"Ferret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out his hand, and ran it over a stack of tin cans. Detroit Jim had been mighty clever! Canned food from the storehouse, enough to last perhaps two weeks! Detroit Jim had had a storehouse job. Twice a day, during the last ten days, the wiry little ferret-faced second-story man had got away with at least one can from the prison commissary. Also he had provided matches, candles, and even a cranky little flashlight. Only chewing tobacco, because you can smell smoke a long ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... acquainting any one with the place of the girl's concealment. The story of Atkinson's return was confirmed by the man who had seen and recognised him, but who knew nothing of the cause of his visit; and Braxley declared he had already taken steps to ferret him out, and had good hopes through his means ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... a trifle over six feet in height, with yellowish, sandy hair, high cheek bones, a rough and mottled skin, a high but narrow forehead, a pair of eyes somewhat like those of a ferret, long, ungainly limbs, and a shambling walk. A coat of rusty black, with very long tails, magnified his apparent height, and nothing that he wore seemed ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... proceeds to ferret into this yere myst'ry, we finds thar's a sharp come up from Dallas who claims that Cimmaron's got to pay him what Glidden owes. This yere Dallas party puts said indebtednesses at ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... useless. Probably no matter what he contrived, the police would ferret her out. There was just one chance though which, properly ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... corner stone of this affair. It was he who met Freistner in Amsterdam and started these negotiations, and I'm damned if I like Fenn, or trust him. Did you see the way he looked at Stenson out of the corners of his eyes, like a little ferret? Stenson was at his best, too. I never admired ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... so. But, look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train: Calpurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero 185 Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes As we have seen him in the Capitol, Being cross'd in ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... said Harry, stuffing the animal into his pocket; "you'll see to-morrow, when we are off rabbiting: why, it's the best ferret for miles round." And Harry really believed it was, for the old keeper that he bought it of had told him so, which was quite enough for Harry; but although it was such a good ferret, it had a nasty habit of stopping ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... woman that I married on the 7th; and that's the man I married her to!' said he, pointing to Sigglesfield, who seemed to turn twice as small, and his ferret eyes no better than ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... I am not hungry for wealth; I have more of it than, with my moderate desires, I know what to do with. I am not a multi-millionaire, but I have quite enough to enable me to gratify all my cravings, of which the predominant ones are exploration and hunting. I also have a hankering to ferret out secrets; and the secret, which has haunted me for years is that connected with the city of Manoa. Did or did it not exist? That is what I want to find out. For years I have been digging and delving after ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... their disposal was increased by the fact; that when I reached the Arsenal I found the Louvre vacant, the queen, who lay at Fontainebleau, having summoned the King thither. Ferret, his secretary, however, awaited me with a letter, in which Henry, after expressing his desire to see we, bade me nevertheless stay in Paris a day to transact some business. "Then," he continued, "come to me, my friend, and we will discuss ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... see the eye of a squirrel at that distance?" said the Captain, with a knowing wink of his own little ferret eye. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... play for time while he set to work to ferret out his antagonist's motive for the sudden change of plan. He did not dream for a moment of relinquishing control on the Hudson Bay scheme. As he had stated openly, control ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... Sally replied decidedly. "I don't know just what, but something's wrong, and we will have to ferret it out. She's strange, of course, and she doesn't understand us very well. I've seen her look at me as if she thought I were crazy sometimes. She acts as though she didn't like us, but I think she does really. Time's the thing, of course, but it ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... it with a bow. The other took it, glanced at the total, and his face flushed. He opened his lips to speak, closed them again, and his eyes ran up the column of figures. The flush deepened, and again he opened his lips; but when he met Brisson's ferret-like gaze, he again closed them. Without a word, he extracted from his purse a note for a hundred francs and ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Mr D—, however, some intelligent friends of his arrived in the mean time, and having heard his statement about the whole affair, they 'smelt a rat,' and determined to ferret it out. They examined the waiter—previously handing him over five guineas—and this man declared the truth that Mr D— did not play at all—in fact, that he was in such a condition that there could not be any real play. Dick England was therefore 'blown' ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... character of you from your aunt, my dear young gentleman," he proceeded, blinking his little ferret-like eyes furiously, and with a dubious sort of grin expanding his wide mouth, which was furnished with a set of teeth like a shark's. "She tells me— ah—Master Leigh, that you are rude, and bold, and bad, and disobedient—ah—and that I shall have to keep a strict watch over your conduct; but ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... lady, "has heard a good deal about De Croisenois, and, as no doubt you can guess, but very little to his credit, and quite enough to justify any father in refusing him his daughter's hand; but in this case it is evident to me that De Mussidan is yielding to a secret pressure. We must ferret out some hidden crime in De Croisenois' past which will force ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... name, the door of Mr. Quiller's sanctum opened, and a young woman emerged, followed to the threshold by the dramatic agent, a jaundiced little man, with ferret-like eyes, and a greasy ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... dominant race, helpless as a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a deliberate lazy way he set himself to torture me as a schoolboy would devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled beetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortably to the neck of a rabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there was no escape "of no kind whatever," and that I should stay here till I died and was "thrown on to the sand." If it were possible to forejudge the conversation of the Damned ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... were carried off to the mint; and, in this day of sweeping confiscation, individuals did not forget themselves. Indeed, throughout the country, the French soldier proved that he had the eye of a lynx, the scent of a hound, and the litheness of a ferret after booty, trained to it by the system which makes the war support the war. But Evora has been particularly unlucky. It not only bore its full share of the first burden imposed on the country, but the year after, when the Portuguese, rising too late in armed resistance, lost a battle ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... over Andy he saw the lad's watch dangling from its chain, fastened to a buttonhole of the youth's vest. Then his ferret-like eyes caught sight of a fine ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... was narrowly watched, the espionage resulting in the conviction that there was something in his possession which he did not wish her to see. Once, when she came unexpectedly upon him, he hastily thrust something into his pocket, appearing so much confused that she resolved to ferret ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... a woman's instinct, she watched over her hero; she was ever busy to track out the meandering paths of his foes, to destroy the nets wherein they wished to entangle his feet. She had even braved the jealous wrath of Bonaparte when it was necessary to ferret out some intrigue of the Directory. The special spy, whom Barras had sent to Italy to watch the movements of Bonaparte, and to give him early reports of every word, Botot, had been received by Josephine with a friendly smile and ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... good, without you're going to do something. I know; we'll go back and make Magg lend us his ferret, and then we'll ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... exactly the opposite to the bluster of Murtha. The man who sidled deferentially into the room, a moment after Carton had said he would see him, was a middle-sized fellow, with a high, slightly bald forehead, a shifty expression in his sharp ferret eyes, and a nervous, self-confident manner that must have been very impressive before the ignorant. "My name is Kahn," he introduced ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... matches, but let no man fire his piece without command." And drawing his sword, Standish strode eagerly forward close to Billington, who with all his faults was no coward, and blithely blew his match to a fiery glow, while glancing with his ferret eyes behind every tree and into every covert ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... and climbs trees with great facility. He is by no means shy, and one has been known to try to kill chickens in a coop when a man was standing near him. Hunger was not his motive, for he had destroyed dozens of fowls the night before. The ermine has been used successfully as a ferret. Having first filed the creature's teeth down, so that it could not kill the game, a gentleman secured twelve live rabbits ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... awoke, it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a neighboring church clock ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... unpleasant, without being of any use. When a disagreeable duty is to be done, the quicker it is done the better. Captain Kane took 'em down to Castle Island last night; but it won't do for them to stay there. The Abolitionists will ferret 'em out, and be down there with their devilish habeas corpus. I want you to go on board 'The King Cotton,' take the captain aside, and tell him, from me, to remove them forthwith from Castle Island, keep them under strong guard, and skulk round with them ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... original themes from which the popular songs were made. As Mr. Levy was arranging songs for nearly all the big publishers, we had plenty of material with which to play our favorite indoor sport. It was a rare song, indeed, whose musical parent we could not ferret out. Nearly all the successful popular songs frankly owned themes that were favorites of other days—some were favorites long ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... que tout me devient une matiere de reflexion; c'est comme une philosophie de temperament que j'ai recue, et que le moindre objet met en exercice."[35] With his keen eyes constantly on the watch and his subtle mind ever ready to ferret out the eccentricities, defects, or hidden motives which some glance or gesture in his neighbor has revealed to him, and which a less delicate mind would have failed to grasp, going so far sometimes as to impute finesse where he has seen but the reflection of his own nature, ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... have been observed within the limits of the ancient Media are the lion, the tiger, the leopard, the bear, the beaver, the jackal, the wolf, the wild ass, the ibex or wild goat, the wild sheep, the stag, the antelope, the wild boar, the fox, the hare, the rabbit, the ferret, the rat, the jerboa, the porcupine, the mole, and the marmot. The lion and tiger are exceedingly rare; they seem to be found only in Azerbijan, and we may perhaps best account for their presence there ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... ferret him out. We give it up. It's quite clear, that if a man were hidden within the precincts of this farm, we should ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... girl, who must have been very beautiful, and I did not blame Will for loving her, if he ever did, but he need not have been so indignant at me for wishing to know who it was. I never saw him so angry or so much disturbed. I hope you will ferret the secret out and tell me, for I have a great deal of curiosity, fancying that picture had something to do with his remaining so long a bachelor. I do not mean that he does not love you," she added, as she saw how white Katy grew. "It is not to be expected ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... the fellows having tumbled into the torrent, I do not believe it. They are not likely to have gone off without our people knowing something about it. They are either in hiding somewhere near Roaring Water,—and if so, I shall soon ferret them out,—or else they have gone away to take squaws from among the Indians, ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... sensorium. It is equally clear that he believed Christianity a divine system, inasmuch as he wrote, and rushed into print with, a lot of exquisite nonsense about the exquisitely nonsensical Apocalypse. But we defy pietists to ferret out of his religious writings, any argument in defence of religion, not absolutely beneath contempt; the best of them are execrably bad—mere ravings of a disordered and o'erwrought intellect. 'The sublime Newton,' said D'Holbach, 'is but a child when he quits physical science, ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... gave over their attempts to retrieve the tubes. They dove for various hiding places—under benches, behind retorts, anywhere to get away from the terror running amuck in their midst. And after them sprang Dex, mad with his sudden miraculous success, to ferret them out one by one and blow them into hell with their ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... I. I hate 'em. Still, if there's anybody able to ferret out where that Recipe's got to, and make the present holder disgorge, that long, lean, respectable-looking anarchist is the man. To begin with, he has a far cleverer head on him than either of us can run to, and from what I told you about his theories, he'll be as keen as ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... feelings about himself at that triumphant moment? Fain would his dogs have known, as breathing heavily and wiping their cutlasses, they gathered at a discreet distance from his hook, and squinted through their ferret eyes at this extraordinary man. Elation must have been in his heart, but his face did not reflect it: ever a dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... quod insolentem provocationem aut arrogantiam aliquam prae se ferret; quum et mundo mortuus iam sim, et ex animo paratus promtusque, ut me ad cuiusvis pedes abiiciam ac vestigia etiam exosculer. Tantus tamen animus mihi est pro gloria et maiestate Regis mei Iesu amplificanda, ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... our orchestra, wrote to me from Prague yesterday that the prohibition of "Tannhauser" must be a theatrical trick of St.'s, the director of police (President Sacher) having informed him that he knew nothing of that prohibition. I have asked Laub in consequence to ferret out the matter carefully and to ask St. to write to you or me plainly and precisely. Before taking an official step, one must know by whom and in what manner the prohibition has been issued, and on whom the withdrawal thereof depends. I mentioned ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... restrictions, and confined it to details of little importance. He would allow no comments which unsettled the minds of readers. In no country was the censorship of the Press more inexorable than in Austria and its dependent States. All that spies and a secret police and priests could do to ferret out associations which had in view a greater liberty, was done; all that soldiers could do to suppress popular insurrection was effected,—and all in the name of religion, since he looked upon free inquiry as logically leading ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... such pestilent Eves," Tristan answered. "That slender fellow in the purple jerkin is one Ren de Montigny, of gentle birth, and a great breaker of commandments. He with the red hair is Guy Tabarie; they are sworn brothers in bawdry and larceny. The ferret-faced knave who is tickling the girl's knee is Jehan le Loup. Bullies and bawds, pandars and parasites: to enumerate their offenses would be to say the ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... laboured in his determined grasp at the amenities of the occasion. It was the only heaviness. To the other contest between them he brought an amazing sureness, a suppleness, power, and audacity beyond praise. He directed his battle, and at his elbow Tom Mocket, sandy-haired and ferret-eyed, did him ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... fell into one of his paroxysms. With flushed face, bloodshot eyes, and mouth foaming with a species of fury, he mounted his horse, went at full speed to the court-house, made inquiries of everybody who had seen his brother, asked with whom he had last been seen, and left no stone unturned to ferret out the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the personal charms of Mrs Nicholas Forster at the time of their union, she had, at the period of our narrative, but few to boast of, being a thin, sharp-nosed, ferret-eyed little woman, teeming with suspicion, jealousy, and bad humours of every description: her whole employment (we may say, her whole delight) was in finding fault: her shrill voice was to be heard from the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Quidquam proficeret: Si collibuisset, ab ovo Usque ad mala citaret, Io Bacche, modo summa Voce, modo hac, resonat quae; chordis quatuor ima. Nil aequale homini fuit illi: Saepe velut qui Currebat fugiens hostem: Persaepe velut qui Junonis sacra ferret: Habebat saepe ducentos, Saepe decem servos: Modo reges atque tetrarchas, Omnia magna loquens: Modo sit mihi mensa tripes, et Concha salis puri, et toga, quae defendere frigus, Quamvis crassa, queat. Decies centena dedisses ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... poltroon, a weak lad, ugly, but swift of foot, and an enthusiastic lover of horses. He asks for the steeds of Achilles, which Hector swears to give him; and to be lightly clad he takes merely spear and bow and a cap of ferret skin, with the pelt of a wolf for covering. Odysseus sees him approach; he and Diomede lie down among the dead till Dolon passes, then they chase him towards the Achaean camp and catch him. He ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... the way. Herr Ulrich is only an instance of the solidarity of Pan-Germanism. An English or American banker visiting a foreign country attends to his affairs and departs. A German in a similar position is a sort of human ferret. An hotel with us is a place of residence for transient strangers. The Hotel Adlon and others in Berlin are excellent hotels as such, but mixed up with spying upon strangers; Herr Adlon, senior, a friend of the Kaiser's, assists the Government spies when any important or suspicious ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... each other. We knew what we did call him, and were afraid Minora would in time ferret it out and enter it in her note-book. The Man of Wrath looked none too well pleased to be alluded to under his very nose by our new ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... district, and as a rule (good easy man) he let the ailments of Polpier accumulate for a while before dealing with them. Then he would descend on the town and work through it from door to door—as Un' Benny Rowett put it, "like a cross between a ferret an' a Passover Angel." Thus the child and his temperature might have waited for thirty-six hours—the mothers of Polpier being skilled in febrifuges, from quinine to rum-and-honey, treacle posset, elder tea—to be dealt with as preliminaries to the ambulance lecture, ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... fifty thousand dollars of which he had years ago defrauded him, and thus the Ranger found himself master of a fortune of nearly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He settled without delay a comfortable annuity on David Marston, the old clerk, through whose evidence he had been able to ferret out the treachery of Mr. Stanton. Marston needed it, for his health was broken down and he was an invalid, prematurely old. He is now settled in a comfortable boarding-house in Clinton Street, and usually spends his mornings ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... enmity had arisen on the tilled slips of garden outside Eden, so there had always been strife between the daughters of the lonely manse—on the one side rebellion and the resentment of restraint, on the other tale-bearing and ferret-eyed spying. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... have lots of the girls in the afternoon," said Eric. "I do hope that big ferret isn't making his way out. He is a stunner, sir; why, he killed—Ermie, keep your legs away—he has teeth like razors, sir, and once he catches on, he never lets go. He'll suck you to death as likely ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... were taking place Bacon was leading an army through the woods and swamps of upper Gloucester and Middlesex. He had good reason to believe that it was the Pamunkeys who had made some recent incursions, and he was determined to ferret them out. But it proved a difficult task. His men, tired of wandering here and there, soaked by drenching rains, and half-starved, began to waver. But their dauntless young leader, after permitting many to return, resumed ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... give you a bill of sale for these six drag ponies that I'm sawing off on you. I carry written authority to give a bill of sale, and it will always protect your possession of the horses. They wouldn't bring a dollar a head in Ogalalla, but when they round into form again next summer, some brand ferret passing might want to claim them on you. Any cattle that I cull out here are abandoned, you ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... he was in what he called a "legal trance"—Hedrick was bubbling with good spirits, and when he left his office for politics he could get out in his shirt-sleeves at a primary and peddle tickets, or nose up and down the street like a fat ferret looking for votes. So when Abner Handy announced that he desired to go to the State Senate, to fill an unexpired term for two years, he had Hedrick behind him to give strength and respectability to ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... Edmonstone's hearty voice, bawling across the garden for one of the men. 'O Guy! are you there?' cried he, as soon as he saw him. 'Just what I wanted! Your gun, man! We are going to ferret a rabbit.' ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... segetis per summa volaret Gramina, nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas; Vel mare per medium, fluctu suspensa tumenti, Ferret iter, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... o'clock the members of the family, with a few outside friends, gathered in the drawing room. The family solicitor, Mr, Ferret, held in his hand what purported to be the ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... run to shoulders, and no neck on him at all. His arms hung well to his knee, giving the man the appearance of a powerful animal. His face was brown as a smack's sail, and his eyes red and shifty as a ferret's. ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... he, confidentially, "I feel the lump of it. I hope I don't have to git after it sudden. Dunno but I should have fetched along a ferret ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... but imperfectly comprehend. That he had been the unconscious instrument of it all the gray-eyed lady had already told him; but Uncle Noah, busy with numberless culinary problems in the kitchen, had not as yet had time to ferret ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... the Saskatchewan where McDowell commanded Division of the Royal Mounted. The thought of distance did not appall him. Four years at the top of the earth had accustomed him to the illimitable and had inured him to the lack of things. That winter Conniston had followed him with the tenacity of a ferret for a thousand miles along the rim of the Arctic, and it had been a miracle that he had not killed the Englishman. A score of times he might have ended the exciting chase without staining his own hands. His Eskimo friends would have performed the ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... I expect!" said Gregory. "I see him lookin' up with his little eyes, as red as a ferret, and as ugly. I bet he started the hull thing; and he's tacked on a passel of lies, and the endurin' place is hummin' with it. Thought I'd tell ye before ye went in, so's ye could fix up a ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... Mr. Carl Walraven," she said, between set, white teeth. "My turn next! I'll ferret out your guilty secrets before long, as sure as ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... its advantages," I mused. "A ferret will not frown upon one one minute and flash a dimple at one the next. And then, again, a ferret cannot be reasonably supposed to possess an aunt. There is something to be said for your idea ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... deformitatem iniquissime ferret, saepe obtrectatorum jocis obnoxiam expertus. Ideoque et deficientem capillum revocare a vertice assuerat, et ex omnibus decretis sibi a Senatu populoque honoribus non aliud aut recepit aut usurpavit libentius, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... course, was: How soon will Russia be able to mount an army? Probably not very soon, he decided. That fact gave him time to ferret out more information; to become completely ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... France; but under the regent, libertinage and indifference to national honour were flagrant and shameless. The Abbe Dubois, a minister worthy of his prince, was, says St. Simon, "a mean-looking, thin little man, with the face of a ferret, in whom every vice fought for mastery." This creature profaned the seat of Richelieu and Colbert, and rose to fill a cardinal's chair. The revenues of seven abbeys fed his pride and luxury, and his annual ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... not Mr. St. John, but Mr. St. Aubyn, son of Sir John St. Aubyn. Polidori knows him, and introduced him to me. He is of Oxford, and has got my parcel. The Doctor will ferret him out, or ought. The parcel contains many letters, some of Madame de Stael's, and other people's, besides MSS., &c. By ——, if I find the gentleman, and he don't find the parcel, I will say something he won't ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Let us our guiltiest beast resign, A sacrifice to wrath divine. Perhaps this offering, truly small, May gain the life and health of all. By history we find it noted That lives have been just so devoted. Then let us all turn eyes within, And ferret out the hidden sin. Himself let no one spare nor flatter, But make clean conscience in the matter. For me, my appetite has play'd the glutton Too much and often upon mutton. What harm had e'er my victims done? I answer, truly, None. Perhaps, sometimes, by hunger press'd, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... an animal somewhat resembling a ferret, but more nearly allied to the Nilotic ichneumon of Egypt, was a marvellously lithe and active little creature, perfectly tame, and coming as readily as a dog to his name, "Mungo," except when overfed, when he would sleep sometimes for hours, rolled up at the bottom of his cage, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in yourselves. But, do what you like, I will not resemble you: I shall keep on the outside of things, and criticise whatever you produce. To every work there is attached something that is not right—something that has gone wrong; and I will ferret that out and find fault with it; and that will be ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... about 'ere as torturing a goose! I dessay they'll try and make out that I poured the whisky down the brute's throat. It's Wilcox's doings, and none of mine; but they'll put it all on me. I'll drive over to Green & Ferret's to-morrow, and see how I stand. You've studied the law. What do you think about it, come? Can he touch me, eh? But he hasn't got a leg to stand on, like his gander—it's ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... that tone and of the conversation many times before he left London next evening. He was rather an adept at the discovery of small mysteries; he liked to draw conclusions from a series of small events, and to ferret out other people's secrets. He thought that he was now upon the track of some design of Vivian's, and he became exceedingly curious about it. If it had been possible to open the box without disturbing the seals upon ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... with wonder that so many marriages are passably successful, and so few come to open failure, the more so as I fail to understand the principle on which people regulate their choice. I see women marrying indiscriminately with staring burgesses and ferret-faced, white-eyed boys, and men dwell in contentment with noisy scullions, or taking into their lives acidulous vestals. It is a common answer to say the good people marry because they fall in love; and of course you may use and misuse ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... less than that there is a secret gang of thieves and villains of all kinds, whose head quarters are somewhere in this region of country, and that I intend to ferret out their hiding-place." ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... blood!" he said unto Herold, As they groped in the dusk, lost and imperilled, In the oozy, entangled morass and mesh Of hanging vines over Allen's Fresh: "The chirp of birds and the drone of frogs, The lizards and crickets from trees and bogs Follow me yet, pursue and ferret My soul with a word which I used to enjoy, As if it had turned on me like a spirit And stabbed my ear ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... wheel,'" quoted Kent from the Fourth Reader. He was shaking with suppressed laughter, that turned into astonishment at Old Tilly's calm rejoinder. If it didn't take Old Till to ferret things out! ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... show how this system is conducted. As a general rule, the wretches are easily disposed of with the aid of the police, but sometimes it requires all the ingenuity of the most experienced detective to ferret out and foil the plot. These wretches know that respectable people dread scandal, and they profit by this knowledge. They are sometimes bold and unscrupulous in their way of conducting their business, and at other times ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... or poison fruits of pain. Some seeds hold two germs; and vice and penalty are wrapped up under one covering. Sins are self-registering and penalties are automatic. The brain keeps a double set of books, and at last visits its punishments. Conscience does not wait for society to ferret out iniquity, but daily executes judgment. Policemen may slumber and the judge may nod, but the nerves are always active, memory never sleeps, conscience is never off duty. The recoil of the gun bruises black the shoulder of him who holds it, and sin ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... be so sure," retorted Evatt, in evident irritation. "'Twixt thine army service, the ship that fetched thee on, and that miniature, I have more clues than have served to ferret ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... The telegram of the idiot Kervick would bring the police down upon him like a pack of beagles. The beliefs and surmises of the idiot Gafferson would furnish them with the key to everything. He would have his letter from Tavender to show to the detectives—and the Government's smart lawyers would ferret out the rest. The death of Tavender—they could hardly make him responsible for that; but it was the dramatic feature of this death which would inspire them all to dig up everything about the fraud. It was this same sensational added element of the ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... said; "those basilisk eyes will see everything—will ferret out my love for that fair young girl. Oh, Heaven, is ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... lonely nights, and he had got a creed of his own. I dare say it was crude enough, I am sure it was unorthodox; but if the proof of religion is that it gives a man a prop in bad days, then Peter's was the real thing. He used to ferret about in the Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress—they were both equally inspired in his eyes—and find texts which he interpreted in his own way to meet his case. He took everything quite literally. What happened three thousand years ago in Palestine might, for all he minded, have been going on ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... the little boy," he said. "He cannot be concealed by this wretched woman as the baby was; he is too old for that. The police will ferret him out. But I am greatly concerned for Mr. Hall. That child is the bond which holds him at safe anchorage. Break this bond, and he may drift to sea again. I ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... mis'ble young 'un!" grinned a tall boy, strolling by with his hands in his pockets, and his ferret eyes on the sharp ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... the gist of what you have already told me," said the commissioner. "Muller, Miss Graumann believes her nephew innocent, contrary to the opinion of the local authorities in G—. She has come to ask for some one from here who could ferret out the truth of this matter. You are free now, and if we find that it can be done without ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... answered the seemly confidant of Sir William Brandon, "that he be's alive; and if he be's alive, may I flash my ivories in a glass case, if I does not ferret him out; but as to saying vhere he be at this nick o' the moment, smash me ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Grangers might not come. "Eyes like a ferret that woman has and like as not she never got over our boy's going. She'd say things was going to sixes and sevens, with a little thing no bigger'n a penny in our boy's shoes—she would. But I'd like to know who ever'll eat all the stuff I'm fixing!" The house cleaned ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... with a careful examination of the evidence which had caused the condemnation of his predecessor. He had a strong conviction that Pomeroff was innocent, but if guilty he felt it his duty to ferret out the conspiracy and discover Pomeroff's accomplices. He owed it to his own safety to purge the palace of such as ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... though Americans, once lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and it was in that place that the husband fell to drinking. The little bird above alluded to—the bird that acts as a kind of domestic ferret—told me that, in the early years of their married life, the wife was of an excitable, hysterical temperament, and given to making scenes. Just here let me digress a moment to erect a warning signboard. I have a friend who ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... one word of truth in what you all say. It's a lie from beginning to end. Dietrich has no more stolen than I have, and I needn't say more than that. I'll ferret this thing out, till I find the true culprit, or ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... should have recommended him for the stripe.' How's that, sir. . . .? And then there's another bit. . . . 'Men like him can't be replaced.' Eh! my boy. . . . Can't be replaced. You couldn't say that, sir, about yon pimply ferret ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... added Jack, "if animals sometimes attach themselves to us, we attach ourselves to them. We are told that Crassus wore mourning for a dead ferret, the death of which grieved him as much as if it had been his own daughter.[E] Augustus crucified one of his slaves, who had roasted and eaten a quail, that had fought and conquered in the circus.[F] Antonia, daughter-in-law of Tiberius, ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... horror beyond the reach of prayer, it would have knocked his reverence out long before now, like other people. It settled the police officer in under an hour, and Mr. May's been up against it for three—nearly four hours, so far. He'll bolt it yet, I shouldn't wonder, like a ferret bolts ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... each day you should learn two new words. So be it,—but which two? The first two in the dictionary, or hitherto left untouched in your systematic conquest of the dictionary? The first two you hear spoken? The first two that stare at you from casual, everyday print? The first two you can ferret from some technical jargon, some special department of human interest or endeavor? In any of these ways you may obey the behest of these mentors. But are not such ways arbitrary, haphazard? And suppose, after doing your daily stint, you should encounter ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Foyle had drawn about Grell's house in Grosvenor Gardens, Dutch Fred loitered, his keen, ferret eyes wandering alertly over passers-by. Misgivings had assailed him during a vigil that had lasted several hours. It was all very well to be "in with" the police; but suppose their plans miscarried? Suppose Red Ike and his unknown friends got to know that the "double cross" was being put ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... thus happily wedded, Pringle set himself to goad ferret-eyed Creagan and the heavy-jawed sheriff into unwise speech. And inattentive Anastacio had a shrewd surmise at Pringle's design. He knew nothing of the fight at the Gadsden House, but he sensed an unexplained ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... make it very unpleasant for the president of Groveton Bank, was certain. He would ask, among other things, why Mr. Duncan had not informed him of the loss by cable, and no satisfactory explanation could be given. He would ask, furthermore, why detectives had not been employed to ferret out the mystery, and here again no satisfactory explanation could be given. Prince Duncan knew very well that he had a reason, but it was not one that ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... and as they stood there the girl, who bore such a striking resemblance to the dead niece of the millionaire, stared straight before her, taking no notice of anything about her, a strange, statuesque, pathetic figure, inert and entirely guided by the ferret-eyed man at her side. ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... them at the mouth of the Detroit River. The assembly of such a body of men attracted the attention of the Canadian authorities, and information was sent to Lord Lyons at Washington. Our officers at Detroit also got wind of it, and employed the police and detectives to ferret out the facts. The raiders had assembled, and the boats were ready, when, on the 14th of November, they learned that their plans were exposed and the chance to succeed was lost. The less eager ones were quick to abandon the enterprise, and the bolder ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... in, with the noiselessness of a shadow, a smiling, sober citizen, plainly but neatly clad, with a downcast humble eye. A milder, meeker face no pastoral poet could assign to Corydon or Thyrsis,—why did the crowd shrink and hold their breath? As the ferret in a burrow crept that slight form amongst the larger and rougher creatures that huddled and pressed back on each other as he passed. A wink of his stealthy eye, and the huge Jacobins left the passage clear, without sound or ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... came in at the last moment with perspiring brow, excusing himself on the ground of professional duties. He was thin, yet flabby, had a stoop in the shoulders, and walked without noticeably bending his knees. The crown of his head went to a peak; he had eyes like a ferret's; his speech was in a high, nasal note. For some years he had been a widower, a fact which perhaps accounted for his insinuating manner when ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... herself held quite different views. Then she asked me if I did not think the Reverend Ernest Trench had a "soulful face," so pure and abstracted that merely looking at him gave thoughts of a higher life. I said No; he reminded me of a white ferret we had once, and I hated curates. She looked perfectly sick at me and did not take the trouble to talk any more, but joined Adeline, who had been winding silk with Fraeulein Schlarbaum for a tie ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... humanity, mingled in with good men, have commenced their nefarious practices on a grand scale. These things have brought such sections of our country into bad repute abroad. It needs but time for communities to ferret these human monsters out and visit upon them a just retribution. The inland position of New Mexico and the consequent difficulty of intercourse with the General Government of the United States, made it an inviting place, from ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... with all the pleasure in life. His awful guardedness made me feel as if I were an inquisitive little journalist trying to ferret out some unsavoury scandal. And he had been the first person to point the general suspicion a few minutes earlier, by his inquiry about the motor. I decided to turn the tables on him, ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... colonel Woodley. After being married three years, she was left a widow, young, handsome, rich, lively, and gay. She came to London, and was seen in the opera by Frank Heartall, an open-hearted, impulsive young merchant, who fell in love with her, and followed her to her lodging. Ferret, the villain of the story, misinterpreted all the kind actions of Frank, attributing his gifts to hush-money; but his character was amply vindicated, and "the soldier's daughter" became his blooming ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... she admitted. "You see, I was so knocked over, and I really didn't remember anything clearly, that I thought it was best to say nothing at all. They'd only have been trying to ferret things out of me that I couldn't have ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... notes. Most tropic birds hide their nests carefully in the bush: the Merles hang theirs fearlessly in the most exposed situations. They find, I presume, that they are protected enough from monkeys, wild cats, and gato- melaos (a sort of ferret) by being hung at the extremity of the bough. So thinks M. Leotaud, the accomplished describer of the birds of Trinidad. But he adds with good reason: 'I do not, however, understand how birds can protect their nestlings against ants; for so large is the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... of a man who was stepping along leisurely before him. For a second he stopped, and then he was back round the corner, and had swung himself up to a patch of shadow on the crag-side. He looked down and saw his enemy clearly in the moonlight; a long, ferret-faced fellow, with a rifle hung on his back and an ugly crooked knife in his hand. The man looked round, sniffing the air like a stag, and then, satisfied that there was nothing to fear, turned and went on. Lewis, who had been sitting on a sharp jag of rock, swung an aching body to ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... But leave that all to the dean. He'll ferret it out. He went in there to the telephone before he left, and from what I heard I imagine he's got detectives out after those two guys, and they may sleep in the lockup to-night. They certainly deserve to. And I shall have a hand in settling with them, too. ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... us perpetually seeking laws, seeking statements that will fit into infinite, incessantly interweaving complexities, and be true of them all! There is I perceive a valiant and magnificent stupidity about the human mind, a disregard of disproportion and insufficiency—like the ferret which will turn from the leveret it has seized to attack even man if he should interfere. By these desperate feats of thinking it is that our species has achieved its victories. By them it survives. By them it must stand ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... and sometimes known as the water pole-cat. It may be seen swimming about the lakes, preferring generally the still waters in autumn to the more rapidly-flowing currents of spring. It somewhat resembles the otter, and differs in shape slightly from the marten or ferret. Its teeth, however, are more like those of the pole-cat than the otter; while its tail does not possess the muscular power of the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... comes back! Ingenuousness is not simply the sister of truth, the guardian of the individual qualities of each of us; it is besides a great informing and educating force. I see among us too many practical people, so called, who go about armed with terrifying spectacles and huge shears to ferret out naive things and clip their wings. They uproot ingenuousness from life, from thought, from education, and pursue it even to the region of dreams. Under pretext of making men of their children, they prevent their ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... And Yamen's visage grows blanker and blanker; The lawyers are met at the Anchor and Crown, And Yamen's cheek is a russety brown: Veeshnoo, now thy work proceeds; The solicitor reads, And, merit of merit! Red wax and green ferret Are fixed at the ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... was beyond Louisa's powers. Her eyes were as red as a ferret's, and her cheeks the color of purple cherries from crying and excitement of mind. Mrs. Gray saw at once that something was wrong. She began to question, Louisa to cry, and the secret came out in a burst of sobs and tears. "Master Archie—bless ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... them away, certainly," answered my uncle; "but the pirates are pretty sure to ferret them out, thinking that some treasure is within; and though they may not carry them away, they will break open the cases, and then the contents will ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... humorous monologue Gertrude decides to accept the Burgomaster. She is interrupted in her soliloquy by Lampe, the Beadle, who is a regular old Paul Pry, and boasts to the widow of his smartness and sagacity. According to himself he can ferret out anything, or any one, from a defrauder of the revenue to a thief, an anarchist or a murderer. Then he goes on to say that he intended to serve notice of distraint on Frau Willmers, but had found her door locked. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Peter would remain quiet, Jolly Roger took off his shoes. After that he made no more sound than a ferret as he crept to the door. An inch at a time he raised himself, until he was standing up, with his ear half an inch from the crack that ran lengthwise of the frame. Holding his breath, he listened. For an interminable ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... I can manage to live alone for a few days, seeing that I shall be compelled to do so before long, by Miss Lawrie's marriage." Again Mary looked up into his face. "It is so, my dear. This young gentleman has managed to ferret out the truth, while looking for his wedding garments. Will you tell your papa, Miss Evelina, that Mary will be delighted ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... hoodwink Gregory Sweet, that must have got back on my conscience, besides being a dangerous thing. Deceived, the poor man had to be—for his own good, but my story must be made to hold water and ring true, else, with his doubting and probing nature, I well knew he'd ferret out the facts and very like ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... and small, lean as with fasting or with a wasting hunger not of this world, and his hands were as small and slender as a woman's. But his eyes! They were cunning and trustless, narrow- slitted and heavy-lidded, at one and the same time as sharp as a ferret's and as ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... a lamb with these unfortunates, and so I should not now myself be condemned to death. After all, I fail to see what they reproach me with. I have served my master as a brave and loyal subject, no more, and, after the fighting, I have let others ferret out the children that had hidden under their mothers' skirts. Everybody talks of the repression of Moscow, but let us speak, my friend, of the Commune. There was a piece of work I would not have done, to massacre within a court an unresisting crowd of men, women and children. I am ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... sure enough, the detective arrived. He was an odd-looking small man, with hair cut short and standing straight up all over his head, like a Parisian waiter. He had quick, sharp eyes, very much like a ferret's; his nose was depressed, his lips thin and bloodless. A scar marked his left cheek—made by a sword-cut, he said, when engaged one day in arresting a desperate French smuggler, disguised as an officer of Chasseurs d'Afrique. His mien ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... Uncle Amos, "these women, if they don't beat all! They ferret all the weak spots out a man. ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... something dreadful must have happened to account for the change in Miss Oliphant. It would be a comfort to know the truth, and, of course, one need never talk of it. By the way, Rosie, you are just the person to ferret this little secret out; you are the right sort of person for spying ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... joke struck neither all at once. Sam'l began to smile at it as he turned down the school-wynd, and it came upon Henders while he was in his garden feeding his ferret. Then he slapped his legs gleefully, and explained the conceit to Will'um Byars, who went into the house and thought ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... defense against heresy was the establishment, under the headship of the pope, of a system of tribunals designed to ferret out secret cases of unbelief and bring the offenders to punishment. These courts of experts, who devoted their whole attention to the discovery and conviction of heresy, constituted the Holy Inquisition, which gradually took form after the Albigensian crusade. We cannot ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... human ferret, as had been proven many times during his boyhood. At one time the jewelry store in which he worked as a shipping clerk lost a valuable necklace, and after the police of Chicago had failed to find a clew, James' special ability was reported and he was given a ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... Riverboro girls of her own age was a certain excellently named Minnie Smellie, who was anything but a general favorite. She was a ferret-eyed, blond-haired, spindle-legged little creature whose mind was a cross between that of a parrot and a sheep. She was suspected of copying answers from other girls' slates, although she had never been caught in the act. Rebecca ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... that in "Sir Launcelot Greaves," we find a character, Ferret, who frankly poses as a strugforlifeur. M. Daudet's strugforlifeur had heard of Darwin. Mr. Ferret had read Hobbes, learned that man was in a state of nature, and inferred that we ought to prey upon each other, as ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... replied Don Quixote, "you go and mind your tame partridge and your bold ferret, and leave every one to manage his own business; this is mine, and I know whether these gentlemen the lions come to me or not"; and then turning to the keeper he exclaimed, "By all that's good, sir scoundrel, if you don't open the cages this very ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... are a hundred tricks to which shooters and dealers willingly resort to ship and receive unlawful game without detection. It takes the very best kind of game wardens,—genuine detectives, in fact,—to ferret out these cunning illegal practices, and catch lawbreakers "with the goods on them," so that they can be punished. Mind you, convictions can not be secured at both ends of the line save by the most extraordinary good fortune, and usually the shooter ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... for glory—now for economics. I have been trying to ferret out more nearly your chances of a post, and here are my results (which, I need not tell you, must be kept ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... burning, and he shivered and his knees trembled. Perhaps, though he was by no means sensitive, he felt the influence of the horrors that surrounded him, and which seemed more sinister than ever in the bleak light of morning. He began to ferret in the cupboards, and at last succeeded in discovering—oh, marvelous fortune!—a bottle of brandy, three parts full. He hesitated for an instant, then he poured out a glass, and drained it ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... you tell her, please, that you have confided what has happened to me and that I will do my best to ferret out the mystery." ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... am not," pointedly returned Hopper, in answer. "There are some that I look after, sharp as a ferret looks after a rat, but I'll never do that by any son of Mr. Channing's. I can't forget the old days, sir, when your father was kind to me. He stood by me longer than my own friends did. But for him, I should have starved in that long illness I had, when the office would have me no longer. Why ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... against nature in the man's craven impudence; it was as though a lamb had butted me; such daring at the hands of such a dastard, implied unchangeable resolve, a great pressure of necessity, and powerful means. I thought of the unknown Carthew, and it sickened me to see this ferret on ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... so thinking to myself, Mr. Chiffinch came in again, having, with marvellous speed, changed his suit into one of brown velvet, with a great black periwig, from which his sharp face looked out like a ferret ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... order to get nearer to young Linnet, with whom she wished to be on intimate terms, broke suddenly off, and the poor young lady was precipitated to the ground and sadly hurt. Her cries brought to her assistance her younger brother Tom, who, as soon as he had helped her home, ran for young Ferret, who had lately begun practice as a physician. When the good young doctor came, he found Miss Weasel lying on the sofa, looking very pale and very interesting. He felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and soon discovered that the lady was more frightened ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... them by drawing a stroke with chalk for every rat on the red brick wall of the stable, near his ferret-hutch. He only used a few traps—one was set not at a hole, but at a sharp curve of the brook—and the whole of these rats were taken in a part of the brook about 250 or 300 yards in length, just where it ran through a single field. The great majority were water-rats, but ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... Lord Clarendon more than these pretended admirers do. But I do not intend to justify myself. I can as little satisfy those who complain that I do not let them know what really did happen. If this inquiry can ferret out any truth, I shall be glad. I have picked up a few more circumstances. I now want to know what Perkin Warbeck's Proclamation was, which Speed in his history says is preserved by Bishop Leslie. If you look in Speed, perhaps you will be ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... expression in the nose, which hung like a rigid sentinel over the thin-lipped mouth,—like Victor Hugo's Javert, loyal, untiring, merciless. No traitorous comfits ever passed that guard; no death-laden bark sailed by that sleepless quarantine. The small ferret-eyes which looked nervously out from under bushy brows, roaming, but never resting, were of the true Minerva tint,—yellow-green. The encircling rings told of unsettled weather. While elf-locks and straggling whiskers marked the man careless of forms, the narrow, knotted brow suggested ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... square-jawed, with light, steely, secretive gray eyes, and a look of intelligence and assurance that did not harmonize with his motley garb. His companion was a foreigner, small of stature, with eyes like a ferret and deep pits ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... the CONFIDENTIAL CLERK of Joel Burns, sent here by him to ferret out and punish your rascalities. Stay,' continued Hiram—perceiving Joslin was about to break forth in some violent demonstrations. 'Sit down, sir, and hear me through quietly. It is your best course. It is your ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to-day in the Divan Himself betrayed it: in this city lives One man who knows his name and origin. Now what behoves us is to ferret through The town, and if we make no stint of gold Haply we may discover ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... when his brain is nosing about like this; it is better to keep still and let him ferret it out. So I sat down outside the curved rail with its wooden slats backed by faded green curtains, close to the big stove screened off at the end of the long room, fixed one eye on the moon-face and the other on the ostrich ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... remarkably inventive Santa Claus were greeted, while Polly held her climbing excitement in check until the hour should be ripe for greater things. But when, at last, just as the sun was peeping in at the kitchen window, Dan's ferret fingers penetrated the extreme toe of his sock, she grew so agitated that she quite forgot to make a certain witty observation she had been saving up for that particular moment. And so it came about that an unwonted silence reigned as the unsuspecting Dan drew forth a small flat parcel ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... too, and true, that if the woman at the next desk finds that she is annoying our friend, unconsciously she seems to ferret out her most sensitive places and rub them raw with her sharp, ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... wife, it is not possible. Am I a rat that I should be bolted from my hole thus by this ferret of a Montalvo? I am a man of peace and no longer young, but let him beware lest I stop here long enough to ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... will do so.—But, look you, Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar's brow, And all the rest look like a chidden train: Calpurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes As we have seen him in the Capitol, Being cross'd in conference by ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... is that the ferret is in the hole and the rats have begun to squeak already. Soon they will come hopping out of St. John's Wood Avenue, so make ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... else might have journeyed peacefully adown the vale of life in perfect good faith with all the world; moreover, they hated a mystery, did these two sister-spinsters, from their own innate frankness and openness of disposition, they said, and considered themselves so much in duty bound to ferret out the solution of any thing which bore the semblance to an enigma, that they gave themselves no rest, poor, self-sacrificing creatures, until they had obtained their object. And well were they rewarded for this ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... round the rim of the disk, as if there were a band of stronger light there, I saw a white animal under a heap of poles by the wayside, near the great hedge I have mentioned. It immediately concealed itself, but, thinking that it was a ferret gone astray, I waited, and presently the head and neck were ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... at a mass of material, a wealth of information concerning the past experiential, emotional, mental and moral life of the individual whose dream we were at the moment analyzing. In fact, one could ferret out the full life history in great detail, thus obtaining a complete autobiography leading far down into the depths of the dreamer's mental life and into the inner world of his own. With the material so ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... the symptoms well. He can't look me in the face, and every now and then, when he fancies my attention is attracted elsewhere, I catch him peeping furtively at me as if he were frightened out of his life I should ferret out some secret. It would be deplorable if now that we have got so near the end of the Compact, we should be held up by some idiotic blunder—some nonsensical love affair of his. I wonder whether it's Rosenberg or some other ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... foolish as to meddle with the picture? Why had he read papers that did not belong to him? Why, above all, had he come down to Fording to have his suspicions confirmed? What business was it of his to ferret out these things? He felt all the unutterable aversion of an upright mind for playing the part of a detective; all the sovereign contempt even for such petty meanness as allows one person to examine ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... soon attacked Ras Ali, and after several indecisive campaigns proclaimed himself negus of Tigre. To him came many French missionaries and travellers, chief of whom were Lieut. Lefebvre, charged (1839) with political and geographical missions, and Captains Galinier and Ferret, who completed for him a useful triangulation and survey of Tigre and Simen (1840-1842). The brothers Antoine and Arnaud d'Abbadie (q.v.) spent ten years (1838-1848) in the country, making scientific investigations of great value, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... servants remaining behind, much to their delight, to take charge of spare baggage, &c. left in the bungalow. One of the Maharajah's army also accompanied us, a rough-and-ready-looking sepoy irregular, whose duty it was to ferret out supplies and coolies, &c. during our march, and at the same time, perhaps, to keep a watch over our own movements and desperate designs. Passed the night under gauze fortifications, the disappointed mosquitoes buzzing about ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... the priests chose to call "Freemasonry"; and on the ground that all vows which could not be explained at the confessional were anti-christian, the Archbishop gave strict injunctions to the friars to ferret out the so-called Freemasons. Denunciations by hundreds quickly followed, for the priests willingly availed themselves of this licence to get rid of anti-clericals and others who had displeased them. In the town of Malolos (which ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman |
