he had made up his mind to clear himself before the world, to rend to tatters his garments of romance, to snap his fingers at the stars and destiny and such-like deluding toys, to stand a young Ajax defying the thunderbolts. Here ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... see,' she said, and she crouched her down, She sunk into my sight like a settling bird; And her bosom couched in the confines of her gown Like heavy birds at rest there, softly stirred By her measured breaths: 'I like to see,' said she, 'The snap-dragon put out his tongue ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... 3. I tell you it was interesting! The Chicago campaign, I mean. On the way out Mr. Rogers would plan out the campaign while I walked the floor and smoked and assented. Then he would close it up with a snap and drop it and we would totally change the subject and take up the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... all the mice set to work. Snap, snap, snap, went the bowstrings on all sides. Then the sharp little teeth began on the feathers that winged the poisoned arrows. Soon the feathers lay in ...
— Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children • Mabel Powers
... I heard my own teeth snap together. There was something speaking within me stronger than I had ever known myself to be. Again came a query, trembling, quavering, quivering, as though the issue was of more ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... us like music, Some voices arouse to action and ambition. Some voices fill you with despondency. Some voices irritate like a buzz-saw. Some voices snap like turtles, ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... Glibly were numberless; and not to be escaped. Words are too equivocal and phrases too indefinite, for men like him not to profit by their ambiguity. To them a quirk in the sense is as profitable as a pun or a quibble in the sound. They snap at them, as dogs do at flies. It is no less worthy of observation that, though some of his actions seemed to laugh severity of moral principle out of countenance, he continually repeated others which, had his conduct been regulated by them, would have ranked ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Memory is a bed of thorns, and secret shame will gnaw at the roots of my life. You came like a wayfarer, sat through the sunny hours in the shade of my garden, and to while time away you plucked all its flowers and wove them into a chain. And now, parting, you snap the thread and let the flowers drop on the dust! Accursed be that great knowledge you have earned!—a burden that, though others share equally with you, will never be lightened. For lack of love may it ever remain as foreign to your life as the cold stars ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... monstrous stroke of humor; for, at this crisis, Strepsy is made to exclaim, "Some magic is it, O Socrates, about the moon? Well! since you are up to that sort of thing, what do you say, now, to a spell by which I could snap the old monster out of her course for a generation or so?" Now for the parallel case from De Quincey. It is from his paper on "California," a politico-economical treatise. The author's object is to illustrate the fact that scarcity of gold is not due to its non-existence, but to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... four miles we followed on the track through the broken valley of the Atbara, during which we several times disturbed the tetel, but could not obtain a good shot, on account of the high grass and thick bushes. Several times I tried a snap shot, as for a moment I caught sight of its red hide galloping through the bush, but as it ran down wind I had no chance of getting close to my game. At length, after following rapidly down a grassy ravine, I presently heard it pelting through the bushes; ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... opened as though to protest. Her face had brightened at Terry's suggestion. She closed them again in a tight snap. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... house and your protection, I was not governed by caprice or impulse. For some time I have seen that, sooner or later, it must come to this; that the cord uniting us was too severely strained, and must snap. I did not suppose the time so near at hand—that you would drag upon it now with such a sudden force. But the deed is done, and we are apart forever. I cannot live with you again—your presence would suffocate me. There was a mutual wrong in our marriage; but ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... at the worm, which may be termed runaway bites, and when in fact they neither take it nor let it alone, it is a sign they are full, and the best plan to effect a capture under such circumstance is to strike that moment they touch your bait, for if you do not succeed by a snap, but allow them time, they will only play with it for a few moments, and then finally leave you in the lurch. In concluding my observations on worm fishing, I can with confidence affirm that it is, as a bait for Trout, the most ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... yourself—kill him if you got the chance or get the crowd to lynch him. That if a thief stole from you the shrewdest thing to do was to induce him as a set-off to give you the proceeds of his next thieving. That it was humiliating to live in a town where a self-confessed rascal could snap his fingers at the law ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... world, here, in this dark wood, in this outland presence, it was nothing but curious. Now, as I watched and wondered, the being, following my eyes' direction, looked down at the huddled thing between his thighs, and just as children squeeze a snap-dragon flower to make it open and shut its mouth, so precisely did he, pressing or releasing the windpipe, cause that poor beast to throw back its lips and dart its dry tongue. He did this many times while he watched it; and when he looked up at me again, and ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... some rebel or some demagogue of Athens (for example) to venture upon the criticism of Your Majesty's excursions into philosophy, in order to bring those august theses into contempt, his argument would never find emphasis or value unless he were to terminate its last phrase by a snap of the fingers and the mention of ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... down at night in apathetic sullenness, but when the rancher who slept beside him awoke in the morning he had gone, and by way of ironical farewell somebody had hung a pair of rusty handcuffs whose snap-spring was evidently defective upon a neighbouring tree. One man had kept watch beside the fire, which he had left for a few minutes to bring in more wood, and another by the horses; but while neither of them had seen or heard anything, ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... So great was the fear of him, indeed, that the people in the neighbourhood he frequented scarcely dared stir out of doors, except in parties of five or six. We had had several hunts after him, but, like all man-eaters, he was old and awfully crafty; and although we got several snap shots at him, he had always managed to ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... turned obediently, after one reluctant glance at Graham, and instead of going through the archway as he expected, walked straight to the dead wall of the apartment opposite the archway. And then came a strange thing; a long strip of this apparently solid wall rolled up with a snap, hung over the two retreating men and fell again, and immediately Graham was alone with the new comer and the purple-robed man ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... behind me, and turning saw a splendid stag and three does not twenty feet away. They saw us and turned, and I had scarcely caught my breath after the surprise when they were many more than twenty feet away, and there was barely time to snap my shutter on them before they, disappeared over the brow ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... had received six balls in the head, that he consented to be killed. During the operation he exhibited something of his savoir faire, by opening his mouth, that looked like a gigantic man-trap, and suddenly shutting it with a loud snap, which made us shudder, and forcibly recalled to mind the escape I had had a few days before, from having my body embraced by ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... two finders, one for vertical and one for horizontal exposures; and is also provided with two sockets for tripod screws, one for vertical and one for horizontal exposures. Fitted with improved rotary shutter, for snap-shots or time exposures. Can be loaded in daylight. Handsomely finished ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 34, July 1, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... soil, they bud out apace into new plants like their parents. Certain special types can even be propagated from fragments of the leaf; for example, there is a particularly vivacious begonia off which you may snap a corner of one blade, and hang it up by a string from a peg or the ceiling, when, hi, presto! little begonia plants begin to bud out incontinently on every side from its edges. A certain German professor went even further than that; he chopped up a liverwort very fine into vegetable ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... yourselves," said Ted. "But as soon as you have filled up and warmed up come back. As soon as we get the bunch out of this hole it will be a snap to get them near the ranch house. If we'd only known it, we could have made it in half an hour ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... see Father Payne one morning about some work. He was reading a book with knitted brows: he looked up, gave a nod, but no smile, pointed to a chair, and I sate down: a minute or two later he shut the book—a neat enough little volume—with a snap, and skimmed it deftly from where he sate, into his large waste-paper basket. This, by the way, was a curious little accomplishment of his,—throwing things with unerring aim. He could skim more cards across a room into a hat than anyone I have ever seen who was ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of running horses, many of them coming up along the slopes, to bring Kenset back to the present with a snap, to make the woman reach swiftly for the bonnet and clap ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... fact the gate at that moment clicked behind the nervously advancing form of Noble Dill. He came with, a bravado that was merely pitiable and he tried to snap his Orduma cigarette away with thumb and forefinger in a careless fashion, only to see it publicly disappear through an open ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... to the rick within a yard of me, and smoke concealing me from him. I struck him with a back-handed blow on the elbow, as he bent it; and I heard the bone of his arm break, as clearly as ever I heard a twig snap. With a roar of pain he fell on the ground, and his torch dropped there, and singed him. The other man stood amazed at this, not having yet gained sight of me; till I caught his firebrand from his hand, and struck it into his countenance. With that he leaped at me; but I caught him, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... upon a broken-down carriage of the Z. line. They repair it at their depot, and all at once, bless my soul! see their own mark on the wheels What do you say to that? Eh? If I did it they would send me to Siberia, but the railway companies simply snap ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... about foreign messes, and affirms that anything else than plain British fare ruins the digestion. I must say my own digestion is none the worse for the holiday I am having from the preparations of my own 'treasure.' I think we all look remarkably well; and we don't quarrel or snap at each other, and it would be hard to find a better proof of ...
— The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste: - Containing Over Two Hundred Recipes For Italian Dishes • Mrs. W. G. Waters
... light Shells' bells—boy's joys that hap to snap! It's just sea's fun, breeze done, to spite God's rods that scourge her surge, I'd urge— ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... hung up the receiver with a snap, and left me pondering. It seemed to me that Mr. Ladley had been very reckless. Did he expect any one to believe that Jennie Brice had gone for a vacation without notifying the theater? Especially when she was to rehearse that week? I ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... shrill, birdy chirps the old otters warned their young. Plump, plump, plump, all shot into the pool, but to reappear, swimming with heads out, for they were but slightly alarmed. This was too much for Quonob; he levelled his flintlock; snap, bang, it went, pointed at the old male, but he dived at the snap and escaped. Down the bank now rushed the hunters, joined by Skookum, to attack the otters in the pool, for it was small and shallow; unless a burrow led from it, ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... those steers and a huge snapping turtle. They found him near the creek when they were feeding. They would come right up to him (they always did everything in concert) then look at him at close range. The turtle would thrust out his head and snap at them; then they would snort wildly and plunge all over the prairie, returning again and again to repeat the performance, which only ended when the ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... to me what he meant by this, which was that in "Hamlet," Hamlet talked to grave diggers and to two men named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, without givin' a snap ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters
... Tablets and goats propagate within his neglected tomb!" chanted the band in unison. "May the sinews of his hams snap suddenly in moments of achievement! May the principles of his warmth and cold ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... ordinary canvas strips not infrequently employed on a trunk to restrain the cover from falling far backward when opened. But encased in these wings were connections to powerful springs that, upon being set and suddenly released, would snap down the cover like the hammer of a gun and catch, as in the jaws of a trap, any meddling hands that might have been placed inside the case by a thief, at the same time ringing a bell. To set it was a matter of the utmost simplicity, while to spring ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... Arthur falter for an instant, and the hound was at his throat. The powerful jaws closed with a snap upon his shoulder, and you might have heard the sharp fangs grate against the bone. The shock of the spring brought Arthur to the ground, and man and brute rolled over together, and struggled in the mud and gore. Harold ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... secrecy and wisdom on the part of the younger men. They were so heartily and foolishly suspicious. The older men, as a rule, were inscrutable. They pretended indifference, uncertainty. They were like certain fish after a certain kind of bait, however. Snap! and the opportunity was gone. Somebody else had picked up what you wanted. All had their little note-books. All had their peculiar squint of eye or position or motion which meant "Done! I take you!" Sometimes they seemed scarcely ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... jerk she brought her straying fingers away from her hair, and her wandering eyes away from the sunshine, and her runaway thoughts back to the typewritten page. For three minutes the snap of the little disks crackled through the stillness of the tiny apartment. Then, suddenly, as though succumbing to an irresistible force, Mary Louise rose, walked across the room (a matter of six steps), removing hairpins as she went, and shoved aside the screen ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... seventh heaven. I trod on air. It was the first frank admittance of her love. And with such benediction I was made so strong that I knew I could kill a score of Fortinis and snap my fingers at a score of gray old men ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... more. Then, the dog still refusing to rise, the big man leapt over the harness and came down on the animal with both feet. There was a scream of pitiful agony, and the snap of breaking bones. But the big man slipped and fell. Down he came, and like a flash the whole pack ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... her womanly pride; how long would it sustain her? Would it snap presently, and let her down for ever into the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... marriage was discussed in most of the universities of Christendom and at Rome; when the pope presented his toe to be kissed, as customary, the Earl of Wiltshire and his party refused. Indeed, it is affirmed, that a spaniel of the Earl's, attracted by the glitter of the pope's toe, made a snap at it, whence his holiness drew in his sacred foot, and kicked at the offender with the other. Upon the pope demanding the cause of their embassy, the Earl presented Dr. Cranmer's book, declaring that his learned friends had come to defend it. The pope treated the embassy honourably, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... is effected by eclipses, with the result—beautifully confirmatory of theory—of reversing, or turning from dark to bright, the Fraunhofer spectrum. The completeness and precision of the reversal, however, could not be visually attested; and a quarter of a century elapsed before a successful "snap-shot" provided photographic evidence on the subject. It was taken at Novaya Zemlya by Mr. Shackleton, a member of the late Sir George Baden-Powell's expedition to observe the eclipse of August 9, 1896;[529] and similar records ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... drawn repeatedly across a piece of chalk or through powdered starch until well coated, then held near the quilt, and very tightly stretched, while a second person draws it up and lets it fly back with a snap, thus making a straight white line. How closely the lines are drawn depends wholly upon the ambition and diligence of the quilter. The lines may be barely a quarter of an inch apart, or may be placed only close enough together to perform their function of ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... cords that soonest knit A fast and stubborn tie: your true love-knot Is nothing to it. Faugh! the supple touch Of pliant interest, or the dust of time, Or the pin-point of temper, loose, or not, Or snap love's silken band. Fear and old hate, They are sure weavers—they work for the storm, The whirlwind, and the rocking surge; their knot ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... circumstances that can occur. That all depends on touch. It's what makes some flyers live longer than others. It's like the drag on a fishing reel. You set it tight or loose according to the weight of the fish you're playing. When you reel in, the line can't become too tight or it will snap, so you have the drag. It's really quite ingenious. It lets the fish pull out line as you reel in. It's the degree of tolerance that makes it work well as an instrument. In flying, the degree of tolerance, the compensating factor is in man's ...
— What Need of Man? • Harold Calin
... out of my pocket. This side. Go over to Gorsech with them. Gorsech, snap those irons on Snell's wrists. Now, Snell, back here ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... was Cleopatra Diamond Brighte who married Colonel Dearman of the Gungapur Volunteer Bines) found she had got a splendid snap-shot when her films were developed at Gungapur. A little later she got another when the look-out saw, and a boat picked up, a man who was lying in a little dug-out or toni. When able to speak, he told the serang[44] of the ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... has not, and every fortnight she begins to sew her dress and I go over the mountains to give her peace; for each time she draws nearer to the end, and wears away more and more; and some day the thin blade will snap." ...
— Elsket - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... Through the gate bounded a ball of reddish, yellow fur. Snap! And the teeth of Kee-wuk the Red Fox had seized one of the young rabbits by the neck. Swinging the limp body over his shoulders, he trotted quietly off through ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... anything so simple as that. It was a case of a romance that got ditched. Seems that Myra'd been engaged once. No idle seashore snap runnin' from Fourth of July to Labor Day, but a long-winded, year-to-year affair. The party of the second part was one Hinckley, a young highbrow who knew so much that it took the college faculty a long time to discover that ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... for our common sovereign, and for our joint spiritual inheritance. These links are growing, and if let alone will continue to grow, and the free fibres will of themselves become a rope of steel. A federation contrived by politicians would snap at the first strain." Australian Federation, which Froude did not live to see, was no contrivance of politicians, but the result of spontaneous opinion generated in Australia, and ratified as a matter of course by Parliament ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... leaned across the table. "Come, now, Peter. What is at the root of all this matter? Can we not compose such differences as you conceive exist? Out with them. 'Tis no matter for Sir John. He's a curmudgeon who signifies not a finger's snap. But you, 'tis different. You are her brother. Out with your plaints, then. Let us be ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... close to the type-writer, and leaning towards her, "let us look at this thing soberly. If ever a man had need of woman I have need of you. I can live alone no longer. We must share one home henceforth together. We can snap our fingers at the world, you and I. If you have anything to say against the proposal, let ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... their hands. Had Mr. SOLOMON, the composer, conducted, he would have taken The Tiger away, and left the howlers to their howling. Since Saturday the piece has, I am informed, "gone" with what the Americans call a "snap." The music is charming. Mr. CHARLES COLNAGHI made his bow as a professional, and played and sang excellently, as did also Mr. J. G. TAYLOR, in spite of the riotous conduct of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... all the well-greav'd Greeks; But when they saw the wall by Trojans scal'd, And heard the cry of Greeks in panic fear, Sprang forth those two, before the gates to fight. As when two boars, upon the mountain side, Await th' approaching din of men and dogs, Then sideways rushing, snap the wood around, Ripp'd from the roots; loud clash their clatt'ring tusks, Till to the huntsman's spear they yield their lives; So clatter'd on those champions' brass-clad breasts The hostile weapons; stubbornly they ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... with which you fell in love, is still unmarried; but they ask a hundred and thirty pounds a-year for it. If they asked one hundred and thirty thousand pounds for it, perhaps my Lord Clive might snap it up; but that not being the case, I don't doubt but it will fall, and I flatter myself, that you and it may meet at last upon reasonable terms. That of General Trapaud is to be had at fifty pounds a-year, but with a fine on entrance of five hundred pounds. As I propose to return by the beginning ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... times and in every species of service, and thus earning the brilliant reputation he acquired. The same qualities rendered him as wise in counsel as he was efficient in working. He was able to look on both sides of a given problem, was not inclined to snap judgments, but preferred to discriminate, to weigh, and, if need be, to wait. Yet, when the time came, the ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... bright red spots, the size of quarters, beneath either cheek-bone. He was half a head shorter than the shipping clerk, and apparently about half as wide; but there was sincerity in his manner and an ominous snap in the unflinching stare of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... last remark was a deliberate question and the questioner was waiting with fixed eyes for an answer, Shorthouse elected to take no notice of it. Without a word he pulled the elastic band from the blue envelope with a snap and plainly showed his desire to conclude the business as soon as possible. The tendency on the other's part to delay did not ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... pressing orders from the house. Also, having grown to a size equal to the brown saddler, he began to reveal his antipathy for this animal. Not only would he shoulder him away from the feed-box, but he would kick and snap at him, and once he tipped over the water-pail for no other reason, seemingly, than to deprive the saddler of water. The result of all this was that, with the passing seasons, both the Mexican and the saddler showed ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... main memory from external storage (also called 'pointer swizzling'); this may be done for speed in chasing references or to simplify code (e.g., by turning lots of name lookups into pointer dereferences). The converse operation is sometimes termed 'unswizzling'. See also {snap}. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... never felt before." A desperate conflict begins, and a mighty uproar,—crashing of benches, shoutings of men, the "war-song" of Grendel, who is trying to break the grip of his foe. As the monster struggles toward the door, dragging the hero with him, a wide wound opens on his shoulder; the sinews snap, and with a mighty wrench Beowulf tears off the whole limb. While Grendel rushes howling across the fens, Beowulf hangs the grisly arm with its iron claws, "the whole grapple of Grendel," over the door where all may ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... flung face-downward on to cushions, after which I heard a door snap shut and had leisure to work myself free from the ropes and gag and towels. It took time, for the hussies had drawn the cords until they bit into the muscles, and maybe I was twenty minutes about getting loose. ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... hut, whence a faint smoke curled, the back wall of piled logs still wearing dead branches and foliage at the ends. A reddish cur, as lawless-looking as his masters, rushed from the doorway to snap at Arthur's heels. The suspicious glances of the foresters bore hardly more welcome, till they heard that the stranger belonged to the settlers on Cedar Pond, and had simply lost his way. They informed him in return, with exceeding frankness, that they were squatters, taking possession of this strip ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... them almost equal pleasure and made Dawling blush up to his eyes; while this in turn produced, in spite of deepened astonishment, a blessed snap of the strain that I had been under for some moments. I wanted to embrace them both, and while the opening bars of another scene rose from the orchestra I almost did embrace Dawling, whose first emotion on beholding me had visibly and ever so oddly been a consciousness of ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... moving about invisibly among the people on the earth, among the people of this wonderful London, if all this, I say, be so, how long do you suppose you will be allowed, by his Satanic Majesty, to ply your trade of warner of the peoples? Why, man, your life is not worth the snap of a finger?" ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... "Crack-snap!" went Mr. Tisbett's whip. Off pranced the two black horses, and round went the wheels. He never made such a fine start in his life, Mr. Tisbett decided, when suddenly, "Stop! oh, stop!" screamed Joel, and the stage-driver, looking around at him, saw his face convulsed with ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... people have heard the story of the little girl who wanted to know what made her hair snap. After she had been informed that there was probably electricity in her hair, she sat quiet for a few minutes and then exclaimed: "Our family has all the modern improvements! I have electricity in my hair and Grandma has gas on her stomach!" Judged by ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... I append are, like myself, simple in form. If I have become notorious it is not my fault; it is the fault of the newspaper paragraphist, the snap-shooter, and the autograph fiend; and in these pages I have endeavoured, as far as possible, to leave the stage to more prominent actors, merely offering myself as guide to the many battlefields on which we ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... lifted by each wave, that came rushing over the shoals like a mountain chain of snow, and let fall with a thundering crash. Her timbers began to snap like pipe-stems, and, as she worked nearer and nearer to the boat, the wildly-swaying yards threatened immediate destruction. The heavy seas flew continually over the lifeboat, so that passengers and crew could ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... I grew desperate. In my struggle I discovered that it was possible to edge up on the log and stick there. I glued myself to that log. By dint of great exertion I brought the tight cord against the blade. It parted with a little snap, my elbows dropped free. Raising my wrists, I sawed quickly through the bonds. I cut myself, the blood flowed, but that was no matter. Jerking the knife from the log, I severed the ropes round ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... devils who yanked her roughly along between them. Carr roared out in blind rage and in awful fear for the girl. He struck out viciously into the first grinning face that pressed near. Something in his brain seemed to snap then, and he became a snarling, fighting animal, battling against overwhelming odds in defence of his mate. A dart buried itself in his arm and a stone hatchet bit into his shoulder, but he scarcely felt the hurts. All that mattered now was Ora; they ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... to snap this man-of-war world's sword in its scabbard. And thinking of all the cruel carnal glory wrought out by naval heroes in scenes like these, I asked myself whether, indeed, that was a glorious coffin in which Lord Nelson was entombed—a coffin presented ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... "Not the snap of a finger, for I have no heart," said the Patchwork Girl. "But I want to help Ojo, who is my friend, to rescue the uncle whom he loves, and I'd kill a dozen useless butterflies to ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... were already on horseback, and it was only a matter of riding him down. He saw this himself, and his futile shot was designed to stop one at least of the horses. However, it went wide. He slipped behind a tree and began snap-shooting at the advancing mounted men. They spread out fanwise, thus coming at him from three sides at once. He moved slightly in order to get a better aim, and in doing so unwittingly exposed himself. One ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... seemed rotten, and proposed to replace them with new. This Donaldson insisted would take too much time, but he was finally induced to allow eight of the sixteen to be renewed. While giving his customary trapeze performance high above the housetops the old cords began to snap, and before he could bring the balloon down every one of them had parted—a startling intimation of how his rashness might ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... him right, not being much of a snap-shot at dialect; and his is an undefined, unclassifiable mixture. Eastern farm-hand and Western ranchman, prospector, who knows what? His real language is in his eye and his rare, pure smile. And just as his countenance expresses ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... splendid?" I said. "At this rate we shall soon be self-supporting, and then we can snap ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... appallingly, and she looked at the clock-hands nearing five with a feeling that she could bear the sounds of building so long and no longer. If they lasted a single minute beyond that time something inside her head would snap. Knock—knock—knock; scrape—scrape; the thud of something thrown down. She felt her breath coming fast as she waited for the moment when her aching senses would be lulled by the cessation of it all—when she would rest on a ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... "I don't know what 'renny-saunce' means, but this room is the style I like"; and added, "It's bully; and to-morrow I'd like to take a snap-shot of it and of all the company to show mother, if [with his charming smile] you will ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... a fool-sort of an injector has Eustis loaded on to this rig this time?" And he put the lever over with an angry snap, crying: "Am I supposed to ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... such an assemblage, but 'twas but a snip-snap of talk—remarks passed from one to another, but served as it were on massy plate—long words, and too many of 'em. Dull, my dear, dull! And so 'twill always be when people aim to be clever. They do these things better in France, where they have no fear of ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... When its poisonous breath has blown this smoke away for an instant, it shows two rows of teeth like knives and a long forked tongue like a snake's, and its jaws are opened wide enough to take the young man into them and bite him into a dozen pieces at one snap. Surely if he is ever to learn what fear is now ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... "Snap out of it, girl!" she reprimanded herself. "Go on wool-gathering like this and your man will go hungry—and he'll break you right off at the ankles!" She became again the huntress, and soon saw an animal browsing steadily along the base ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... wander on, with tentless heed How never-halting moments speed, Till fate shall snap the brittle thread; Then, all unknown, I'll lay me with th' inglorious dead, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... heart thrilled with an unutterably sweet hope. Might he not forget in time? Need she snap in twain the weakened bond between them after all? Perhaps she might win back ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... took the form of a greedy crow, devouring the seeds with extraordinary speed. Juan, who was contained in one of the seeds that had rolled beneath the feet of the princess, suddenly became a cat, and, rushing out, attacked the bird. As soon as you could wink your eyes or snap your fingers, the crow was dead, miserably torn to pieces. In place of the cat stood Juan in an embroidered suit, looking like a ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... its Old-World charms and its ostentatious air of being content to be rather behind the times, of looking down upon the hurrying Americans who dash through its cathedral and take snap-shots at its slums, and at all those busy moderns who cannot afford to take life at its own ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... he decided, must be turned loose outside the village. The Bedouins, as he pointed out, would be likely to snap up readily a horse of such good appearance, and in any case Hassan was plainly of the opinion that a horse's existence was of very little importance when graver ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the eyes of their elders, except when allowed to go out with proper escort. The gate at the back stairs, which gave on the landing and had been placed there years ago for the protection of little children long since able to take care of themselves, was as strong as ever and shut with as clever a snap, so that there was no danger by that way. There were also guards on all the fires, and an ornamental bar across each window to prevent little rash creatures from throwing ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... the boy between his knees, and looked Mr. Scraper squarely in the eyes. Now, Mr. Scraper did not like to be looked at in this manner; he shifted on his chair, and his mouth, which had been opened to pour out a flood of angry speech, closed with a spiteful snap, and then opened, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... shelf she took down the scissors and quickly gave a delicious snip to her father's thick locks. Another snip-snap and more hair fell. The sleeping man roused a little, but finding only his little Mary playing about him, nodded off again. His head this time fell in a more favorable position for Mary to continue the clipping, ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... and water into a saucepan, and boil them until the sugar becomes brittle, which may be ascertained by taking up a small quantity in a spoon, and dipping it in cold water; if the sugar is sufficiently boiled, it will easily snap. Peel the oranges, remove as much of the white pith as possible, and divide them into nice-sized slices, without breaking the thin white skin which surrounds the juicy pulp. Place the pieces of orange on small skewers, dip them into the hot sugar, and arrange ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... speaking, some old gentleman in the side gallery had either fallen asleep or was very excited by my remarks, for he somehow jerked the cord which fastened the top of the screen to the gallery, and snap went the cord and down came the screen! Behind it there was an expanse of empty platform, with a semi-circular seat, and on it sat my friend, the enthusiast on art, fast asleep! The limelight, no longer checked by the screen, fell full upon him, and the rounds of applause which followed ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... with a little chess, rarely going to bed before midnight; and the steady strain, with my anxiety to lose none of my time and opportunities, finally told on my eyes. One day, while working hard on the view of Neuchatel, I felt something snap behind my eyes, and in a few minutes I could no longer see my drawing; the slightest attempt to fix my vision on anything caused such indistinctness that I could see neither my work nor the landscape, and I was obliged to suspend work altogether. ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... goes on day after day, day after day, and nothing happens; but to me it is like a dream from which I might wake screaming. To me the straightness of our life is the straightness of a thin cord stretched tight. Its stillness is terrible. It might snap with a noise like thunder. And you who sit, amid the debris of the great wars, you who sit, as it were, upon a battlefield, you know that war was less terrible than this evil peace; you know that the idle lads ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... ourselves landed in the gutter by an unclean pig, which has darted between our legs at some attractive garbage beyond. This peril over, we encounter at the next turning a mad dog, who makes a passing snap at our toga as he darts into a neighbouring blind alley, whither we do not care to follow his vagaries among a covey of young Roman street Arabs. Before we reach home a mumping beggar drops before us as ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... little to do; the Chancellor of the Exchequer loomed larger and larger, and the Premier vanished more and more completely from the public view. After the triumph of the Budget, everything went wrong with the Government, till, being defeated on a snap division about gunpowder in June, 1895, Lord Rosebery and his colleagues trotted meekly out of office. They might have dissolved, but apparently were afraid to challenge the judgment of the country on the performances ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... ran, he saw her level the pistol and snap the hammer twice, thrice, with no result. The little dead click sounded like a death-warrant ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... at sight of the steam and smoke. A fire was the very thing he had defied the gipsies again and again to make on his land. He cracked his whip with a vicious snap, ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... even that has a good many disguises—convention, cowardice, weakness, ennui; they all take their turn at hooting in its feathers? You must, you really must have rest. You don't know; you don't see; I do. Just a little snap, some one last exquisite thread gives way, and then it is all over. You see I have even to try to frighten you, for I can't tell you ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... Bayonet-Fighting.—On guard. Long point. Withdraw. On guard. Rest. Now, when I snap my fingers I want to see you come to the high port and get roun' me like lightning. Some of you men seem to be treatin' this bizness in a light-'earted way. We don't do this work to prevent you gettin' ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... which I stood in great need, for I was dying with hunger, but I did not dare to, accept his offer, as a quarter of an hour's delay might, prove fatal. I was afraid of being retaken, and of being ashamed of it for the rest of my life; for a man of sense ought to be able to snap his fingers at four hundred thousand men in the open country, and if he cannot escape capture he ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to the door, and with her last word sharply turned the key. Only just in time, for Mrs. Clover was that moment trying the handle when she heard the excluding snap. Natural feeling so much prevailed with her that she gave the door a ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... better than carrot. So he didn't stop to wonder how it got there. He just reached out for the nearest piece and ate it. Then he reached for the next piece and ate it. Then he did a funny little dance just for joy. When he was quite out of breath, he sat down to rest. Snap! Something had Jerry Muskrat by the tail! Jerry squealed with fright and pain. Oh, how it did hurt! He twisted and turned, but he was held fast and could not see what had him. Then he pulled and pulled, until it seemed as if his tail would pull off. But it didn't. So he kept ...
— The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat • Thornton W. Burgess
... finishing their lunch the boys again gained the deck, to find the mate actively driving the men in their various duties. The wind still came out of the northwest with a stinging snap. Ned declared that he could feel ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... came on deck with brat and poodle: Fred, a destructive child, clapped his hands with glee at the holes in the canvas: Snap toddled about smelling the blood of the slain, and wagging his tail by halves, perplexed. "Well, gentlemen," said Mrs. Beresford, "I hope you have made noise enough over one's head: and what a time you did take ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... brutes. Look here, is it money we want? You cable to Paris and offer two million, at—oh, at eight cents below the market; and to Liverpool, and let 'em have twopence off on the same amount. They'll snap it up as quick as look at it. That will bring in one lot of money, and as for the rest, I guess I've got some real estate in this town ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... was not to stop to consider that Sambo Ebony could snap those cords!" groaned Tom, staring disconcertedly about him. "Yet, if Nicolas were safe I wouldn't so much mind the escape of the black. I shall see him again, and I shall know him wherever I ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... into the ground. "Naughty, naughty, naughty little grasshopper," she began to chant, addressing an unconscious insect near the heel. "Don't you go and crawl up on the Bishop. No, just don't you. 'Cause if you do, oh, naughty grasshopper, I'll scrunch you!" with a vicious snap on ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... used all her wiles, but Danilo remembering the past was firm. And presently he had the reward that a man always has when he's firm, for as soon as it was evident that she could no longer befool him, the evil enchantment that bound her broke with a snap and Peerless Beauty became a human maiden as gentle and sweet and loving ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... struggled on— The stars above me danced in swarms like yellow bees, The shaken moonlight writhed upon the rocks;— But at the last I felt his breathing weaker grow, The tense limbs grow less tense, And with a bursting cry I bent his head right back, Back, back, until I heard his neck bones snap; His spine crunched in my grip; I flung him to the earth and knelt ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... it. Then we'll go round to the Embassy. We can slip out by the back way, perhaps. Remember I have spent my life in the service, and I tell you that there's no other place in the city where your life is worth a snap of the fingers but at your Embassy or mine. Open ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... missed; for the branch yielded and went under with his weight. But in a moment, just as the boat with a swoop plunged over the fall, he rose, clutching securely and hauling himself inch by inch out of the torrent. To Fisher, who watched breathlessly, it seemed as if every moment the branch would snap and send the senior back to his fate. But it held out bravely and supported him as he gradually drew himself up and finally perched high and dry ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... ink-bottle every twenty seconds, places the third finger and thumb of his left hand on his paper, and scratches away at his worm fence like one possessed. He writes marvellously fast. Frequently the point of his pen pricks through his sheet, for he writes a heavy hand, and a snap follows, spreading inky spots over the paper, resembling a woodcut portraying the sparks from a blacksmith's hammer. Blots like mashed spiders, or crushed huckleberries, occasionally intervene, but the old veteran dashes them with sand, leaving a swearing ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Annette's, Van Diemen burst into a short snap of savage laughter. "But that's far away in the background, Mr. Mart Tinman!" he said. "You stick to your game, I know that; but you'll find me flown, though I leave a name to stink like your common behind me. And," he added, as a chill reminder, "that name the name of my benefactor. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fellers are all so d—-d peart on mathematics, and such things, that you want to snap me up on every opportunity, but I guess I've got something this time that'll settle you. Its something that a fellow gave out yesterday, and Colonel Iverson, and all the officers out there have been figuring on it ever since, and none have got the right answer, and I'm powerful sure that none of ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... right, Newell," she called gleefully. "He hasn't been there for two weeks. He's comin' to-night to take me to ride, an' I'll make him go the turnpike road, an' she'll be down by Pine Hollow, an' you can snap her up under her mother's nose—an' ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... hours and minutes of men with a scythe, and consulted it with a slight knitting of her pretty eyebrows. Then she fell into a vague abstraction, standing before the open book on the centre-table. Then she closed it with a snap, and methodically putting it exactly in the middle of the top of a black cabinet in the corner, lifted the shaded lamp in her hand and passed slowly with it up the stairs to her bedroom, where her light steps were heard moving ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... that it was an Indian, and that he was watching us. I noticed his tracks some distance back, and also noticed that just before we reached this point they turned abruptly into the underbrush. As we stood looking down that hole, I heard a twig snap, and knew he was close at hand. I thought I might surprise him, but, as I said, he was too quick for me, and I only caught a flying glimpse of him as ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... treacherous roots yielded to my grasp, and fell into the torrent, my heart sunk within me. The branches on which I was suspended over the yawning chasm swang to and fro in the air, and I expected them every moment to snap in twain. Appalled at the dreadful fate that menaced me, I clutched frantically at the only large root which remained near me, but in vain; I could not reach it, though my fingers were within a few inches of it. Again and again I tried to reach it, ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... the beginning of October, a bright clear morning. The red and yellow leaves come swiftly to the ground with a sudden snap from the twigs that held them: the rabbits move about briskly, and a couple of field-mice in search of winter stores run across the road nearly under Marie's feet. Marie's cheeks are rosy with the fresh, crisp air, but she does not look gay or happy. Life seems to have got into a hard ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... was axed which side was farthest from the mark in this Province, I vow I should be puzzled to say. As I don't belong to the country, and don't care a snap of my finger for either of 'em, I suppose I can judge better than any man in it, but I snore I don't think there's much difference. The popular side—I won't say patriotic, for we find in our steamboats a ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the corridor outside, which made him snap off his sentence hurriedly and turn listening and apprehensive. Again the ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... debt of honor," he went on. "You can repudiate it if you want to, and snap your fingers in my face, but I trusted you, I got you out of your mess, and now I ask you ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... admitted the trend of his speech. His words droned heavily and monotonously to her as through dull banks of fog. She made up her mind that if she were asked any questions by either of them she would not reply, and that she would not look at either of them, and then she thought that she would snap and stamp her feet and say that she hated him, that he had looked down on her because she worked for his aunt, that he had meanly been ashamed of and cut her because she was poor, that he had been going with another girl ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... one day I will not be so kind to thee. On that day my mouth will be filled with a rushing wind and my arms will become as strong as steel rods, and I will blow over this palace, and all the bones in thy foolish body I will snap between my fingers. I will beat upon a large drum and thy head will be my drumstick. I will not do these things now. But one day I will do them. Therefore, when my voice sounds again in thine ears, begging for bread, remember what I have told thee. Remember, ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... traces of his fleeting visit. Something inside them had broken with a snap; they gripped their tools more freely, more courageously; and they had seen their handicraft pass before their eyes like a species of technical pageant. For a long time the wind of the passage of the great bird hung about the little workshop ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... her old ribs have come all crashing through, If a whisk of Fate's broom snap your cobweb asunder; But her rivets were clinched by a wiser than you, And our sins cannot push the Lord's right hand from under. Better one honest man who can wait for God's mind, In our poor shifting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... hostile Reichstag or Diet into an assembly of men eager to do his bidding, but that it was his firm grasp on the realities of life and his supreme command of everything which makes for true statesmanship. His policies were not based on snap judgments, they were the result of serious thought. All this showed in his speeches, and made him one of the most powerfully effective speakers of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... they had daily, for weeks, and even for months, been doing all that humanity and professional skill could suggest in order to relieve him, let us suppose of great suffering, and one fine morning to see the patient leap out of bed, laugh, and snap his fingers in their faces, and tell them that there had been nothing the matter with him all the while!—ninety-nine of them would probably look upon the next patient with some suspicion, and if deception was at all frequent, the really diseased would come in time ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... when the earth caves in beneath those who walk over his trap and they fall, he is already far away, and looks as innocent and bland as a badger on top of the ground. But if you follow him, then he will turn around and snap at you, like a real tyope. Your mother is right in fearing him; perhaps not so much on her account as for your sake. You and Mitsha are both very young, and that man knows how to ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... the West, and three days before his coming Helen fled from the city. He had spoken his message to Philadelphia, he had spoken to New York, and for a week the papers had spoken only of him. And for that week, from the sight of his printed name, from sketches of him exhorting cheering mobs, from snap-shots of him on rear platforms leaning forward to grasp eager hands, Helen had shut her eyes. And that during the time he was actually in Boston she might spare herself further and more direct attacks upon her feelings she escaped to Fair Harbor, there to remain ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... I stepped on a stick that bent down under my foot. The stick didn't snap and how that young scout ever caught the faint sound is more than I ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... away and chase squirrels, he scrutinized one of the pages of a newspaper some person had left there. What the young man read seemed to give him no great pleasure. He put down the paper; then picked it up again and regarded a snap-shot illustration occupying a conspicuous position on the ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... b, A; b, b, b, b![69] Very often, however, the designer is satisfied with one surprise, but I never saw a good illuminated border without one at least; and no series of any kind was ever introduced by a great composer in a painting without a snap somewhere. There is a pretty one in Turner's drawing of Rome with the large balustrade for a foreground in the Hakewell's Italy series: the single baluster struck out of the line, and showing the street below through the gap, simply makes the whole composition right, when otherwise it would have ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... doorway and was literally deluged with a stream of Spanish. She stood there, hands clasped on her tremendous bosom, staring unbelievingly at the bearer of these tidings of great joy, the while tears cascaded down her flat, homely face. With a snap of his fingers, Pablo dismissed her; then he darted into the house and emerged with his rifle. A cockerel, with the carelessness of youth, had selected for his roost the limb of an adjacent oak and was still ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... but a considerable risk to snap, and I suppose the American captain could not quite make up his mind to capture a vessel (albeit a blockade-runner piled full of cotton) lying in an English port, insignificant though that port might be. We had got a large white English ensign hoisted on a pole, thereby showing the nationality ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... contemplated it with the utmost satisfaction. Now she would be able to join the Photographic Club at school, to go out on some of the Saturday afternoon expeditions, and to have a few of her prints in the Exhibition. She could take snap-shots of the girls and the classroom, and make them into picture postcards to send to her mother, and she could make a series of home photos to hang up in her bedroom at Abbey Close. There seemed no limit indeed to the possibilities of her new camera. She guarded it jealously from the prying fingers ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... just now. The rope strained as if it would snap; the bows of the nuggar were buried in foam, and the men hauling were forced to take the corporal's hint, and keep their breath for other ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... used the name of God in such a merry, jesting manner, though Plato in that book makes Socrates several times to talk with great boasting and arrogance, as he does now. "There are many, dear friend, so affected towards me, that they are ready even to snap at me, when I offer to cure them of the least madness. For they will not be persuaded that I do it out of goodwill, because they are ignorant that no god bears ill-will to man, and that therefore I wish ill to no man; but I cannot allow myself either to stand in a lie or to stifle ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... he protested, with a snap of the fingers. "I did not suggest that it could be a matter of importance. It was all a bagatelle, a fairy-tale, that should not have had so serious an end. And your husband—he has heard the ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... be turned loose outside the village. The Bedouins, as he pointed out, would be likely to snap up readily a horse of such good appearance, and in any case Hassan was plainly of the opinion that a horse's existence was of very little importance when graver matters were ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... called Snuffy Davie, from his inveterate addiction to black rappee, who was the very prince of scouts for searching blind alleys, cellars, and stalls, for rare volumes. He had the scent of a slow-hound, sir, and the snap of a bull-dog. He would detect you an old blackletter ballad among the leaves of a law-paper, and find an editio princeps under the mask of ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... behind a brazen gate; which being communicated sympathetically to his cousin, the latter chimed to it in boisterous shouts of anticipated careless jollity at Fairly Park, crying out how they would hunt and snap fingers at Jews, and all mortal sorrows, and have a fortnight, or three weeks, perhaps a full month, of the finest life possible to man, with good horses, good dinners, good wines, good society, at command, and a queen of a woman to rule and order everything. Edward affected a disdainful ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and many sailors from the fleet were going home for a holiday. The quay was crowded with passengers, and a queerly shaped engine, belching forth thick smoke, with train attached, was drawn up behind them. This we thought a fair subject for a snap-shot, but the production of the camera attracted the attention of a policeman who would not be satisfied until it was put away, though the arsenal was behind us. The sailors swarmed on board and filled the whole fore part of the boat—fine-looking fellows for the most ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... hope has fled; When vanishes each prospect fair, When the last flickering ray has sped, And naught remains but mute despair; When inky blackness doth enshroud The hopes the heart once held in store, As some tall pine, by great winds bowed, Doth snap, and when the tempest's o'er, Its noble form, magnificent and proud, Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more; Thus breaks the heart, which sees no ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... to have lost all ambition. No; I won't just say that. But you appear, Mr. Darrin, either to have lost some of your snap or ambition, or else you ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... of a mind-reader, ma'am," said he, "that I know you don't care a snap of your finger for Dan Anderson. That's everdent. I ain't in on that side of the play. I'm just here to say that, so far as he's concerned hisself, he'd 'a' laid down and died cheerful any minute of ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... tinkling bells, labouring up the steep with the heavy timbers in tow, to the sad-faced contractor and his jovial, good-looking partner. As I stood one morning watching the latter go up with a springing step to the top, to superintend the placing of a beam, I saw the chain below snap, and at the same instant the huge beam swung round, striking the contractor, who, with a groan, fell headlong to the bottom of the ravine—a distance of twenty feet. Instantly half a dozen men sprang down and pulled him up, while ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... Williams & Van Horne, printed on the uppermost envelope. The reminder aroused a host of associations. Flossy had not been much in her thoughts lately, yet she had not failed to plume herself occasionally with the reflection that she could afford now to snap her fingers at her. She had wondered more than once what Flossy would think when she heard that she was ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... of glad and sad: glad to give; yet aching to keep. Daughter of Rajputs though she was, she had her moment of very human shrinking when the sharp actuality of parting was upon them; when he held her so close and long that she felt as if the tightened cord round her heart must snap—and there ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... beams and rafters of some old building. How close the air was in the stifling passage through which he was crawling! The scene changed, and he was climbing a slippery sheet of ice with desperate effort, his foot on the floor of a shallow niche, his hold an icicle ready to snap in an instant, an abyss below him waiting for his foot to slip or the icicle to break. How thin the air seemed, how desperately hard to breathe! He was thinking of Mont Blanc, it may be, and the fearfully rarefied atmosphere which he remembered well ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... economical of their steps, I have noticed. Perhaps this is how they gain time for play. The little girl jumped down presently and looked over at the wild flowers. There were clusters of yarrow in bloom, spikes of yellow snap-dragons, and a great clump of thistles in their purple glory. She must tell her father about them, and have them rooted out. Would it hurt them to be killed? She felt ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... given me one thousand pounds for it, and that he ought not to have given me less. "You have nothing to do now," continued he, "but to take your pen in hand, for your fame and reputation are made, and any bookseller will snap at what ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... himself down from the saddle. Already several mounted men were clustered about something, while just before he joined them there was another crash, and a little thin smoke drifted among the trees. Then, he saw one of them snap a cartridge out of his rifle, and that a horse lay quivering at his feet. A man stood beside it, and Grant was speaking to him, but Breckenridge ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... the unbearable nervous horror grew, and the inner tension, terrible and so taut that it seemed to be ready to snap every second, was beginning to turn into a sort of nightmare, which makes one shiver all over, which dims one's eyes with red mist, which banishes all fear of death and suffering and turns all that is human ...
— The Shield • Various
... question, and the subsequent laughter, came back with a faint twinge. Tillie knew she was short-sighted about facts, but this time—Why, there were her scrapbooks, full of newspaper and magazine articles about Thea, and half-tone cuts, snap-shots of her on land and sea, and photographs of her in all her parts. There, in her parlor, was the phonograph that had come from Mr. Ottenburg last June, on Thea's birthday; she had only to go in there and turn it on, and let Thea speak for herself. Tillie finished brushing her ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... bark in the midst of a shoal of enormous sharks. If I came in contact with one of them, I was lost, for the frail boat would certainly be upset, and as Jackson had assured me, if ever I allowed these monsters to come near enough, one snap of their jaws, and there would be an end of the Little Savage. I thought of the warning of Mrs Reichardt, and was inclined to think I had better have taken her advice, and remained in the fishing-pool; ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Why, it would be as easy as pie. Think of it; all you have to do is to let the current carry you along. It's a snap, that's what!" cried the other, brimming ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... auger, near the top of the decayed trunk, and the white chips of the workman strewing the ground beneath. When but a few paces from the tree, my foot pressed upon a dry twig, which gave forth a very slight snap. Instantly the hammering ceased, and a scarlet head appeared at the door. Though I remained perfectly motionless, forbearing even to wink till my eye smarted, the bird refused to go on with his work, but flew quietly off to a neighboring ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... that Hereward and Oger should hold that land between them, as he and Toli had done. But when "two dogs," as Ivo said, "have hold of the same bone, it is hard if they cannot get a snap at each ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... boat-house by the side of the Floss, is Mr. Deane's. The neat little lady in mourning, whose light-brown ringlets are falling over the colored embroidery with which her fingers are busy, is of course Lucy Deane; and the fine young man who is leaning down from his chair to snap the scissors in the extremely abbreviated face of the "King Charles" lying on the young lady's feet is no other than Mr. Stephen Guest, whose diamond ring, attar of roses, and air of nonchalant leisure, at twelve o'clock in the day, are ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... him, indeed, that the people in the neighbourhood he frequented scarcely dared stir out of doors, except in parties of five or six. We had had several hunts after him, but, like all man-eaters, he was old and awfully crafty; and although we got several snap shots at him, he had always ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... die will be gain, because we can honestly say that to live is Christ? If so, our hope is valid, and will not yield when we lean heavily upon it for support in the ford over the black stream. If our hope is built on anything besides, it will snap then like a rotten pole, and leave us to stumble helpless among the slippery stones ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... if, instead of making the mayor issue out of the Norman arch, he had painted him moving under the sign of the "Checquers," or the "Three Brewers," with mace—yes, with mace,—the mace appears in the picture issuing out of the Norman arch behind the mayor,—but likewise with Snap, and with whiffler, quart pot, and frying pan, Billy Blind, and Owlenglass, Mr. Petulengro and Pakomovna; then, had he clapped his own legs upon the mayor, or any one else in the concourse, what matter? But I repeat that I have no hope of making heroic pictures out of English mayors, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... his great slack muscles and welded them into whip-cords. And in front of him, facing him, stood a slim, six-foot whipper-snapper of a lieutenant, hatless, coatless, tireless, merciless—a creature whom Buzz at first thought he could snap between thumb and finger—like that!—who made life a hell for Buzz Werner. Until his ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... in thus moralising, merely taking the mean advantage the author is apt to imagine he has established over his reader when he ends off a chapter with a snap, and hopes the said reader will not dare to skip? No, we are not. We really mean something, and shall get to it in time. Let us only be clear ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... no real need to describe "Snap," but perhaps it may be useful to have the rules in print here in case of any dispute. A pack of "Snap" cards is dealt round, any number being able to play; and the game begins by the players taking their cards one by one from their hands and in turn laying them face upward on the table before ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... their masters and the peacefulness of the occasion generally, they make furtive dashes through the ranks of the spectators at me as I wheel round the small circular threshing-floor, and savagely snap at the revolving wheels. Sometimes, after being held in check until I am out of sight beyond a knoll, these vindictive and determined assailants will sneak around through the fields, and, overtaking me unseen, make stealthy onslaughts upon me from the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... mad, sprang up, calling out something in Scotch about "the deil." Seizing a great spear which had fallen from the hand of one of the priests, he rushed furiously at the giant who had given the order, and with a yell drove it at his heart. I saw the spear snap, from which I concluded that this man, whom rightly I took to be Rezu, ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... that kind. They've been worrying me for a week or two," he said. Then he seized the litter, and bundling it together flung it into an open drawer, which he shut with a snap. "Anyway, that's the last of them for to-day. I'm awfully glad ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... out into the garden. I saw a flowering branch bend and snap as though a hand had broken it—but no hand was there! Saw then another and another bend and break, a little tree sway and fall—and closer and closer to us came the trail of snapping boughs while down into the garden ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... I'll give it to Sary, and then you can look for trouble! She'll snap pictures of Jeb at dinner, of Jeb at the pump, and Jeb ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... not cry out. His body writhed mutely, and down his back appeared a red mark. The whip whirled again and fell, this time bringing a stifled curse for a response. Once more it whirled, and this time merely cracked in the air. Again and again an idle snap in the air. Broken by that grim suspense, Borgson yelled ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... he alarm'd the laity, while reverend men of grace, Like Father Joe, we're told, might snap their fingers in his face, Or order him to take a dip all in the sea so red; Wherefore, when holy men he saw, he turn'd ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... very happy, then these little brown nuts, one bright autumn day, suddenly popped open! And out of each one flew two brown shiny little seeds. You never saw such a popping and a snapping and a jumping! Pop! pop! snap! snap! hippetty hop! they went, faster than the corn pops in the corn popper. Reddy Fox, who always is suspicious, thought some one was shooting at him. Down on the ground fell the little brown shining seeds and tucked themselves ...
— Mother West Wind's Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... vivaciously of many things: of little Don's pleasure in her gift, of her fall on the ice on the way over, of Sara Downs' Valentine party, of Phil's letter. When the last subject was mentioned Mrs. Ware remarked, "That snap-shot of 'Eloise' shows her to be a ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... was quick. 'Groll is not his name,' said he, 'and Grand Street is not where you are to go to find him. I threw out a bait to see if you would snap at it, but I find you timid, and therefore advise you to ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... closed his eyes with a snap and his heart turned to water. He held his breath and ran-sacked his brain in vain for a reply which should ignore the inner meaning of the fatal words. Something careless and jocular he wanted, combined with a voice which should be perfectly under control. Failing these things, he kept his eyes ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... notice that they fought most brutally, scratching away savagely on each other's hard shells, without doing a great deal of damage, however. But one of them had lost one eye in the fight, and so we seized him and made off, leaving the other to snap his tongs together in anger because he had nobody to pinch. It must be a dreadful thing to want to hurt somebody and have nobody ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... many intervening obstacles between him and the other, that he was forced to hurry up so as to keep nearer. In doing so he stepped suddenly on a twig which lay across the track. It broke with a loud snap. At that moment Lord Chetwynde was but a few yards away. He turned, and just as Gualtier had poised himself so as to dart back, he caught the eyes of his enemy fixed upon him. There was no time to wait. The danger of discovery was too great. In an instant ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... abuse of you is absurd. I have heard grave and industrious persons declare emphatically that any one who allows himself to fall under your sway debars himself utterly from every chance of success. Fiddlesticks! I snap my fingers at such folly. What do these gentlemen say to the case of FIGTREE, the great Q.C.? Everybody knows that FIGTREE is, without exception, the most indolent man in the world. Let any doubter walk down Middle Temple Lane and ask ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 12, 1891 • Various
... gauge the matter accurately, as Bob soon found out to his cost. He managed to burn more holes in his garment—and himself—than in the bonds. However, he kept at it, and after a half hour's steady and patient effort he was able to snap asunder the last strands. He stretched his arms over his head in ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... the carter lad— A jolly cock am I; I always am contented, Be the weather wet or dry. I snap my finger at the snow, And whistle at the rain; I've braved the storm for many a day, And can ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... despite! Once, jealous of the breeze that blew on thee, I was, Alas! on whom Fate falls, his eyes are veiled with night. What boots the archer's skill, if, when the foe draws near, His bow-string snap and leave him helpless in the fight? So when afflictions press upon the noble mind, Where shall a man from Fate and Destiny ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... I tell you how that galleon sank, Could I but bring you to that hollow whirl, The black gulf in mid-ocean, where that wreck Went thundering down, and round it hell still roars, That were a tale to snap all fiddle-strings." ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... steps of archery there was something to be learnt, and that the mere stringing of his bow was a performance attended with considerable difficulty. It was always slipping from his instep, or twisting the wrong way, or threatening to snap in sunder, or refusing to allow his fingers to slip the knot, or doing something that was dreadfully uncomfortable, and productive of perspiration; and two or three times he was reduced to the abject necessity ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... the playground was raised with a sharp snap, and the head-mistress appeared, shouting alternately at the children and the parents; but she was neither heard nor understood, and a Polish crone shook ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... spite of his kindness and hospitality, which soothed me for a day or two, I was not quite happy until I found myself aboard of a Leith smack, and, standing down the Firth with a fair wind, might snap my fingers at the retreating outline of Arthur's Seat, to the vicinity of which I had been so ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... out. There at the quiet little French inn everything suddenly changed color. It was quick, it was quiet. There was a complete change in the snap of a finger. All the chauffeurs and the porters and the waiters—men who had been there for years and with whom we who visit there Summer after Summer have grown familiar—suddenly stopped work, gave up their jobs, were turned into soldiers. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... black smoke like a blast from a furnace. When its poisonous breath has blown this smoke away for an instant, it shows two rows of teeth like knives and a long forked tongue like a snake's, and its jaws are opened wide enough to take the young man into them and bite him into a dozen pieces at one snap. Surely if he is ever to learn what fear is ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... that would seem to be desirable, and that ordinary skill might devise, is some sort of snap clutch by which the main spindle could be stopped instantly by touching a trigger with the foot; many drills and accidents would be saved thereby. Of the many special devices I have seen for use on a drilling machine, one used by Mr. Lipe might be made of universal use. It is in the form of a bracket ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... by the feet of his master, lifted his head also, but made no sound. He knew already whom to let alone and whom not. Formerly he would have jumped up and barked, and tested the long coat of the doctor to see if it was made of good material or not. Today, he would rather snap at a fly which paid with her life for daring to buzz around his nose. Well, the dogs did not give it away and the people did not notice that they had a listener, neither then nor even after Palko began to read in his Book, where there was written about the great man who was the captain of ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy
... a bit of silk thread is absurd. What he would have gained would have been a feeling of physical inconvenience during the quiet passages, and terror during the tremendous scenes of passion at the thought that the string might snap. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... vision flashed before me of thus verbally snap-shotting the scene with dear old Dickie as we stood against the rail of the ship and watched the waves fling back silvery radiance at the full moon, and I also wondered how I was to render in serviceable written ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and often it must pass off in laughter. It is something less than passion. It is not concerned with tragedies or crises, but the subtlest apprehensions of what comes and goes at every moment of life. It must never be treated as if it were passion, or the slender threads of which it consists will snap, and ridicule will justly reveal the unbalanced judgment of the sentimentalist. Nor must it ever be far from laughter, or it will collapse under its own strain, and we may be betrayed into thinking that ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... could hardly tell which was which,—I or the hen. They would all fall asleep in a soft, stirring lump for five seconds, and then rouse up, with no apparent cause, but as suddenly and simultaneously as if the drum had beat a reveille, and go foraging about in the most enterprising manner. One would snap at a ring, under the impression that it was petrified dough, I suppose; and all the rest would rush up determinedly to secure a share in the prize. Next they would pounce upon a button, evidently thinking it curd; and though they must have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... weapon showed the warden that the cartridges had been drawn! His teeth closed with a snap at the treachery of it, and with his left hand he pulled back one of the levers—that which should arouse the jailers, turnkeys and guards. Instead of the insistent clangor which ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... overseers, who are continually moving around among them, on the watch for delinquencies of all kinds. Some of these minor potentates are white and some black. As a rule, Mr. Young gives the blacks the preference and on strictly business principles, too. "The colored men have more snap, and can get more work out of their own people," he says. By means of these sub- overseers, large numbers can be transferred from one part of the ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... of the trip. Florian had answered Jessie's eleven thousandth question about things of which he was quite, quite ignorant. His brain felt queer and tight, as though something were about to snap. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... himself, so as to be sure and not miss a word of it, when going at this tremendous pace, and as usual, without looking in front, but blundering onwards, he flew with his whole force against a post. His body, crushed by the impetus of its own weight, rebounded with a snap, and he fell disabled and insensible to ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... seem quite to realize," he writes in the letter before me, "that uniformity of pace leads inevitably to languor. You should deliver a pistol-shot or two. Remember Philippa is a fiery girl; she can snap. If only for variety, she should snap James' head off when she says, 'Do I speak as ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... of seconds now. Any instant she might hear the snap, and see the one who was giving his life for her quiver and become still. No longer hesitating, she flew at them with the blade raised high and poised herself for the stroke. Yet she could not send it. Again she tried, and a sob of rage burst ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... the newly-hatched ducklings almost entails such a result to a certainty." The wild ducklings were from the first quite tame towards those who took care of them as long as they wore the same clothes, and likewise to the dogs and cats of the house. They would even snap with their beaks at the dogs, and drive them away from any spot which they coveted. But they were much alarmed at strange men and dogs. Differently from what occurred in Sweden, Mr. Hewitt found that his young birds always changed and deteriorated in character in the course of two or ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... sharp the link of life will snap, And dead on air will stand Heels that held up as straight a chap ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... other—the two cords that soonest knit A fast and stubborn tie; your true love knot Is nothing to it. Faugh! the supple touch Of pliant interest, or the dust of time, Or the pin-point of temper, loose or rot Or snap love's silken band. Fear and old hate, They are sure weavers—they work for the storm, The whirlwind, and the rocking surge; their knot Endures ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... nothing of such things; I have never had anything to do with them, and I am certainly not going to begin now, and with you." He gathered up the papers impatiently, thrust them back into the pocketbook, which he closed with a snap, and seeing Pilar standing there like a disappointed child balked of a surprise, he added: "However, I am grateful for the suggestion, as it helps me out of a dilemma. I was at a loss in what form to put what I must say to you—you have helped me in the nick of time. Pilar," ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... not a sign was to be seen, and at dusk I stood alone, faint and broken, amongst the ruins of my ancestors' home. As I looked at this scene of desolation and I contrasted what had been my life twenty-four hours before and what it was then, something seemed to snap in my brain, and for the first time I cried. Oh! the blessed relief of those tears, my Karl, for I was a poor weak, helpless girl, and alone with death and bitterness all round me. Late that night I hid once more in my hay-loft and ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... nice, you know, Vixen," said Roderick critically, as Titmouse made a greedy snap at an apple, and was repulsed with a gentle pat on his nose, "but it can't go on for ever. What'll you do when you are ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... scarcely regained their composure and silence when, "snap!" went a dry stick. The sharp sound sent a thrill through the hearts of the boys, and instantly they became rigidly watchful. Not a leaf could move on the ground now—not a bush might bend or a bird pass and escape being seen by the four sharp eyes ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... been a wife and a mother for fifteen years, to be snuffed out at one snap of the marital snuffers. As Mr. Skratdj leaned forward in his chair, she leaned forward in hers, and defended ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Betsy Snap was a withered, hard-favoured, yellow old woman—our only domestic—always employed, at this time of the morning, in rubbing my uncle's legs. As my uncle adjured her to look at me, he put his lean grip on the crown of her head, she kneeling beside him, and turned her face towards me. An involuntary ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... said Lois, briefly, closing her lips with a snap, as if to keep the blood out of ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... not forgiven the girls for laughing at his overset on the toboggan slide the night before. And as he sat whistling "Good Night, Ladies" in a dreadful minor, he evolved such a plan for reprisal in his fertile mind that his eyes began to snap and he could hardly whistle for the grin that ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... was on my neck to get him out of the thing. I must do it! I must not let them harm him! And all that kind of thing. She seems to think that I've got a heavy drag with the police, and all there is for me to do is to snap my fingers and they'll sit up and perform. I tried to persuade her that this was a dream; but I couldn't convince her. And the result was that I had to promise to see her right away." Bat looked dolefully at his friend. "I'm on my way there now," he said, "and I ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... town; and as for Glycera, she behaved confoundedly ill to me. Well, well, now that we understand each other, it is for ever that our hearts are united, and we can look at Sir Cresswell Cresswell, and snap our fingers at his wig. But this Maria of the last century was a woman of an ill-regulated mind. You, my love, who know the world, know that in the course of this lady's career a great deal must have passed that would not ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Long point. Withdraw. On guard. Rest. Now, when I snap my fingers I want to see you come to the high port and get roun' me like lightning. Some of you men seem to be treatin' this bizness in a light-'earted way. We don't do this work to prevent you gettin' into mischief. Not much. Wotjer join the army for? ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... head ached appallingly, and she looked at the clock-hands nearing five with a feeling that she could bear the sounds of building so long and no longer. If they lasted a single minute beyond that time something inside her head would snap. Knock—knock—knock; scrape—scrape; the thud of something thrown down. She felt her breath coming fast as she waited for the moment when her aching senses would be lulled by the cessation of it all—when she would rest on a ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... street boys followed in groups at their heels making the air ring with shrill "Vive's." There were not many of them, only three companies. The men looked trim and clean-cut. They were tall and husky-looking and the snap with which they walked was good to the eyes of old Paris ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... appendix. The press chap appeared wholly receptive to my views, and, after securing details of my plan to smarten Red Gap with a restaurant of real distinction, he asked so civilly for a photographic portrait of myself that I was unable to refuse him. The thing was a snap taken of me one morning at Chaynes-Wotten by Higgins, the butler, as I stood by his lordship's saddle mare. It was not by any means the best likeness I have had, but there was a rather effective bit of background ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... invention, though in his Life of Cicero Plutarch refers to the orator's nicknames, 'Grecian' and 'scholer,' due to his ability to "declaim in Greek." Cicero had a sharp, agile tongue, and was fond of using it; and nothing was more natural than that he should snap off some keen, sententious sayings, prudently veiling them, however, in a foreign language from all but those who might safely understand them.—/Greek to me./ 'Greek,' often 'heathen Greek,' was a common Elizabethan expression for unintelligible speech. In Dekker's Grissil (1600) occurs ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... variety of lap-dog, and among them the tiniest little Italian greyhound,—not more than eight inches long. This last was like a porcelain toy dog, and looked brittle, as if its thin legs would snap if much handled. I did not think it a pretty pet; it seemed too fragile to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, V. 5, April 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... day because I must," he would assure her gayly; "but, I tell you, the snap is gone out of it. When there was a chance that every cap was YOUR cap, the mere progress along a corridor became thrilling." He had a foreign trick of throwing out his hands, with a little shrug of the shoulders. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his jaws with a snap, and strode off. I'm sorry he should take the matter to heart so seriously. We ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... first, at least—but she could wear away a stone in the end, as you know. The arranging of this place is still amusing her, so she may decide to spend a good deal of time here. She closed her mouth with that firm snap this morning that I have described to you often, and said that it was going to be her delight to make them put themselves out and come so far away from London for her. "Them," for the moment, are Mr. Derringham and Mr. Hanbury-Green, almost a Socialist person, who is on the other side—very brilliantly ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... more shingles jump and flee, and this time a clammy hand slaps your face. It is only the wing of a bat, fluttering in dismay from his crevice. Blow after blow you drive upon this board from beneath, till all the nails are loose, its shingle-fetters outside snap, and with a surge it rises, to fall grating down the roof, and land with a crash on the grass by the ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... one can believe the weather bureau." Here Hawkins allowed "Bleak House" to drop listlessly into his lap while he indulged in a moment or two of retrospection. "Let's see; that was said to have been the deadliest cold snap Chicago has ever known. Scores of people were frozen to death on the streets and many of them in their homes. I hope there is no one so luckless as to be homeless tonight. The hardiest man would be helpless. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... did you ever hear a flock of Union Square sparrows chirp faster than them fellers is talkin' now? Nix. You go into the village gay with these Schwabs by the sewer line, I guess." Truxton pricked up his ears. "The old man has had a hole chopped in the sewer here, they tell me, and it's a snap to get into the city. Not very clean or neat, but it gets you there. Well, so long! They're ready, I see. They don't monkey long when they've got a thing to do. I'd advise you not to be too stubborn when they ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... warned me with a fierce growl not to touch it. The snow melted, the season changed, and I was standing in mud and mire up to my neck. Ropes were tied around me, and horses were hitched to them to drag me from the deeps, but in trying to draw me out the ropes would snap asunder and I was left imbedded in the clay. They could not move me, because Christ had commanded me to stand there. A little while before the break of day the Savior appeared and told me to go. I started to run, but when I got alongside the ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... coming! How the spray from their oars glittered in the sun, and how their wake lengthened with every stroke! No spectator from the shore (if there had been any) could have doubted that the boat was in pursuit of the skiff, and would snap it up presently. Rolf saw that he had five determined foes gaining upon him every instant; and yet he was not alarmed. He had had his reasons for thinking himself safe near Vogel islet; and calculating for a moment the time of the tide, he was quite at his ease. As he took his ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... the curse of God follow every last one of you till you are damned in a fiery hell! You will kill me now, but you won't be rid of me. I'll haunt you every one to your graves. I will follow you night and day till your brains snap and you go howling to hell ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... to guess—never effective. Yet he was moving toward that tumult; as inexorably as death, he approached it. With eyes feeding upon this new world and ears startled by fierce rumblings, he felt as though he were living in a nightmare; and when the next minute threatened to snap his reason or strangle his frantically pounding heart, he turned to the driver, asking—but fearful ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... inoffensive snap, and Rex frowned. But he had not the slightest intention of relinquishing his purpose. With incredible coolness, he went to a corner of the room and took a box of perfectly fresh cartridges from the drawer where ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... Mark could have pleaded: 'At such a moment I would do anything to oblige you—except this, and this I really can't do. Forgive me.' Such amenities would possibly have eased the cord which was about to snap; but the idea of regarding Edward's condition as a factor in the case did not suggest itself favourably to the grim Beechinor stock, so stern, harsh, and rude. The sick man wiped from his sunken features the sweat which continually gathered there. Then ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... earth seemed to close with a snap around his brain. The next moment, they had receded an immeasurable distance, and in limitless wastes of exhausted being he stood alone. What time had passed when he came to himself he had not an idea; ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... two stood silent for a time. The wind murmured above in the maples, lazily, ominously. Then the gate clicked, with a vicious snap that pierced the silence like the report of a distant rifle. "That is probably Ned," she said wearily. "I had forgotten they close the barrooms earlier on Saturday nights. So good-bye, Bobbie. You—you may ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... reptile, against whom the whole country should rise to tear him in pieces. And I look round and see the same feeling written in the eyes of them all. I found it more hard to get used to that than to the snap of a pistol; but I have got used to it. Poor Florian will have had no such experience. And there will be no mercy shown to him because he is only a boy. Neither sex nor age is supposed to render any such feeling necessary to a lawyer. A lawyer in defending the worst ruffian that ever committed ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... catfish as long as my arm (forearm), jumped out jest a flopping. Well the catfish had a big belly too, so we beat 'em on his belly until he opened his mouth and out came one of these women's snapper pocketbooks. You know the kind that closes by a snap at the top. Well the pocket book was swelling all out, so we opened it, and guess what was in it? Two big copper pennies. I gave my cousin one and I took one. Now you mayn't believe that, but it's true. I been trying to make people believe that for near fifty years. You can put it in the ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... then an awful explosion, which hurled Dymond to the ground, and, as he fell, Newman's words seemed to run through his head: "I wish as 'ow we was a bit closer to the devils so that they couldn't shell us." He was aware of a moment's acute terror, then something in his brain seemed to snap and everything that followed was vague, for Captain ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... the girl. "I'm the only one who knows how to take a decent picture, so I have always had to be left out. I got tired of it and bought an attachment so I can snap the thing and be in it at ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... and vanishes again for revolving years, is more gazed upon than either? But I am afraid the comet is too sublime an idea for your lordship's comprehension. I would therefore recommend to you, to make the cracker the model of your conduct. You should snap and bounce at regular intervals; at one moment you should seem a blazing star, and the next be lost ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... corpse,—"Abide, abide—happy thou that mayest—the vision is not yet ended." So saying, he reared himself from the ground, drew back from the threshold on which he had hitherto lain prostrate, and closed the door of the chapel, which, secured by a spring bolt within, the snap of which resounded through the place, appeared so much like a part of the living rock from which the cavern was hewn, that Kenneth could hardly discern where the aperture had been. He was now alone in the lighted chapel which contained the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... surprised. "Fit us all to that cramped prison-pallet! Oh lor! It may suit a few stumpies, but England holds more. Might as well fit us out with fixed 'duds' from our birth. Regardless of difference in growth, or in girth. No! Snap-votes may be caught 'midst a Congress's roar, But tool us all down to one gauge, mate? ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... metallic snap of fresh cartridges as Pelliter slipped them into the chamber of his rifle, but beyond that sound, the wind, and the straining of the huskies there was no other. A grim silence fell behind. The roar of the distant ice ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... voices affect us like music, Some voices arouse to action and ambition. Some voices fill you with despondency. Some voices irritate like a buzz-saw. Some voices snap like turtles, and some hiss ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... and the racing driver who is striving for new records on specially built tracks. If aeronautics is to be made popular, every one must be able to take part in it. It must cease to be a highly specialized business. It must be put on a basis where the ordinary person can snap the flying wires of a machine, listen to their twang, and know them to be true, just as any one now thumps his rear tire to see whether ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... handles two lines, and when the fishing is good he is kept busy hauling in and striking off the fish until his arms ache, and the tough skin on his hands is nearly chafed through. Sometimes the hooks are baited with bits of clam or porgy, though usually the mackerel, when biting at all, will snap with avidity at a naked hook, if tinned so as to shine in the water. Mr. Nordhoff, whose reminiscences of life on a fishing boat I have already quoted, describes this method of fishing and its ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... common in our own lives we do not notice them, which may be but the illusions of this spirit of darkness showing as a fictitious spirit of light: Hurry and carelessness both in thought and in action; snap-judgment at short range; compromise with the spirit of the time in the interest of "good business," "practical considerations" or "sound policy"; worship of the doctrine of "get results," acceptance of the horrible principle: that it is every man's business to "sell" something ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... but he volunteered nothing further, having again bent over his search. For several minutes we watched in silence. Then he sat up with a snap, as a steel ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... the mistake of estimating Stover simply by his lack of weight, without taking account of the nervous, dynamic energy which was his strength. Consequently, at the snap of the ball, he was taken by surprise by the wild spring that Stover made directly at his throat and, thrown off his balance momentarily by the frenzy of the impact, tripped and went down under the triumphant Dink, who, unmindful of the fact that the play had gone by, remained proudly fixed ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... his account, you'll not be," replied Alice with a snap, and it is likely that moment ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... of low class, especially when they are as ignorant as possible. Then again, we are well represented on the Poor Law Board, which really has all the power, attending as it does to sanitation and so forth. The Nationalists greedily snap at every shred and semblance of power, and leave no stone unturned to get the mastery. There has come a sad change over the poor folks, that is, the Roman Catholics. Formerly they were civil and kind, and we all got on famously together. If a Protestant was out in the country a mile or ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... tree big enough to hold more than nine of them. The record of the story is now obscure, but the horrid tale goes on to relate that the lion gave a frightful roar and leaped upon the tenth man, biting him to death in a single snap. The dilemma of the others is obvious. They knew better than to disturb a lion while it is eating. To do so would be to court sudden death. So they sat still and watched the beast slowly and greedily devour their comrade. Having finished his meal the great beast, surfeited with food, slowly moved ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... the shadow of a big rock near a deep, dark, cool pool. And when his wide-open shiny eye saw a little fly fall on the top of the water, he would flip his slippery, shiny tail and wave his slippery, shiny fins and dart out and up and—snap! he'd have the fly inside him! Then like a shiny streak he'd quietly slip back to the ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... Southner a guidin, controllin, and directin the machine, and assoomin to hisself the places uv honor, and the Dimokrat uv the North follerin, like a puppy dog, at his heels, takin sich fat things ez he cood snap up; the Southerner ashamed uv his associations, but forced to yoose em; the Northerner uncomfortable in his presence, but tied to him by self-interest. I saw a comin back the good old times when thirty-four States ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... justify his West Indian character. An "ancient mariner" told us, that full forty miles from Syracuse, a shark, which had been following him for a long time, thrust his head suddenly out of the water, and made a snap at him; and if the boat had not been a thunny boat, high in the sides, there is no saying how much of him might have been extant! A pair of trousers drying in the sun over the side of the boat should have small ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... entered his mind. It seemed though as if all the elements of nature were conspiring to facilitate the flight of the hunter and himself. The sentinels, whose dusky figures they were yet able to see, moved sleepily up and down. No dead wood that would break with a snap thrust itself before their feet. The wilderness opened ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... have no doubt that it was the sound of the constable's fall. West's pipe had gone out, and he struck a match to relight it. As he did so, Marden saw him drop the match, clench both fists, and with eyes glaring in the moonlight and his teeth coming together with a snap, drop from his chair. ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... cork and smell like cheese. It has to be cleaned, passed through a machine that tears it into bits, then between rollers before it is ready to be manufactured. It is not elastic like rubber; it may be stretched; but it will not snap back again as rubber does. It is a remarkably good nonconductor of electricity, and therefore it has been generally used to protect ocean cables, though recently rubber has been taking its place. It makes particularly excellent casts, for when it is warm ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... but to kindle it to decisive consecration and self-surrender. The loving look interprets the severe words. If once we meet it full, and our hearts yield to the heart that is seen in it, the cords that bind us snap, and it is no more hard to 'count all things but loss,' and to give up ourselves, that we may follow Him. The sad and feeble and weary who may be half despairingly seeking for alleviation of outward ills, and the young and strong and ardent whose souls are fed with high desires, have but ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... I'll give ye a sup of milk with it." Up she gets with the tow-cards and the tailor with the goose, and the two 'prentices, the one with the big shears, and the other with the lawbrod; but it dodged them, and ran round about the fire; and one of the 'prentices, thinking to snap it with the shears, fell into the ashes. The tailor cast the goose, and the goodwife the tow-cards; but it wouldn't do. The bannock ran away, and ran till it came to a wee house at the roadside; and in it runs and there was a weaver sitting at the loom, and the wife winding ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... for letters, writes of her disappointment in not finding one from Susy. The reports from Quarry Farm had been cheerful, and there had been small snap-shot photographs which were comforting, but her mother heart could not be entirely satisfied that Susy did not send letters. She had a vague fear that some trouble, some illness, had come to Susy which made her ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... to Sicily, and fill up there with corn. You will have to use care before entering port, for with war now certain, both parties will begin to snap up prizes when they get the chance. So you must keep a sharp lookout for Genoese galleys. If you find the coast is too closely watched, you will go to the Moorish ports. We are friends with them at present, though doubtless, as soon ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... which were old stagers and knew the words of command far better than their riders, started at the beginning of the note; and before the call had well ended the brisk impressive 'Halt!' would snap across it like a pistol-shot. 'Pick up Sullivan, somebody!' The luckless man, after more than three months' lessons, came to me one morning in triumph and told me with a broad grin, 'I didn't fall, off the day,' He was recognised from the first as incorrigible, ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... Delaney, and she was not overly cordial. Marjorie tried to remember that Miss Randall had appointed her to her position, that the right to play was hers; but the unfriendly players made her nervous, and she lost her usual snap and daring. The second week's practice came, and she resolved to play up to her usual form, but, try as she might, she fell far short of the promise she had shown at the tryout. She also noted uneasily that, no matter how early she reported for practice, the ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... when he came again she did try, holding out as inducements why he should be married the night before starting for Boston, the "white hen, turkey, the 'lection cake, and the gay old times the young folks would have playing snap-and-catchem; or if they had a mind, they could dance a bit in the kitchen. She didn't believe in it, to be sure—none of the orthodox did; but as Wilford was a 'Piscopal, and that was a 'Piscopal quirk, it wouldn't ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... with a snap, and turned his chair towards the fire. When his friend sat one evening in that very chair, and told his story, Clarke had interrupted him at a point a little subsequent to this, had cut short his words in a paroxysm of horror. "My God!" he ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... previous day, Sunday, at two o'clock, as the Queen and the Prince were driving home from the Chapel Royal, St. James's, in passing along the Mall, near Stafford House, amidst a crowd of bowing, cheering spectators, the Prince saw a man step out and present a pistol at him. He heard the trigger snap, but the pistol missed fire. The Queen, who had been bowing to the people on the opposite side, neither saw nor heard anything. On reaching the Palace the Prince questioned the footmen in attendance, but neither ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... had paused when he did, leaned on the pusher of her go-cart, studying him calmly. Chewing something with a slow, rotary movement of the lips and chin, she broke the action with a snap before quite completing the circle, to begin all over again. "Oh, you do, do you?" was her ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... us much harm. The only person who might make it disagreeable is Lord Blackadder, and I snap my ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... his mistress, who, turning round as she sat on my body, made the manacle at the end of the chain fast round my ankle. This went with a snap-spring, which could not be opened without a key belonging to it. At last she rose off my body, and I could breathe free. She then ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... straw"— That "the ills of a bachelor's life Are blisses compared with a mother-in-law, And a boarding-school miss for a wife!" So he smokes, and he drinks, and he jokes and he winks, And he dines, and he wines all alone, With a thumb ever ready to snap as he thinks Of the comforts he never ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... thy weapon," quoth Robin. "I would take no vantage of thee. Thy sword cannot stand against an oaken staff such as mine. I could snap it like a barley straw. Yonder is a good oaken thicket by the roadside; take thee a cudgel thence and defend thyself fairly, if thou hast a taste for ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... key of the cellarette from its hiding-place in my shoe bag and was mixing himself what he called a Bernard Shaw—a foundation of brandy and soda, with a little of everything else in sight to give it snap. Now that I saw him clearly, he looked weary and grimy. I hated to tell him what I knew he was waiting to hear, but there was no use wading in by inches. I ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... horror and affright, His unoffending hair rent; 330 Whene'er with handkerchief on lap, He made his elbow-chair a trap, To catch an after-dinner nap, The spirits, always on the tap, Would make a sudden rap, rap, rap, The half-spun cord of sleep to snap, (And what is life without its nap But threadbareness and mere mishap?) 338 As 'twere with a percussion cap The trouble's climax capping; It seemed a party dried and grim Of mummies had come to visit him, Each getting off from every limb Its multitudinous wrapping; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... be drawn into an argument this time, and Eleanor decided that it must be something important, indeed, when Bob would not snap back at her. There had been times at home when Barbara had secrets that she feared others to share, then she would keep ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... places in Lancashire some ten or twelve years back, but is now, I believe, obsolete. The horse was played in a similar way, but the performer was then called "Old Balls." It is no doubt a vestige of the old "hobby-horse,"—as the Norwich "Snap," who kept his place in the procession of the mayor of that good city till the days of municipal reform, was the last representative ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... a world fate should befall England. The trees do not grow up to heaven. England, through her criminal Government, has stretched the bow too tight, and so it will snap." ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... street to gather up microbes and all sorts of defilement; girls who don't wear a high hat to the theatre, or lacerate their feet with high heels and endanger their health with corsets; girls who will wear what is pretty and becoming and snap their fingers at the dictates of fashion when fashion is horrid and silly. And we want good girls,—girls who are sweet, right straight out from the heart to the lips; innocent and pure and simple girls, with less knowledge of sin and duplicity and evil-doing at twenty than ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... garment—a quivering little aggregation of bones and blood-vessels, with a lean, lipless, high-cheeked face, its pale surface splashed with freckles; green eyes, red-rimmed, the lashes sparse and white; wide, restless nostrils. "Brethren," said he, with a snap of the teeth, his bony hand clinched and shaking above his gigantic head, "con-vict 'em! Anyhow. In any way. By any means. Save 'em! That's what we want in the church. Beloved," he proceeded, his voice dropping to a hissing whisper, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... in her arms, while the tears ran down her cheeks. He was such a beautiful baby, so strong and fair and healthy; but the king's order was that he was to be thrown into the river, where the cruel, hungry crocodiles were waiting to snap up everything they could find for a meal. Jochebed, the poor mother, held her baby closer in her arms. No, she could not obey the king's order. She would try and hide the baby for a little while, at ...
— The Babe in the Bulrushes • Amy Steedman
... remark that when the cock is down, a heavy blow on its back, nay, even the jar caused by the gun falling on the ground, will cause the cap to explode. Again if the cock catch against the dress, or against A twig, it is liable to be lifted, when, on being released, it will snap down upon the cap. When a gun is at half-cock, the first of these accidents obviously cannot occur; and, as to the second, if the cock be pulled back and let drop, it falls, not down upon the cap, but to half-cock again, except only in the case where the trigger is also pressed ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... close with a snap around his brain. The next moment, they had receded an immeasurable distance, and in limitless wastes of exhausted being he stood alone. What time had passed when he came to himself he had not an idea; it might have been hours for anything his consciousness was able to tell ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... whittle. Captain Joe probably wants the trade to go through as much as Matthew does. But the whittling keeps his hands and eyes busy, and steadies his nerves. It gives him a chance to look as if he didn't care a snap about it." ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... a careful search of the area I found precisely nothing. You who may read this will probably laugh, but I cannot. To me this is no laughing matter. I find myself jumping at the slightest noise, an increase in the wind, the snap of an expanding hull plate, the crackle of static over my radio. I whirl around to see who, or what, is watching me. My skin crawls and prickles as though I were covered with ants. My mind is filled with black, inchoate dread. In three words, I'm ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... instant her heart thrilled with an unutterably sweet hope. Might he not forget in time? Need she snap in twain the weakened bond between them after all? Perhaps she might win back her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Ancestral Tablets and goats propagate within his neglected tomb!" chanted the band in unison. "May the sinews of his hams snap suddenly in moments of achievement! May the principles of his warmth and cold never be properly ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... did so. The pistol was not jerked from his hand this time, but before he could snap it Ohnimus had thrown a coil around his neck and pulled his pistol hand up over his shoulder. In another instant a second coil was around the reporter's body, and both arms were fastened firmly to his sides. He could not move that pistol an inch. No clearer demonstration of the use of the lasso ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... direction for you at full length, for fear of a mistake. And be sure you take care of your spelling, Aby, or I don't know what may happen. For I am told that many of these French people are devilish illiterate, and I am sure they are devilish cunning. Snap! They answer before they hear you! And, what is odd enough, their answers are sometimes as pat as if they knew your meaning. Indeed I have often thought it strange that your low poor people should be so acute, and have so much common sense. But do ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... cord, momentarily drawn tense, was relaxed with a snap, and the last smoky spark was ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... was well aware that he referred to Neale O'Neil. He had come for Neale. He threatened to beat Neale with every snap of his heavy riding whip along the leg of his shiny boots. He was ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... chandeliers, and plaqueing with yellow the muscles of some sculptured figure. In a corner a burning taper put a halo about the head of a priest, burnishing his shining bald skull, his white surplice, and the open book before him. "Amen" he chanted; the book was closed with a snap, the light moved up the apse, some dark figures of women rose from their knees and passed quickly towards the door; a man saying his prayers before a chapel also got up, making a great clatter ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... Art with Ruskin, and for a very good reason,—he knows nothing about it. Bobbie would not have cared a snap about his Turners, though he would have been greatly reverent of them for their owner's sake. But Bobbie would have enjoyed tramping over the mountains with him, an eager and alert listener to all his talks about geology and clouds, and ten to one Bobbie would ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... flung it proudly back, with such a blaze of indignation and scorn in her dark eyes I felt withered under it. The scarlet curve of her lips fell away to disclose two rows of pearly teeth, close set, and through them, with a vicious snap, ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... finding my little bark in the midst of a shoal of enormous sharks. If I came in contact with one of them, I was lost, for the frail boat would certainly be upset, and as Jackson had assured me, if ever I allowed these monsters to come near enough, one snap of their jaws, and there would be an end of the Little Savage. I thought of the warning of Mrs Reichardt, and was inclined to think I had better have taken her advice, and remained in the fishing-pool; nevertheless, I went on as quietly and deliberately as possible, exercising all my ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sultry; all was still; The sun like flashing glass; And snip-snap my light-whispering steel In arcs of ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... If such publications are justifiable, then are we, indeed, at the tender mercy of the Abolitionist, and the sooner we make terms of capitulation with him the better. What does he propose for the slave? Immediate emancipation. In one instant the chains of the slave must snap asunder. Without delay, and without preparation, he becomes a citizen, a legislator, goes to the polls, and appoints our rulers. If this be the plan, then am I ready, as the opposite counsel expresses it, to seek refuge in other ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... a great one for riddles, too, only he asked such hard ones—such as why does the ginger snap, and what makes the board walk?—that none of the children could ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... true; for it happened that when he was a little boy, his mother had taken him down to the side of a river where she had some washing to do, and while she was not looking the urchin waded in, and a crocodile made a snap at him. Fortunately it failed to catch him, but its sharp teeth grazed his thigh, and left a mark which he never ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... watching us. I noticed his tracks some distance back, and also noticed that just before we reached this point they turned abruptly into the underbrush. As we stood looking down that hole, I heard a twig snap, and knew he was close at hand. I thought I might surprise him, but, as I said, he was too quick for me, and I only caught a flying glimpse ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... cried the Guard, shutting the window with a snap, so that Rogers never knew whether the missing word used to be 'expire' or 'perspire'; 'and go on to your proper place on the tender.' Then she turned quickly to fix her big blue eyes upon the next comer. And how they did come, to be sure! There was the Gypsy, the Creature ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... do is put out a real scorcher or a continued cold snap, and I can drive off the boards the biggest news story that was ever launched or draw the teeth out of the ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... much about anything but church services and getting people to give money. Honestly, now, Cloudy Jewel, I think they're putting it over on you. I'll bet not half of them are sincere in that sacrifice stuff they put over. It may have been so long ago; but ministers have a pretty soft snap ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... shake their bells of office, they set up their backs like the Great Cat Rodilardus, and pounce upon men and things. Woe to any little heedess reptile of an author that ventures across their path without a safe-conduct from the Board of Control. They snap him up at a mouthful, and sit licking their lips, stroking their whiskers, and rattling their bells over the imaginary fragments of their devoted prey, to the alarm and astonishment of the whole breed of literary, philosophical, and revolutionary ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Twickenham with which you fell in love, is still unmarried; but they ask a hundred and thirty pounds a-year for it. If they asked one hundred and thirty thousand pounds for it, perhaps my Lord Clive might snap it up; but that not being the case, I don't doubt but it will fall, and I flatter myself, that you and it may meet at last upon reasonable terms. That of General Trapaud is to be had at fifty pounds ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... allow Donnelly his claim on those hams, though I was dead sure our weights were right, and it cost the house sixty dollars. But your fool letter took all the snap out of our argument. I get hot every time I ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... awoke with a guilty start. "A fine sentry you make," said Morey caustically. "Can't even keep awake when all you have to do is sit here and see that we don't run into anything. We've gone more than our million light years already, and we're still going strong. Come on—snap out of it!" ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... geographic distribution of the brush mouse in the state, 15 localities, chosen on the basis of suitable habitat, were investigated by means of snap-trapping in the winter and spring of 1959, spring of 1960, and winter and spring of 1961. Variation in specimens obtained by me and in other specimens in the Museum of Natural History, The University of Kansas, was analyzed. Captive mice ...
— Natural History of the Brush Mouse (Peromyscus boylii) in Kansas With Description of a New Subspecies • Charles A. Long
... to keep me. If it came to a measure of wills, he would win, I think—at first, at least—but she could wear away a stone in the end, as you know. The arranging of this place is still amusing her, so she may decide to spend a good deal of time here. She closed her mouth with that firm snap this morning that I have described to you often, and said that it was going to be her delight to make them put themselves out and come so far away from London for her. "Them," for the moment, are Mr. Derringham and Mr. Hanbury-Green, almost a Socialist person, who is on the other side—very brilliantly ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... blooming rose conceals an asp, And bliss coquetting flies the grasp: And, waking up, snap goes the slight Poor cord that held my foolish kite,— Your slave, you may not care to know it, Your humble ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... slight rains moisten them, and the Sun shines upon them, and little slender shoots spring up and grow;—and what a miracle is the mere growth!—the force, the power, the capacity by which the little feeble shoot, that a small worm can nip off with a single snap of its mandibles, extracts from the earth and air and water the different elements, so learnedly catalogued, with which it increases in stature, and rises ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the garden with its army of children and nurses, leaning on my stick with halting step, how I regret my General's cocked hat, my paper plume, my wooden sword and my pistol. My pistol that would snap caps and was the ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... so stiff around the gills about it," said the lady, with a snap of her luminous eyes and a startling gyration of her umbrella. "Business is what I've come for. I want your opinion in the matter of a suit for divorce, as the vulgar would call it, but which is really only the readjustment ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... I took up the sewing an my lap and made a few stitches. "Tell me some more of your mother's garden. Did she have winter pinks and bachelor's buttons and snap-dragons and hollyhocks in it? I used to hate grandmother's hollyhocks. They were ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... opposite box, where she got just a glimpse of a grey dress in the misty depths of the box, the whiteness of a gloved hand lying upon the box's edge—"Count Poltavo is the only interesting man in London. He is a genius." She shut her lorgnette with a snap. "It delights me to talk with him. He smiles and murmurs gay witticisms and quotes Talleyrand and Lucullus, and all the while, in the back of his head, quite out of reach, his real opinions of you are being tabulated and ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... afforded I saw that the two men were fighting for possession. One was full length on the ground, the other crouched over him and upon him with a knife in his teeth, but so intent upon his murderous design that he had no eyes for me. I came quite close, made a sudden snap at the knife, and plunged it with all my force into the neck of the topmost. It drove right through him and pierced his victim; I think they must have died at once, for except for one horrible gasping snort I heard ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... lighting up her face, and her hair falling about her. He stretched out his hand and put it on her arm, as if to make sure that it was not a dream, and with the touch of his fingers something seemed to snap. A great wave of colour flooded her face, spreading down to her neck, and she began to shake uncontrollably. He bent over her, whispering in her ear, and suddenly she put both her arms round his neck. And then like a little child ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... This Donaldson insisted would take too much time, but he was finally induced to allow eight of the sixteen to be renewed. While giving his customary trapeze performance high above the housetops the old cords began to snap, and before he could bring the balloon down every one of them had parted—a startling intimation of how ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... flower that isn't blooming, and, owing to the rain last night, the dust is laying. As for the sun—there couldn't be a more shining one, and the sky is a blue so gorgeous that it seems heaven turned inside out, and in the air is the snap of coolness that makes one want to walk and walk and walk, and its crispness means fall is coming. I love the fall. I can't think of anything I do not love to-day except Elizabeth Hamilton Carter and Grandmother Brandon, and I don't exactly abhor them. I just don't like them, and prefer ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... whisper is backed by a thousand-dollar reward," Carson agreed. "If he really pays up it'll wreck Lang's little snap ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... take his load and saddle off and bend the iron closer together again, so as to preserve some semblance of an arch or rather two arches over his back, one before and one behind his hump. Every time Nicholls and I went through this operation we were afraid the iron would give, and snap in half with our pressure, and so it would have done but that the fiery rays of the sun kept it almost at a glowing heat. This and the nose ropes and buttons getting so often broken, together with making new buttons from pieces of stick, caused us ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... to me of pride. That is all right for you. If my father had left me a house in the Kochstrasse, I would snap my fingers at everyone, and go my own way, as it pleased me best. Or put it the other way round, if you were the middle son in a Brandenburg family of nine, I tell you that you would attribute a certain importance to seeking the favor of influential people. You would become as frivolous as ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.—The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake and spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers, the crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda,—these are in the system, and our habits are like theirs. You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... room it was, large and bright, and sunny, and furnished so tastefully. The canaries were singing blithely; the Persian kitten was rolled up into a furry ball on the rug; a small Skye terrier, who I afterwards discovered went by the name of Snap, was keeping guard over me from a nest of cushions on the big couch opposite. Now and then he growled to himself softly, as though remonstrating against my intrusion, but whenever I spoke to him gently, he sat up and begged, so I imagined his ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... to this, Mr. Greeley arose and made a most admirable short speech ending with these words, given in his rapid falsetto, with a sort of snap that made the whole seem like one word: "When-the-people-take-up-their- ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... our conversations now that are used so often that they seem to be in some danger of losing their meaning. The snap goes out of them by too much handling, like an elastic band which has been stretched too far. One of these is ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... the butter-dish to await his secretary's arrival and turned methodically to The Times. Half-an-hour later he rang for his housekeeper and subjected her book to scrutiny. A leather-bound journal with a snap-lock lay on his table, and he next wrote his diary for the previous day. "So to dinner—rather late—with Lady Poynter to meet her nephew, Capt. Gaymer (R. F. C). Mrs. O'Rane (as beautiful as ever, but too voluble for my taste), Mrs. Shelley and Lady ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... something just short of a revolution to wake up the sleepy little town of Miltonville. Through the slow, hot days it drowsed along like a lazy dog, only half rousing now and then to snap at some flying rumour, and relapsing at once ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... her pencil came off with a snap. I heard it, but I was afraid to look. "Do you? How very odd!" Her voice sounded queer, as if it had been squeezed dry of every sort ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... frames, and photographs of relations in frames which tried to look, and for the most part succeeded in looking, as if they had not cost fourpence three farthings at a Christmas bargain sale. There were snap-shots of various moving incidents in the careers of the Bishop and his friends: Marriott, for example, as he appeared when carried to the Pavilion after that sensational century against the Authentics: Robertson of Blaker's ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... Chester took a snap shot at the other craft with his revolver, but the bullet fell short. While the enemy could pepper them at will with his rifle, a bullet from the lad's revolver could ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... Pamela, "us haven't eaten as much as us can, Duke, for you know downstairs us could eat Grandmamma's treat. I could—I could snap it up in a minute, and the tea too, and yet I can't eat any more bread and milk!" and she gazed at the bowl with a puzzled as well as doleful expression. "I'm afraid—yes, I'm afraid, Duke, that us is dainty like Master Frederick ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... She is not independent; and so she must be guaranteed against his leaving her without bread and butter. I can support myself, and may shew Bob a clean pair of heels to-morrow, if I choose. Even if she has money of her own, she darent stick to her freedom for fear of society. I snap my fingers at society, and care as little about it as it cares about me; and I have no doubt she would be glad to do the same if she had the pluck. I confess I shouldnt like to make a regular legal bargain of going ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... dropped in to talk business with Charles, we found out afterwards that Medhurst had lain concealed all the time behind the curtain, and had taken short-hand notes of the whole conversation, as well as snap-shot photographs of the supposed sharper, by means of a kodak. If a fat old lady came to call upon Amelia, Medhurst was sure to be lurking under the ottoman in the drawing-room, and carefully observing, with all his eyes, whether or not she was really Mme. Picardet, ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... short, we are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils. But we shall preserve it; and our mass of weight and wealth on the good side is so great, as to leave no danger that force will ever be attempted against us. We have only to awake and snap the Lilliputian cords with which they have been entangling us during the first sleep which ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Peter's case, for after lunch he did not work as steadily as he had done in the morning hours. He was restless. Twice he pressed his lips, and started in to work very, very hard—and did it for a time. Then the restlessness would come on again. Presently he took to looking at his watch. Then he would snap it to, and go to work again, with a great determination in his face, only to look at the watch again before long. Finally he touched ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... forget, but she has not, and every fortnight she begins to sew her dress and I go over the mountains to give her peace; for each time she draws nearer to the end, and wears away more and more; and some day the thin blade will snap." ...
— Elsket - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... and it had four water-wings, for they could not be properly called fins; but what was little short of a miracle about the creature, happened after the head was cutted off, when, if a finger was offered to it, it would open its mouth and snap at it, and all this after the carcass was divided ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... it apparently failed, if eleven cellars choked up with debris and overgrown with burdocks are any indication of failure. The farm, however, was a good farm, as things go in New Hampshire, and Tobias Sewell, the son-in-law, could afford to snap his fingers at the traveling public if they came near enough—which ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... kept carefully covered up, and professed to suffer nothing from cold, having all the extra clothing of the party. It was luckily the last cold snap of the season, and with the sunrise of the next day, Sunday, the fifth day of their voyaging, the wind had given place to a calm, ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... going forward on every hand. The ship's dog, a curly-haired black retriever, lay on the clean deck in the sunshine stretched on his side, all four legs limp, save when, pestered beyond endurance, he whisked into a sitting position to snap at the all ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... direction of the village street. It was a vague, indefinite disturbance, brief, and upon it ensued a silence more marked than ever. Some minutes before, Smith had extinguished the lamp. In the darkness I heard his teeth snap sharply together. ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... frequently balancing one line of the couplet, or one half of a line, against the other. He had received the couplet from Dryden, but he polished it to a greater finish, emphasizing, on the whole, its character as a single unit by making it more consistently end-stopped. By this means he gained in snap and point, though for purposes of continuous narrative or exposition he increased the monotony and somewhat decreased the strength. Every reader must decide for himself how far the rimed couplet, in either Dryden's or Pope's use of it, is a proper medium for ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... between the two, or in fact of preserving the lighter lines at all, without over-emphasizing the darker portions, will not be very great. Delicate drawings can seldom be reproduced without giving a background tint all over, and this usually destroys the life and snap of the original. This is especially true of drawings upon reddish or yellowish paper, which on this account should be avoided if possible. It should be borne in mind that yellow and red photograph dark; ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Vol. 1, No. 7, - July, 1895 • Various
... and bind it far safer and surer. The rope is the sailor's proper weapon, and its use he understands better than all others. He knows at a glance, or by a touch, whether it be the thing for the purpose intended—whether it be too long or too short, too weak or too stout—whether it will stretch or snap, or if it will hold securely. He knows, as if by instinct, what sort of knot should be used for this, and what sort for the other—whether a "reef-knot" or a "bowline," a "diamond" or an "overend"—whether a "clove-hitch," a "clinch," ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... it with a snap of his fingers. "Got it!" he triumphed, and the two men turned square upon him. "They ran him to earth in Australia. That was the year I was there—'96. I got a snapshot of him ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... trying time of life. I don't know what to say for her. What I had designed was, that if any man of a genteel calling should offer, I would give her a little pretty portion, had God spared my life till then. But were she made independent, some idle fellow might snap her up; for she is very pretty: or if she should carry what you give her to her poor parents, as her duty would lead her to do, they are so unhappily involved, that a little matter would be nothing to them, and the poor girl might be to seek again. Perhaps Lady Davers will take her. But I wish ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... the small things, then," she said coldly. "It is well, for all our sakes, that you should occupy some position in the social world, but it is also well that you should remember that your position there is not worth a snap of the fingers as against the great things which you and I know of. What do these people matter, with their strange ideas of birth and position, their little social distinctions, which remind one of nothing so much as ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... are thrown on the pavement near him. He sits for a time gazing at them with his gold-rimmed eyes; then slowly creeps towards them, fixes his eyes on one of the worms bends his head a little towards it, then one hears a snap and the prey is taken. The act is so rapid that one can never see the tongue that has picked up the meal-worm—simply it is gone! The toad's eyes are tightly shut whilst he swallows the morsel, and then he turns ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... the whole world. They are represented in the United States by several species of sundew (Drosera), and the still more curious Venus's-flytrap (Dionaea) of North Carolina. The leaves of the latter are sensitive, and composed of two parts which snap together like a steel trap. If an insect lights upon the leaf, and touches certain hairs upon its upper surface, the two parts snap together, holding the insect tightly. A digestive fluid is secreted by glands upon ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... had no realization of the full might of the stream until he felt it around his body. The waters were fed from the snowfields on the dark peaks, and every nerve in his system seemed to snap and break in the first shock of immersion. But he quickly rallied, battling ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... Protestant institution, and talks of Toleration and Equal Rights, and calls the Duke of Tuscany a broth of a boy, and a light to illumine heretical darkness, don't talk this nonsense to please the outs or ins, for he don't care a snap of his finger for either of them, nor because he thinks it right, for it's plain he don't, seeing that he would fight till he'd run away before Maynooth should be sarved arter that fashion; but he ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... that I follow you up to your attic, and watch you and see you go to sleep, you need not blush or giggle or snap. I would not do you any harm; your eyes would plague me. And besides, I do not entirely fancy you. You are not fresh. You are boxed up too much. But I trust that some lusty careless fellow, regardless of consequences, looking not too far ahead, and following the will of his ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... verdict was not required at their hands. Had Mr. SOLOMON, the composer, conducted, he would have taken The Tiger away, and left the howlers to their howling. Since Saturday the piece has, I am informed, "gone" with what the Americans call a "snap." The music is charming. Mr. CHARLES COLNAGHI made his bow as a professional, and played and sang excellently, as did also Mr. J. G. TAYLOR, in spite of the riotous ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... broke out. There at the quiet little French inn everything suddenly changed color. It was quick, it was quiet. There was a complete change in the snap of a finger. All the chauffeurs and the porters and the waiters—men who had been there for years and with whom we who visit there Summer after Summer have grown familiar—suddenly stopped work, gave up their jobs, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... grass,—then a taking to wing again, when the search has become too close, and the Moth has recovered his wind. Socialis chirps angrily, and is determined not to be beaten. Keeping, with the slightest effort, upon the heels of the fugitive, he is ever on the point of halting to snap him up, but never quite does it,—and so, between disappointment and expectation, is soon disgusted, and returns to pursue his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... with slippery shiny scales. He lived in the shadow of a big rock near a deep, dark, cool pool. And when his wide-open shiny eye saw a little fly fall on the top of the water, he would flip his slippery, shiny tail and wave his slippery, shiny fins and dart out and up and—snap! he'd have the fly inside him! Then like a shiny streak he'd quietly slip back to ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... went on Pocut Pete with a laugh, closing his rather large pocket knife with a snap. "All the same, if you don't want me to snip ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... lay on my back staring straight at the ceiling. I caught myself gripping the sheets and listening. Only there was nothing to listen to. The night was absolutely still. There were no frogs, no owls, no crickets even. The firm old adobe walls gave off no creak nor snap of timbers. The world was muffled—I almost said smothered. The psychological effect was that of blank darkness, the black darkness of far underground, although the moon ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... if she were a manager and had only to snap her fingers to be obeyed. When Joe came back with the beer, Kitty drank a glass. She did not like it, but she would not offend her hostess. After this she sang, and Miss Sterling applauded her generously, although the ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... that the undue strain yesterday and this morning weakened it," he said, coming up from the depths with a green smear on his noble brow. "What we've really to be thankful for is that it waited to snap until we'd got up all the hills. Now, though as the Countess says we seem to be miles from anywhere, we're actually within close touch of civilization. Unless I'm out in my calculations, we must be near a place ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... has cracked the Spokima Reservoir. Right now we've already lost nearly a million acre feet and God only knows how much more is going out. Snap it up." The screen ...
— The Thirst Quenchers • Rick Raphael
... usual, and that it was colder. As he followed the direction of her eyes, in rising again, towards Mr Flintwinch's good friend, Mr Blandois, Mr Blandois snapped his finger and thumb with one loud contemptuous snap. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... length got the blockaded swimmers aboard. When this was effected, his disappointment and consequent bad temper were quite apparent; he swam round and round the boat in the most disturbed and agitated manner as we returned, making a variety of savage demonstrations, and finally going so far as to snap spitefully at the oars, which he did not discontinue, until Browne had two or three times rapped him smartly over the nose. After landing in safety, Max pelted him with shells and pieces of coral rock, until he finally ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... of his body kept this one shut. But he saw the other three hounds run out, saw the Squire turn with a ghastly face, drop the lantern, and run for it as White Boy snapped at his boot. Jim heard the crash of the lantern and the snap of teeth, and with that he fainted off in the darkness. He had cut his forehead against the bars of the big kennel, and when he came to himself one of the hounds was licking his face through ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which is always troublesome."[18] But the advantage which would arise from the increase of the spirit of reasonableness would far outweigh such disadvantages as might befall the less politically minded members of the House. Far less importance too need be attached to snap divisions, and, as Sir William Anson has suggested, it should be generally understood that the results of such divisions need not entail the resignation ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... and it smelt horribly of mud and other things. Again she searched by the feeble light of her candle, but could see no exit. Suddenly she saw something else, however, for stepping on what she took to be a rock, to her horror it moved beneath her. She heard a snap as of jaws, a violent blow upon the leg nearly knocked her off her feet, and as she staggered backwards she saw a huge and loathsome shape rushing away into the darkness. The rock that she had trodden on was a crocodile which ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... not a duellist." Then Captain D'Hubert crumpled up the sheet of paper with the words, "This is my last will and testament," and threw it in the fire with a great laugh at himself. He didn't care a snap for what that lunatic fellow could do. He had suddenly acquired the conviction that this man was utterly powerless to affect his life in any sort of way, except, perhaps, in the way of putting a ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... You won't do any such thing. Folks that snap up invitations like a chicken does a grasshopper, ain't going to ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... he shut up his jaws with a snap, and strode off. I'm sorry he should take the matter to heart so seriously. We shall miss ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 13, 1890 • Various
... actually believing that he was shot. Keller had hold of the pistol now. Hippolyte was immediately placed in a chair, while the whole company thronged around excitedly, talking and asking each other questions. Every one of them had heard the snap of the trigger, and yet they saw a live and apparently unharmed ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... desk; he placed on the same his hat and gloves. "Bon jour, mes amies," said he, in a tone that somehow made amends to some amongst us for many a sharp snap and savage snarl: not a jocund, good- fellow tone, still less an unctuous priestly, accent, but a voice he had belonging to himself—a voice used when his heart passed the words to his lips. That same heart did speak sometimes; though an irritable, it was not an ossified organ: in ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... stops you?" said the old woman, "give me the money." "Open the door, and go out first then." "I shan't", said the woman with a snap and a look like a demon. I turned round, and with the poker made a smash at the window. The curtains had swung, the white blind was down, but I heard the glass shiver and crash, a shout of "Hulloh!" from some one in the court. I raised the poker again against ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... strong sail of his great verse." To a generation surfeited with Pope's rhetorical devices—antithesis, climax, anticlimax—and fatigued with the unrelaxing brilliancy and compression of his language; the escape from epigrams and point (snap after snap, like a pack of fire-crackers), from a style which has made his every other line a proverb or current quotation—the escape from all this into Spenser's serene, leisurely manner, copious Homeric similes, and lingering detail must have seemed most restful. To ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... quietly loaded his gun, and then rose up to reconnoitre. Holdfast sprang forward, and Edward looking in the direction, perceived Corbould partly hidden behind a tree, with his gun levelled at him. He heard the trigger pulled, and snap of the lock, but the gun did not go off; and then Corbould made his appearance, striking at Holdfast with the butt-end of his gun. Edward advanced to him and desired him to desist, or it would be the ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... the believers, the madmen whom Rome attracted just as a lamp at night time attracts the insects of the gloom. Among these were men of every nationality, position, and age, all lashed on by their appetites and scrambling from morn till eve around the Vatican, in order to snap at the prey which they hoped to secure. He found them everywhere, and told himself with some shame that he was one of them, that the unit of his own personality served to increase the incredible number ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... will get it down." Hurrying across I had just reached the last bridge when, with a sudden snap, one of the main beams gave way. All traffic was, of course, stopped, and engineers quickly got to work replacing ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... not attempt to combat your resolution, Jack," returned Thames, after a pause. "But I dread the effect your departure may have upon your poor mother. Her life hangs upon a thread, and this may snap it." ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... glorious day with the sun shining brilliantly from a cloudless sky and just a touch of autumn snap in the air. We crossed the sloping rock-strewn plain to the base of the mountain, and discovered a trail which led up a forested shoulder to the right of the main peaks. An hour of steady climbing brought ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... relationship and of affection for our common country, for our common sovereign, and for our joint spiritual inheritance. These links are growing, and if let alone will continue to grow, and the free fibres will of themselves become a rope of steel. A federation contrived by politicians would snap at the first strain." Australian Federation, which Froude did not live to see, was no contrivance of politicians, but the result of spontaneous opinion generated in Australia, and ratified as a matter of ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... here he came to me to help him in again, and was very highly offended because I did not do it. Secondly, it is not that I would invalidate his witness, but give me leave to tell you, it is his way to snap and catch at every man, which is the complaint of the people in his own country. I know that same which is spoken is false; I speak it in the presence of God, I profess, I never had any near converse with Oliver Cromwell about such things; I speak this to the ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... past him ... and a few seconds later he heard the clean-lipped snap of the rifle in ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... with the little cry of tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio; and you who hop about the branches of the ivy in the gardens; the mountain birds, who feed on the wild olive berries or the arbutus, hurry to come at my call, trioto, trioto, totobrix; you also, who snap up the sharp-stinging gnats in the marshy vales, and you who dwell in the fine plain of Marathon, all damp with dew, and you, the francolin with speckled wings; you too, the halcyons, who flit over the swelling waves of the sea, come hither to hear the tidings; let all the tribes of ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... derisively through the door cracks, like the jeers and taunts of a mob of rowdies. Or was it Mr. Rinck's cat miauing? Or was it children whimpering in the hall? Frederick groped about. The house quivered and was thrown from its foundations. It swayed to and fro. The walls began to snap and crack like wickerwork. The door flew open. The rain and hail whipped in. A sudden gust of wind lifted Frederick from his feet. Somebody cried "Danger!" The electric bells raged and mingled with the voices of ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... his left hand. She did not respond to the overture, except to snap the hand with her index-finger, and was back in her chair again, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... very simply guarded against it by causing two little folds of the lining of the blood pipes to stick up both where the vena cava enters the heart and where the aorta leaves it, so as to form little flaps which act as valves. These valves allow the blood to flow forward, but snap together and close the opening as soon as it tries to flow backward. While largest and best developed in the heart, these valves are found at intervals of an inch or two all through the veins in most parts of the body, allowing the blood to flow freely toward the heart, ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... second big paddock from here, if you follow the belt of the sheoak trees over there. It's a house just like those things in Gabblebabble township. There's a yellow sheep dog, who's very good tempered, and a black one that made a snap at my tail the other day. There is an old grey cart horse, an honest fellow, but rather dull; and a bay mare who is much better company. There is a little red cow who is a great friend of mine, and she had a calf a few days before you were lost. Dear me!" exclaimed the gossiping bird, ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... that for the first time I encountered the kodak. The next morning the "Press," of Philadelphia, illustrated its report of the speech with several "snap shots" presenting me in various attitudes in different parts of the speech. I thought this one of the most remarkable inventions of this inventive age, and do not yet understand how the pictures were ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... in the thirties. In Belgium, their German counterpart, the Landsturm, were the monitors of a journey that I made. No troops are more military than the first line Germans; but in the snap and spirit of his salute the French Territorial has an elan, a martial fervour, which the phlegmatic ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... was lost to view; next, the bend of Kit's House vanished, and now the broad flood spread in a silver lake full ahead. On the ridge the pure air was simply intoxicating after the languor of the valley. Mr. Fogo began to skip, to snap his fingers, to tilt at the gossamer with his umbrella, and once even halted to laugh hilariously at nothing. An old horse grazing on an isolated patch of turf looked up in mild surprise; Mr. Fogo blushed behind ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... summit. This mode of warfare—this dashing at once in the very face of their fort—was so novel and incomprehensible to our enemies, that they fled, panic-struck, into the jungle; and it was with the greatest difficulty that our leading men could get even a snap-shot at ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... alone, leaning at the window. He had just strength to lean there, with uplifted head. Lenore had left him alone, divining his wish. As she left him there came a sudden familiar happening in his brain, like a snap-back, and the contending tide of gray forms—the Huns—rushed upon him. He leaned there at the window, but just the same he awaited the shock on the ramparts of the trench. A ferocious and terrible storm of brain, ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... an hour later that Flatray heard a twig snap under an approaching foot. He had been scanning the valley with his glasses, having given West instructions to keep a lookout in the rear. He swung his head round sharply, and with it ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... the Norman arch, he had painted him moving under the sign of the "Checquers," or the "Three Brewers," with mace—yes, with mace,—the mace appears in the picture issuing out of the Norman arch behind the mayor,—but likewise with Snap, and with whiffler, quart pot, and frying pan, Billy Blind, and Owlenglass, Mr. Petulengro and Pakomovna; then, had he clapped his own legs upon the mayor, or any one else in the concourse, what matter? But I repeat that I have no hope of making heroic pictures out of English ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... string of active vessels watching every port and cove, to snap up the daring ventures between the island ports and the coast; with a powerful enemy thundering at every point of entrance to southern territory, still the fortunate man who had gold, or who could draw upon Europe, or the North, actually ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... to me as the price of his liberty and that of his companion. It is needless to say that the sole motive of my interference in this matter is to obtain these details. Now, from long experience I know all the trickery and treachery of the Italian nature. Once free, this man might snap his fingers in my face and refuse to speak. After the formalities of the law have been duly complied with, I wish the prisoners remanded to their cells and informed that their liberation will take place only when Peppino has ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... Wessex shore was made To beg such. But relief the King refused. "Why want you Fox? What—Grenville and his friends?" He harped. "You are sufficient without these— Rather than Fox, why, give me civil war!" And fibre that would rather snap than shrink Held out no longer. Now the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... constantly looking at the cub. When the dogs came near her, she would sit upon her haunches, and take the little one between her hind-legs, fighting the dogs with her paws, and roaring so that she could have been heard a mile off. Never was an animal more distressed. She would stretch her neck and snap at the nearest dog with her shining teeth, whirling her paws like the arms of a windmill. If she missed her aim, not daring to pursue one dog lest the others should harm the cub, she would give a great roar ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... doubt that the undue strain yesterday and this morning weakened it," he said, coming up from the depths with a green smear on his noble brow. "What we've really to be thankful for is that it waited to snap until we'd got up all the hills. Now, though as the Countess says we seem to be miles from anywhere, we're actually within close touch of civilization. Unless I'm out in my calculations, we must be near a place called Limone, where, if there isn't much else, at least there's a station ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... quoted him right, not being much of a snap-shot at dialect; and his is an undefined, unclassifiable mixture. Eastern farm-hand and Western ranchman, prospector, who knows what? His real language is in his eye and his rare, pure smile. And just as his countenance expresses his ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... the seventh heaven. I trod on air. It was the first frank admittance of her love. And with such benediction I was made so strong that I knew I could kill a score of Fortinis and snap my fingers at a score of gray old ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... have made good masts; the dimensions of some of these trees being equal to a main-mast of a first-rate man of war. The shore was covered with drift wood of a very large size, most of it cedar, which makes a brisk fire; but is so subject to snap and fly, that when we waked in the morning, after a sound sleep, we found our clothes singed in many places with the sparks, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... he resumed, with a snap of his fingers. 'I play my game to the end in spite of words; and Death of my Body and Death of my Soul! I'll win it. You want to know why I played this little trick that you have interrupted? Know then that I had, and that I have—do you understand me? have—a ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... through the soundless woods. Under the dark branches it was already dusk, and the air had the cool chill of evening. As I neared the clump where the body lay, I walked with redoubled caution, watching and listening with strained alertness. Then I heard a twig snap; and my blood leaped, for I knew the bear was at his supper. In another moment I saw his shaggy, brown form. He was working with all his awkward giant strength, trying to bury the carcass, twisting it to one side and the other with wonderful ease. Once he got angry and suddenly gave it a tremendous ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... manoeuvre, and at the third onslaught I saw to my horror that the roots were loosening. I heard some of them snap, and a crack appeared in the ground not far from the bole. Fortunately Jana never noted these symptoms, for abandoning a plan which he considered unavailing, he stood for a while swaying his trunk and lost ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... uses two bulbs, each of which is the same as that used in the ten battery Tungar, and has two charging circuits, having an ammeter and regulating switch for each circuit. One snap switch connects both circuits to the supply circuit. The two charging circuits are regulated independently. For example, one circuit may be regulated to three amperes while the other circuit is delivering six amperes. It is also possible, by a system of connections to charge ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... interested him only because of the children they might bear to grow up as recruits for his insatiate armies. At the public balls given at the Tuileries he would walk about the gorgeous drawing-rooms, and when a lady was presented to him he would snap out, sharply: ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Three hundred feet of line are necessary, for the fish, if he is a large one, will sometimes determine upon a long flight, and it will not do to exhaust your line in his career. In that case, he will snap it like a pack-thread. An English bass rod is the best, and with such, and a large triple action reel, the largest fish of these lakes may ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... finished him," muttered Fred Linden, with a snap of his eyes; "they are seeking my life, and, if I could have my way, I would tumble every one of ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... too dark to see, so closing her blotter with a snap, Helen walks to the window and holding aside the heavy velvit curtain gazes out accross the frost-bitten garden and the roofs of the houses, which are dotted about the ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... leaning at the window. He had just strength to lean there, with uplifted head. Lenore had left him alone, divining his wish. As she left him there came a sudden familiar happening in his brain, like a snap-back, and the contending tide of gray forms—the Huns—rushed upon him. He leaned there at the window, but just the same he awaited the shock on the ramparts of the trench. A ferocious and terrible storm of brain, that used to have its reaction in outward violence, now worked ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... kinds of green beans in the market, the string or snap bean and the shell bean. String beans come from the South about the first of April. They are picked in Northern gardens about the first of June, and they last until about the middle of July. They should be green, the beans just beginning ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... see your hidden face!' roared Juon, throwing himself with all his might on Black Mask. 'You devil, you, I'll tear your mummery off for you!'—and he gnashed at his opponent's face with his teeth, trying to snap his ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... on the back of the lot, and there was a colored couple who lived in two rooms of the bungalow for sake of the fire insurance and as a precaution against thieves, and to keep the lawn watered and clipped and the dust off the furniture. They admitted that they had a snap, for they were seldom disturbed in their leisurely caretaking routine save in the winter. Even Mary V always tired of the place after a month or two in it, and would pack her trunk and "hit the trail" for the ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... existed, and had eyes and some intelligence. The Chief Justice has refused to pay his customs! The President proposed to have an expensive house built for himself, while the King, his master, has none! I had stood aside, and been a loyal, and, above all, a silent subject, up to then; but now I snap my fingers at their malo. It is damned, and I'm damned glad of it. And this is not all. Last "Wainiu," when I sent Fanny off to Fiji, I hear the wonderful news that the Chief Justice is going to Fiji and the Colonies to improve ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spears' and muskets, again awaited the attack. Once more the aerial cohorts closed upon each other, all the signs and sounds of a desperate encounter being distinctly recognised by the eager witnesses. The struggle seemed but short. The lances of the south-eastern army seemed to snap "like hemp-stalks," while their firm columns all went down together in mass, beneath the onset of their enemies. The overthrow was complete, victors and vanquished had faded, the clear blue space, surrounded by black clouds, was empty, when suddenly its ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... false, what will you do?" Finot ended. "Suppose that some Minister fancies that he has you fast by the halter of your apostasy, and turns the cold shoulder on you? You will be glad to set on a few dogs to snap at his legs, will you not? Very well. But you have made a deadly enemy of Lousteau; he is thirsting for your blood. You and Felicien are not on speaking terms. I only remain to you. It is a rule of the craft ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... objects discovered by him; and that is the attitude of the historian who has not familiarised himself with the actual relics left by the people of whom he writes, or has not, when possible, visited their lands. There are many "archaeologists" who do not care a snap of the fingers for history, surprising as this may appear; and there are many historians who take no interest in manners and customs. The influence of either ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... to be a success in the House he must improve his powers of repartee. At present his back-answers are entirely lacking in snap. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... filled with the ghostly shapes of all the light-hearted people who had lived their hour and exhibited their youth in the empty garden. I heard the whispered compliments, and the soft laughter of the ladies; there was a peculiar little snap as gaily they closed ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... with the marching stride of an overseas veteran and halted them with a top-sergeant's yelp. Click o' heels and snap o' the arm! The salute made Captain Sweetsir's previous effort seem torpid by comparison. That a further comparison with Home Guard methods and morale was in Commander Lanigan's ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... saw her level the pistol and snap the hammer twice, thrice, with no result. The little dead click sounded like a ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... must be turned loose outside the village. The Bedouins, as he pointed out, would be likely to snap up readily a horse of such good appearance, and in any case Hassan was plainly of the opinion that a horse's existence was of very little importance when graver matters were ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... canine tooth, the disorder known as hydrophobia has long held an undisputed primacy. The existence of dus ailment is attested by so many witnesses, many of whom, belonging to the profession of medicine, speak with a certain authority, that even the breeders and lovers of snap-dogs are compelled reluctantly to concede it, though as a rule they stoutly deny that it is imparted by the dog. In their view, hydrophobia is a theory, not a condition. The patient imagines himself to have it, and acting upon that unsupported assumption or hypothesis, suffers ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... down this slope, or only a little more, when in springing aside to avoid a low bush I missed footing altogether; went hurling down into night, dropped plumb upon another furze-bush—a withered one—and heard and felt it snap under me; struck the cliff-side, bruising my hip, and slid down on loose stones for another few yards. As I checked myself, sprawling, and came to a standstill, some of these stones rolled on and splashed into water ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... understand there are to be a number of films made in the city and vicinity, so you'll probably have to act out around Fort Marion and at Fort Mantanzas, as well as in the slave market. I'll be with you in a minute. I just want to get my little hand camera, to make a few snap-shots." ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... lower. At length the sails of the ship appear on the distant horizon. The knight is now himself too weak to look. "White or black?" he asks of his wife. "Black," replies she, jealousy prompting the falsehood; and the knight's heart-strings snap in twain just as his love steps over the threshold of his chamber. Oh, the pity of it! for with the lady is her lord, who, having learned the story of the fateful potion, has come to unite the lovers. Then the queen, too, dies, and the remorseful king buries ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... walk around the grounds every day after breakfast. The gardens, of course, are very, very dishevelled now, the snap-dragons holding out ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... out of his way, once nipping him sharply as he hurried past under pressing orders from the house. Also, having grown to a size equal to the brown saddler, he began to reveal his antipathy for this animal. Not only would he shoulder him away from the feed-box, but he would kick and snap at him, and once he tipped over the water-pail for no other reason, seemingly, than to deprive the saddler of water. The result of all this was that, with the passing seasons, both the Mexican and the saddler showed increasing respect for him, and the former went ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... turned her back, The thumb was in, alack! alack! The door flew open, in he ran, The great, long, red-legged scissors-man. Oh, children, see! the tailor's come And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb. Snip! snap! snip! the scissors go; And ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... covered up, and professed to suffer nothing from cold, having all the extra clothing of the party. It was luckily the last cold snap of the season, and with the sunrise of the next day, Sunday, the fifth day of their voyaging, the wind had given place to a calm, although cold, clear, ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... prepared to meet Jesus and all that to me, and now she ain't a-going to die, and drinks half a bottle of champagne a day, and then Grigg, him as preaches, you know, asked Bell if I really was too gay, not but what when I was young I'd snap my fingers at any 'fly by night' in Holborn, and if I was togged out and had my teeth I'd do it now. I lost my poor dear Watkins, but of course that couldn't be helped, and then I lost my dear Rose. Silly faggot to go and ride on a cart and catch the bronchitics. I never thought when I kissed ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... rowed up to the Head of the Creek, being about a Mile up, and there we landed May 1, 1681." The men flung their food and clothes ashore, and scuttled their little ship, so that she sank at her moorings. While they packed their "Snap-sacks" with flour, chocolate, canisters of powder, beads, and whittles for the Indians, their slaves "struck a plentiful Dish of Fish" for them, which they presently broiled, and ate for their breakfasts. Some of the men scouted on ahead for a mile or two, and then returned with the news ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... you would," said Singh quietly, as he gravely replaced the emeralds in their receptacle and curled the belt around them before shutting down the velvet-lined and quilted cover with a loud snap. "But some day, when we have both grown older, and we are back in India—I mean when I am at home in state and you are one of my officers—you will have to get the Colonel to let ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... Frank Wallace replied to both these generous outbursts, was comprised in a snap of his fingers in the direction supposed to have been taken by the Colonel, and ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... with watchful eyes, stepped past, and slammed the door behind him. In his heart he held them as curs, but curs could snap, and enough of them might dare to pull him down. Men were already beginning to pour into the saloon, uncertain yet of the facts, and shouting questions to each other. Totally ignoring these, Hampton thrust himself recklessly through the crowd. Half-way down the broad steps Buck Mason faced ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... matter, probably cushions and wraps, and now perceived was one of the higher mammals, put out a hand and said something,—at least, it opened that part of its face which is called a mouth but which to Mr. Twist in the heated and abnormal condition of his brain seemed like the snap-to of some great bag,—and at that moment a group of people crossed the hall in front of old Ridding, and when the path was again clear the chair that had contained him was empty. He had disappeared. Completely. Only the higher mammal ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... which, we think, are less liable to damp off when transplanted. About November 1 we transplant the plants into cold frames, six inches apart each way, as we wish to keep them growing a little all winter. The glasses are kept on at night and through heavy rains. In case of a cold snap, we cover the glasses with mats; but that is not often necessary, for we seldom have a temperature colder than 16 deg. above zero. Everything depends on good plants and an early start in the spring, for we raise two crops the same season, and an early frost on our unripe seed is sure to ruin ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... something so indescribably frightful in the feeling that we are on the verge of being tried beyond what we can bear, that ordinary conditions are slipping away from under us, that in another moment reason or life itself must snap with the strain; and all these feelings I then underwent. At last I moved, moved backwards from the figure. I dared not attempt to pass her. Yet I could not at first turn away from her. I stepped backwards, facing ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... with an affectionate glance toward Joy. "She's a butterfly. As for me, I can't imagine why Fate played me such a mean trick as to send me into the world a girl, when I'd just love to have been a boy." Bet shot out the words with a vicious snap. ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... loch-fishing. If variety is wanted in colouring, the least tip of Berlin or pig's wool of the desired shade will be found very effective. Get your flies dressed on Limerick-bend hooks, as the iron, should it chance not to be the best tempered in the world, is not so liable to snap as the round bend. The wings of the fly should be dressed so as to be distinctly apart both in the water and out ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... brought forth to incriminate him behind his back. These arts were employed all through the year which followed his return to Ferrara in 1576. But they reached their climax in the spring of 1577. He had lost his prestige, and every servant might insult him, and every cur snap at his heels. Even the Gerusalemme, became an object of derision. It transpired that the revisers, to whom he had confided it, were picking the poem to pieces; ignoramuses who could not scan a line, went about parroting their ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... mind long to endure, in the sword of Damocles suspended by a single hair over his head. Here the sword hung over an innocent creature, who smiled beneath it, fearless; but these two old men must sit and watch the sword, and ask themselves how long before that subtle salvation shall snap. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... looked up, caught his paddle, and dipped it wildly in the swirling water. The canoe swung sidewise, shivered, held its own against the torrent, and then slowly, inch by inch, began to creep upstream toward the shore. But suddenly there was a loud, cruel snap, and the paddle parted in the boy's hands, broken just above the blade! Waukewa gave a cry of despairing agony. Then he bent to the gunwale of his canoe and with the shattered blade fought desperately against the current. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... he would not wait one moment, but broke the lock and lifted the lid just a little way to make sure he was really there. He was very careful not to leave enough space for the dragon to jump out, but unluckily there was just room for his great mouth, and with one snap the king vanished down his wide red jaws. Then the young man married the king's daughter and ruled over the land, but what he did with the ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... I'd scorn to be rude to a lady, Miss Fortune and I can't agree; So I flew without wings from green Erin— Is there anything green about me? While blest with this stock of fine spirits, At care, faith, my fingers I'll snap; I'm as rich as a Jew without money, And free as a mouse in a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... constructed of lamp-chimneys and window glass, down a rough cobble-stoned hill road. If given the rein the glass horse will dash madly to flinders, and if the rein is held taut the horse's glass head will snap off and the whole business go to crash. No juggler keeping alternate cannon-balls and feathers in the air ever exercised greater nicety of calculation than did Mrs. Fenelby in her act of at ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... I says; 'I like to see them elastic so they'll give a plenty when they're pulled; but,' I says, 'if you take that step,' I says, 'if you declare yourself, then the rubber in your legs,' I says, 'will just naturally snap; you'll find you've overplayed the tension,' I says, 'and there won't be any more stretch ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... girls, under the spell of awe-fascination which had seized and held Helen before it was broken by a sudden jog of her memory, knew nothing of what was going on in their midst until they heard the snap of the rubber bands. And doubtless it would have taken them considerable time to fathom it had the pebble-shooter's aim not proved to be remarkably good. It struck the ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... been in twice to see it, and I guess the man's beginning to weaken. It would pay him to let me have it at a reduction, rather than keep it lying idle. You shall come with me, and say what you think it's worth; but mind, I'm to have the first chance! You mustn't try to snap it up. A few hundred dollars don't matter to you one way or the other, but I've got to worry round to make the money go as far as it will. It's not that Silas wants to stint me; he's not that sort, but he hasn't the balance behind him ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... been taken away, and shelter tents substituted. This evening, when the boys crawled into the latter, they gave utterance, good-humoredly, to every variety of howl, bark, snap, whine, and growl of which the dog ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... must have sprung and missed his hold, for Mowgli heard the snap of his teeth and then a yelp as the Sambhur knocked him ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... amongst some people; then again some didn't like him, he was a mean man, all for himself. He was a man that didn't care anything about his servants, except to get work out of them. When he came where the servants were working, he would snap and bite at them and if he said anything at all, it was to ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... conscious of how habitually Jason frowned, scratched his head, moved uneasily on the pleasant bench. Occasionally, he would snap his fingers and the frown would relax. He'd switch on the communico and speak briefly. Immediately thereafter, one or the other of the hand-picked four in Jason's personal squad would raise his eyebrows slightly—safely, since the pocket communico did ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... Christian feeling, and damn yours and your impudence too, you half-drowned church rat! Why don't you call her Jezebel at once, and have done with it? One of the things I like about her is that she has the pluck to snap her fingers at such as you and all your ignorant superstitions. What are you getting at? That is ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... places. My father had recently found himself in a dilemma in regard to the requirements of the Illustrated London News. In those days the universal snap-shotting hand-camera was unknown. Every scene that it was desired to depict in the paper had to be sketched, and in presence of all the defensive preparations which were being made, a question arose ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... cosey and inviting; no wonder everybody was content. Even Jack looked less careworn than usual; doubtless the pines, as ever, had routed his malaria. Only Sally's gayety seemed a little forced, and there was an occasional snap in her eye and dilation of ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Nap. He did not touch her hand. His fingers were wound in the thong of his riding-crop and strained at it incessantly as if seeking to snap it asunder. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... kind—indeed, everything to be made fast, from a bundle of sticks to a broken-down carriage, is lashed together with this split material, which must, when so employed, be bent with the shiny skin outside, otherwise it will infallibly snap. The demand for this article ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... wound so much, and put so many intervening obstacles between him and the other, that he was forced to hurry up so as to keep nearer. In doing so he stepped suddenly on a twig which lay across the track. It broke with a loud snap. At that moment Lord Chetwynde was but a few yards away. He turned, and just as Gualtier had poised himself so as to dart back, he caught the eyes of his enemy fixed upon him. There was no time to wait. The ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... name tucano from the noise they make, which resembles "tok-kan" very sharply pronounced and with a snap at ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... exchanged glances with the captain. In their pupils was the snap of budding wrath. The first surprise having vanished, they seemed disposed to rise up and fall upon the recent arrival. But some one behind him appeared to be controlling them with murmured orders, and they finally obeyed him, lowering ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... flaps in so ridiculous a manner that Davy shouted with laughter, and the Goblin smiled harder than ever. Suddenly the poor little man made a desperate plunge, and had almost made his way out when the flaps shut to with a loud snap and caught him about the waist. In his efforts to free himself he dropped his clock to the ground outside, when it burst with a loud explosion, and the house ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... baize spotted with ink and grease. The pupils feasted upon this cloth, each with coarse mug and plate; at night it was removed to serve as cover for one of the beds! Once upon a time came an unexpected cold snap in the very heart of the soft Warwickshire summer. The sheets and blankets upon our beds, as also the silver and linen of our private table, were all marked with the pupils' names,—the school prospectus announcing that both linen and silver must come with each pupil. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... campaign. His restlessness was such that he found it hard to sit still, especially in his own house, two minutes at a time. His terse sentences, leaving no doubt in the mind of the hearer as to what he meant, always had the same snap. One of his military letters is worth reviving. When he was carrying on his campaign in Georgia against Hood, the latter was anxious that the war should damage general commercial interests as little as possible; so he sent General Sherman ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... in moments of interest, must have suggested to one overhearing him from an adjoining room, for instance, the operation of a telegraphic instrument. He gave to every syllable the value of a rap and certain words he terminated with an audible snap of his teeth. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... by the side of the way to be daringly scaled and slid down? Do not the geese live in this pasture, and the sheep and the one solitary pig in that? The raspberry vines droop their rosy fruit into her hand, the tall, big, golden-rods snap their stalks so unexpectedly when she bends them, while she finds herself unable to gather the slender grasses. Then there are such charming nooks for hiding, among the ferns and hazel-bushes, and the bits of mica glistening all along the ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... she declared. "As if we did not know—I and Madame and all of us, that in Paris, even throughout France, you could walk safely into any den of thieves you choose. Your courage isn't worth a snap of the fingers. Any man can be brave who has the archangels ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... began to believe that there was something superhuman in his own faculties, and that he was privileged to deny that any laws were made for him. Obligations by which he expected all besides to be fettered, he considered himself entitled to snap and trample. He became a deity to himself; and expected mankind not merely to submit to, but to admire and reverence, the actions of a demon. ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the Bohemian songs I used to play with you and Johanna. But here's one that will make Clara pout. You remember how her eyes used to snap when we called her the Bohemian Girl?" Nils lifted his flute and began "When Other Lips and Other Hearts," and Joe hummed the air in a husky baritone, waving his carpet-slipper. "Oh-h-h, das-a fine music," he cried, clapping his hands as Nils finished. "Now 'Marble ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... morsel from his meat and toss it to the kangaroo-hound, who opened and closed its jaws like a steel trap, and gulped the gift with portentous solemnity, and absolutely without visible sign of any emotion whatever. The hound showed only watchfulness. Finn heard its jaws snap, and could almost hear the gulp which disposed of each morsel. The sight and the sound gave an edge to the Wolfhound's already keen appetite, and, almost unconsciously, he drew nearer and yet nearer ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... suggestion of queerly disordered pictures superimposed one upon another; an arrangement in which the essentials of time as well as of space seemed dissolved and mixed in the most illogical fashion. In this kaleidoscopic vortex of phantasmal images were occasional snap-shots, if one might use the term, of ...
— The Shunned House • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... slunk back. The Captain advanced among the pack, still calling the hound in the most threatening voice. But the hound slunk further, growling and showing his teeth. The Captain sprang forward and brought down his whip. The dog, mutinous, made a snap at the Captain. The latter, now deeply enraged, threw aside the whip, caught the animal by the neck, lifted it high, and, with a swift contraction of his fingers, caused its eyes and tongue to protrude and its body to writhe and hang powerless. He then flung ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... always be recovered and referred to—change itself is just such an unalterable concept. But all these abstract concepts are but as flowers gathered, they are only moments dipped out from the stream of time, snap-shots taken, as by a kinetoscopic camera, at a life that in its original coming is continuous. Useful as they are as samples of the garden, or to re-enter the stream with, or to insert in our revolving lantern, they have no value but these practical values. You cannot ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... up an' 'e looked me down Till I felt my cheeks go warm, For I knowed there wos somethin' adrift by 'is frown; Then 'e closed 'is jaw with a wicious snap; 'Where,' ses 'e, 'is your perishin' cap? Do you call ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 9, 1917 • Various
... little folds of the lining of the blood pipes to stick up both where the vena cava enters the heart and where the aorta leaves it, so as to form little flaps which act as valves. These valves allow the blood to flow forward, but snap together and close the opening as soon as it tries to flow backward. While largest and best developed in the heart, these valves are found at intervals of an inch or two all through the veins in most parts of the body, allowing the blood to flow freely toward the heart, but preventing ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... came together with a snap. "Then the thing for us to do is to get set and wait for them ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... been the cause of ten thousand failures, and has taken all the "snap" out of ten thousand more, that were considered a success. The intellect never leaps and bounds with vivacity when it ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... tongues are heard in one loud din: The monkey-mimics rush discordant in; 'Twas chattering, grinning, mouthing, jabbering all, And noise and Norton, brangling and Breval,[322] Dennis and dissonance, and captious art, And snip-snap short, and interruption smart, 240 And demonstration thin, and theses thick, And major, minor, and conclusion quick. 'Hold' (cried the queen) 'a cat-call each shall win; Equal your merits! equal is your din! But that this well-disputed game may end, Sound forth, nay brayers, and ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... that light, and the consequent fellowship with God. There are plenty of other bonds that draw us to one another; but these, if they are not strengthened by this deepest of all bonds, the affinity of souls, that are moving together in the realm of light and purity, are precarious, and apt to snap. Sin separates men quite as much as it separates each man from God. It is the wedge driven into the tree that rends it apart. Human society with its various bonds is like the iron hoop that may be put around the barrel staves, giving them a quasi-unity. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... He heard something snap loudly in the fiery stillness. She had broken her fan. Two thin pieces of ivory fell, one after another, without a sound, on the thick carpet, and instinctively he stooped to pick them up. While he ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... term Knappert, for Bitter Vetch, is probably a corruption of Knap Wort, the first syllable of which, as in Knap Weed and Knap Bottle, is derived from the sound or snap emitted by it when struck in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... shop tests, in the various machines that put the metal under bending stress, cross-breaking, hammering, drifting, shearing, elongation, contraction, compression, deflection, tension, and torsion stresses. The best of the steels had their elastic limits; there was none that did not finally snap. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... upon his feet. Then his breath and his strength seemed to come to him in a twinkling. With a backward snap of his arm he flung his second away. Then uttering a hoarse cry, he rushed like a mad bull at ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... His lyre; He tightens its strings, and draws from it the melody of Brahma. If the strings snap and the keys slacken, then to dust must this instrument of dust return: Kabr says: "None but Brahma ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... eagerly watching the warder's every movement: he clearly heard the sharp snap of a pocket-knife—a long sharp ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... sight of the handkerchief with a drop of fresh blood in one corner! Felice trembled without knowing why. Madame Arnault, who had just entered the room, took the box from her quietly, and closed the lid with a snap. The girl, accustomed to implicit obedience, asked no questions; the others, engaged in turning over the old-time finery, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... if they had foretold the doom of Withersteen House and were now ready to die and drop and decay. Never had Jane seen such shade. She pondered on the meaning of the report. Revolver shots had of late cracked from different parts of the grove—spies taking snap-shots at Lassiter from a cowardly distance! But a rifle report meant more. Riders seldom used rifles. Judkins and Venters were the exceptions she called to mind. Had the men who hounded her hidden in her grove, taken to the ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... I hold a hot-un At deep square-leg from the local Fry, And at short mid-on to the village Scotton I snap a skimmer some six foot high— Or else, perhaps, I get the ball, Upon the thumb, or not at all, Or right into the hands, and ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... must make it easier for people to invest money and make new products, new industries, and new jobs. We must clear away obstacles to new growth: high taxes, high regulation, red tape, and yes, wasteful government spending. None of this will happen with a snap of the fingers, but it will happen. And the test of a plan isn't whether it's called new or dazzling. The American people aren't impressed by gimmicks. They're smarter on this score than all of us in this room. The only ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... donkey, Jack!" said his young sister, with an impudent snap of the fingers under his nose. "Being ten years older than I am doesn't qualify you for that superior pose. You're only a ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... brother had vanished skywards from within an inch of his side. He had turned to stone before two ice-cold eyes, and realized the honest yard of snake behind them. A stoat had passed him with its mouth too full to snap—and all ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... packing her handbag when she heard the door locked from the outside with a savage snap and a cry of, "I'll learn you who's mistress ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... immediately; and Captain Wilmot, who lay very sick in his cabin, overhearing us, understood him as well as I, and called out to me that William was right, and it was our best way to change our course, and stand away for the bay, where it was ten to one but we should snap her in ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... Tim saw the long bayonet stand out beyond his back, saw Tim sway, laughing, and snap the steel short as he ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... for the first few days and nights. But keeping quiet and respectable had been an awful strain, and his mischievous deviltry grew constantly harder to hold in check. Finally he could stand the repression no longer, and when he gave way to his accumulated energy it had the snap and ginger of a tightly stretched rubber band recoiling on itself. On the fourth night out he had thrown off his mask and announced his presence in his true light by butting a sleepy steer out of its bed, which ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... here to the vicinity of Verdun, where the Crown Prince was said to be vainly endeavoring to break through, his army acting as a sort of a pivot on which the great advance had swung. I could not help wondering if, as often happens in the game of "snap the whip," von Kluck's right wing had got swung off the line by the very rapidity with which it must have covered that long arc in ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... possession they may be found after importation."[14] Then, too, when foreigners smuggled in Negroes, "who then ... could be operated on, but the purchasers? There was the rub—it was their interest alone which, by being operated on, would produce a check. Snap their purse-strings, break open their strong box, deprive them of their slaves, and by destroying the temptation to buy, you put an end to the trade, ... nothing short of a forfeiture of the slave would afford an effectual remedy."[15] Again, it was argued that it was ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... and isolated home by the cruel sufferings of an early marriage, reared by a woman whose independence and energy had triumphed over the narrow laws of the Island of her birth, given her courage to snap her fingers at society—we know that this woman, inevitably remarkable, met and loved a stranger from the North, so generously endowed that he alone of all the active and individual men who surrounded her won her heart; and that the result of their ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... to be sure," replied old Adam, nodding cheerfully at the fire, "I ain't all I once was except in the matter or corn-shuckin'—an' a cold-snap like this goes clean to the bones when ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... the gallery. Someone had pulled the cord attached to one of the blinds, and it had rolled up with a snap. Someone must be in the gallery, for a second blind did the same. Someone must be walking round the gallery, for one after the other the blinds sprang ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... behind him, scanned the switches, inserted his key into the Security lock, and turned it with a final snap, forcing a bar home through the handles of all of the switches to prevent their unauthorized operation by anyone until the official Security key should again release them. In the meantime, no function ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... unmoral O'er cakes and puddings they would quarrel. I don't believe that either chapkin E'er thought at lunch to fold his napkin, And if one biscuit graced the platter 'Twas ever less than fighting matter, Or if they'd beans—no doubt they had 'em— They failed to snap a few at Adam. I fear me as they ate their salade They hummed some raw primeval ballad, And when the Serpent came to dinner, They made remarks about the sinner. No doubt they criticised the cooking And hooked the fruit ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... cousin, for some. If, cousin, you've got no broken ornaments at hand, in the shape of flowers, why, those that you have on your head will do as well; and by and bye I'll choose a few good ones and give them to you, to wear.' I had no other course therefore than to snap a couple of twigs from some flowers I have, made of pearls, and to let him take them away. One also requires a piece of deep red gauze, three feet in length of the best quality; and the pearls must be triturated to powder in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... himself looked on, bewildered. Well he knew the source of the portrait. It had evidently been copied from a snap-shot Nat had taken of him one day when the two were coming out of the beamhouse. His father's delay in finding a suitable picture was also now explained. He had had to wait for the portrait ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... I must," he would assure her gayly; "but, I tell you, the snap is gone out of it. When there was a chance that every cap was YOUR cap, the mere progress along a corridor became thrilling." He had a foreign trick of throwing out his hands, with a little shrug of the shoulders. "Cui bono?" ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fire from the great basket of cones and chips which stood on the hearth, and stood listening, for a little time, to their brisk snap and crackle, then ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... his people a chance. In time, it may be said, they grew despondent, and settled in their uncomfortable pews with all suspicion of lurking heresy allayed. It was only on such Sabbaths as Mr. Dishart changed pulpits with another minister that they cocked their ears and leaned forward eagerly to snap the ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... this better than Ian Macdonald, but Elsie smiled approval, and Ian, being a matter-of-fact, unromantic fellow, clenched his teeth with a snap and went down on one knee. The bear quickened his pace and came straight at him. Ian raised his gun. Then there came a gush of feeling of some sort at his heart. What if he should miss? What if the gun should miss ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... with a man! Last Saturday! Who was it? Describe him to me! Was he slender—with fair hair—dark eyes—the air of a poet?" She panted. And her aspect was so singular that Miss Beatrice, startled out of her professional readiness, failed to snap it. ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... action of New York would influence other states where sentiment for Cleveland was not strong. Hill's plan worked out as he had expected—at least in so far as the state convention was concerned—for delegates pledged to him were chosen. Cleveland's supporters, however, denounced the "snap convention" and a factional quarrel arose between the "snappers" and the "anti-snappers"; outside of New York it was so obvious that the snap convention was a mere political trick that the Hill cause was scarcely benefited by it. Delegates were chosen in other parts of the country who desired ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... party. The governor, after making a survey of the deck, found a seat on a box in my cabin; Lady Muriel sat on a keg, and Lady Saunderson sat by the skipper at the wheel, while the colonel, with his kodak, away in the dinghy, took snap shots of the sloop and her distinguished visitors. Dr. David Gill, astronomer royal, who was of the party, invited me the next day to the famous Cape Observatory. An hour with Dr. Gill was an hour among the stars. His discoveries in stellar photography are well known. ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... back, and caught Esau's eye, and fancied that I heard his teeth click together as he gave a kind of snap, looking as if he would like now to take my place for ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... stiff around the gills about it," said the lady, with a snap of her luminous eyes and a startling gyration of her umbrella. "Business is what I've come for. I want your opinion in the matter of a suit for divorce, as the vulgar would call it, but which is ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... hunger, but I did not dare to, accept his offer, as a quarter of an hour's delay might, prove fatal. I was afraid of being retaken, and of being ashamed of it for the rest of my life; for a man of sense ought to be able to snap his fingers at four hundred thousand men in the open country, and if he cannot escape capture he must be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... see the stupid stare of the devils, as startin' out of their sleep, they saw a pistol within three inches of each of'em. 'Ugh,' says they, as if they did'nt know well whether to take it as a joke or not. 'Yes, 'ugh' and be damn'd to you,' say's I: you may go and 'ugh' in hell next—and with that snap went the triggers, and into their curst carcasses went the balls. The one I killed outright but t'other the Delaweer chief, was by a sudden shift only slightly wounded, and he sprung on his feet and out with his knife. But I had a knife too, and all a disappinted father's rage ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... command pierced them like a bullet. With the ease of long practice the squads moved in obedience to the command. The maneuvers had commenced. Command after command rang out, which they obeyed with conscious snap and finish, pivoting, wheeling, rear marching, left and right flanking in perfect step and rhythm. Applause was continuous, Oakwood citizens had recognized the "pep" in their performance and knew what the decision of the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... determine the geographic distribution of the brush mouse in the state, 15 localities, chosen on the basis of suitable habitat, were investigated by means of snap-trapping in the winter and spring of 1959, spring of 1960, and winter and spring of 1961. Variation in specimens obtained by me and in other specimens in the Museum of Natural History, The University of Kansas, was analyzed. Captive mice from Cherokee County, Kansas, were observed almost ...
— Natural History of the Brush Mouse (Peromyscus boylii) in Kansas With Description of a New Subspecies • Charles A. Long
... Guard, shutting the window with a snap, so that Rogers never knew whether the missing word used to be 'expire' or 'perspire'; 'and go on to your proper place on the tender.' Then she turned quickly to fix her big blue eyes upon the next comer. And how they did come, to be sure! There was the Gypsy, the ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... Thus, we are five on board altogether. As for our characters, I shall leave them to come out as they may in the course of this narrative. I am going to tell things plainly just as they happened. Smart writing, comic colouring, and graphic description, are departments of authorship at which I snap my ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... get it down." Hurrying across I had just reached the last bridge when, with a sudden snap, one of the main beams gave way. All traffic was, of course, stopped, and engineers quickly got to ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... bottle—you could wander along shadowed paths, strewn with the gold coin of sunshine, through a park of dells as bosky-green as the fair forest of Arden. In the quaint, old-fashioned streets of the town you were tempted to pause at every other step for one more snap-shot. You longed to linger on the bridge and call up a passing panorama of historic pageants. All these things the Boy and I would have done, and enjoyed peacefully, had we been alone, but Gaeta elected to find Annecy "dull." There was nothing to do but take walks, or sit by the lake, or drive ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... course, Harker or anybody—who wouldn't?" asked the Guardsman, as the cloud dispelled from his face at hope coming so quickly from this unexpected quarter. "Why, it's as good as the Bank of England. Harker take it?—-he'll snap at it. Only try him and see his greedy eyes glisten. What could Harker get by selling me up?—absolutely nothing. Besides, it would do him harm by letting others know how harshly he served me. Oh, no, Harker will not sell me up if ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... we all looked up to him! We were but young savages, and had a savage's respect for power. There was Tom Carndale of Appleby, who could write alcaics as well as mere pentameters and hexameters, yet nobody would give a snap for Tom; and there was Willie Earnshaw, who had every date, from the killing of Abel, on the tip of his tongue, so that the masters themselves would turn to him if they were in doubt, yet he was but a narrow-chested lad, over ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Action is almost a supreme demand in all the stories they read with most pleasure. Here is presented a series of rattling good adventure stories which every live "go ahead" boy will read with unflagging interest. There is action, dash and snap in every tale yet the tone is healthful and there is an underlying vein of resourcefulness and ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... noise. Many years ago (as Ratu Lala told me) the natives of Taviuni had been in the habit of catching great quantities of pigeons by means of large nets suspended from the trees. The chickens would generally get up like a pheasant, and it was good sport taking a snap shot at an old cock bird on the wing. It was curious to hear them crowing away in the depths of the forest, and at first I kept imagining that I was close to some village. I also obtained some good duck shooting on a lake high up in the mountains, and Ratu Lala described ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... by raising his head and throwing out his chin, which means "no" in gesture language. He threw pieces of the bread and the rind of the cheese to his dog. Nino caught each fragment in the air with a snap that would have lamed a horse for a month. The woman glanced nervously at the animal, each time she heard his ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... lightning," was the old lumberman's answer. "I had just spotted a fine, fat rabbit, and was taking aim, when, without warning, the tree gave a sudden snap like the report of a gun, and down it came right on top of me. Of course, I tried to jump out of the way, but my foot caught on a tree root, or a rock, or something, and down I went, and the next minute the tree came down on top of me, right across my legs and ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... as an advocate in Holland and Zeeland. An early defender of civil and religious freedom, he had been brought at an early day into contact with William the Silent, who recognized his ability. He had borne a snap-hance on his shoulder as a volunteer in the memorable attempt to relieve Haarlem, and was one of the few survivors of that bloody night. He had stood outside the walls of Leyden in company of the Prince of Orange when that magnificent destruction ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... defile his Ancestral Tablets and goats propagate within his neglected tomb!" chanted the band in unison. "May the sinews of his hams snap suddenly in moments of achievement! May the principles of his warmth and cold never ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... from the fairy Do-nothing's palace there lived a most cruel monster called the giant Snap-'em-up, who looked, when he stood up, like the tall steeple of a great church, raising his head so high that he could peep over the loftiest mountains, and was obliged to climb up a ladder to comb his ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... STEP.—Those who sluff or drag their heels, drag and drawl in everything; while those who walk with a springing, bouncing step, abound in mental snap and spring. Those whose walk is mincing, affected, and artificial, rarely, if ever, accomplish much; whereas those who walk carelessly, that is, naturally, are just what they appear to be, and put on nothing for ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... the treacherous roots yielded to my grasp, and fell into the torrent, my heart sunk within me. The branches on which I was suspended over the yawning chasm swang to and fro in the air, and I expected them every moment to snap in twain. Appalled at the dreadful fate that menaced me, I clutched frantically at the only large root which remained near me, but in vain; I could not reach it, though my fingers were within a few inches of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... the horses and clambering on the back of the coach, to wonder whether it would be worth while to wait and see the dignitary come out. I was just going to ask the coachman a question or two concerning his journey, when he began to snap his whip about the bare legs of the little whelps. The street was so narrow that he could hardly chastise them without danger to me, so it seemed best to saunter off. The screaming urchins stopped just out of the reach of his lash and set to pelting mud at him with a right good will, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... put on a new rope," declared Joe. "The act went so well when I seemed about to fall, that I'm going to keep that feature in. I'll rig up a catch on the severed cable. At the proper time I'll snap it loose, seem to fall, swing by the dangling bar as I did before, and land on the platform that way. It will be more effective than if I did ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... an attempt should be made to photograph any phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence of mind to snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, and when he did so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even by this partial success, he made a note of the exact time, and at once took a cab to the Albany to inform Mr. ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... of water I came to, gad! I didn't like it. I kept prospecting for sharks very close before I swam it, with my clothes on my head. I was in awful luck all the way, though,—not one of them had a snap at me." ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... epistola venit a Capreis. As for the Hohenzollern Order I don't care a snap of the fingers for it. Nor will you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... 6. Snap off the remainder of the capillary tube from the broad upper portion of the pipette which is now destined to form the covering tube or air chamber, or what we may term the "barrel." This barrel now has the lower end in the form of a truncated cone, the upper end being cut ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... bucolics were an encumbrance. Oh! that scamp Gwynplaine, who is never coming back. He has left us stuck here. I say 'All right.' And now 'tis Dea's turn. That won't be long. I like things to be done with. I would not snap my fingers to stop her dying—her dying, I tell you! ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... either: the new housekeeper does not know how to manage the maids; she is too smart by half—ribbons before and behind. Things used to go on better; the baron used to come and look at the butter-casks, now he is busy with other things; and when the master grows careless, servants soon snap their fingers at the bailiff. You can be sharp enough with people; it's a thousand pities you ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... comes when you are as nearly perfect as possible. It was that way with Bunny and Sue. Sometimes they were tired of saying over and over again such things as: "Here come a tramp!" or "Let's call Snap, he'll ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... I giv one to Pardman and Sharks. Hit gobbled me up like snap-beans In a patch full o' old fiel'-larks. But I thought I could fool the crap-leen nice, And I hauled my cotton to Jammel and Cones. But shuh! 'fore I even had settled my price They tuck affidavy without no bones And levelled upon me fur all ther loans To the 'mount of sum ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... subconsciously by the insistent iteration on their brains of the sight of him fleeing away, mastered by the feeling of mastery enjoyed all day, the dogs could not bring themselves to give way to him. When he appeared amongst them, there was always a squabble. His progress was marked by snarl and snap and growl. The very atmosphere he breathed was surcharged with hatred and malice, and this but served to increase the ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... question delightful to taste the excitement of it. But, on the other hand, there is all the difficulty of getting under way. One cannot possibly enjoy the occasion until one has reached that delightful point when one has lost all sense of risk, when recklessly we pile the bonfire, snap our fingers in the nose of poor Mr. Gregg who is terrific enough when he marches solemnly into Chapel but is nothing at all when he is screaming with shrill anger amongst the lights and ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... mind telling you that Oakdale is certainly going to need a good man on the slab when she runs up against Barville this year. Needn't think you'll have the same sort of a snap you had last season. Lucky for you Lee Sanger hadn't developed when you played us. Gee! but he did come toward the end of the season. Look how he held Wyndham down; and he'd won that game, too, with proper support. He'll ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... and Miss Piff, taking the tone of Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he is let in with a corkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in his servility he is a-going to let the public have 'em, and they snap him up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a-going to answer a public question, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the mustard does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain't strong.) Once, when Sniff ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... laugh. She had a desire to laugh loudly and wildly, and by so doing to snap the nervous tension, which seemed to grow tighter and tighter every minute. Her wretchedness had become so exquisite that she could begin to enjoy it, to savour it ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... showing strangely with the outer one. The feet are exposed, and if not bare, clothed only in clumsy slippers with toe pieces, and neither heels nor uppers. Women carry burdens on their heads, and walk erect and posed as if for snap photographs. The young girls are fond of long hair, black as cannel coal, and streaming in a startling cataract to the hips. It seems that the crop of hair is unusually large, and it shines with vitality, as the breeze lifts it ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
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