"Ticklish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Again to-day we had our usual shock of earthquake and at the usual time. Next day at three p.m., earthquake, quivering hills, broken and toppling rocks, with scared and agitated rock wallabies. This seemed a very ticklish, if not extremely dangerous place for a depot. Rocks overhung and frowned down upon us in every direction; a very few of these let loose by an earthquake would soon put a period to any further explorations on our part. We passed a great portion of to-day (18th) in erecting a fine large bough-house; ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... gentlemen who have in the last six years filled the office of Minister for Ireland, we find that no fewer than three [George Otto Trevelyan, John Morley, and Arthur Balfour] were authors of books before they engaged in the very ticklish business of the government of men. ["Hear! Hear!"] And one of these three Ministers for Ireland embarked upon his literary career—which promised ample distinction—under the editorial auspices of another of the three. We ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... imprints a kiss, in passing, on the back of your neck, let him. When, on coming home from a ball, he tears out the pins, tangles the strings, and laughs like a madman, trying to see whether you are ticklish, let him. Do not cry "Murder!" if his moustache pricks you, but think that it is all because at heart he loves you well. He worships your virtues; is it surprising hence that he should cherish their outward coverings? ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... that my enquiries would either be useless, or precipitate the burning of other records. I hope your excursion will do you good. Thank you for your account of Spedding: I had written however to himself, and from himself ascertained that he was out of the worst. But Spedding's life is a very ticklish one. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... the mouth to the heart, and thence lower down, with such delicate industry has nature prepared everything! The little glands of the lips, their spongy tissue, their velvety paps, the fine skin, ticklish, gives them an exquisite and voluptuous sensation, which is not without analogy with a still more hidden and still more sensitive part. Modesty may suffer from a lengthily savoured kiss ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... when they had gone back to the library for their coffee, "I am afraid this Commission is going to be ticklish business." ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... thought save the aviator in many a ticklish position. It is perhaps a tribute to the growing perfection of the airplanes that in certain moments of peril the machine is best left wholly to itself. Its stability is such that if freed from control it will often right itself and glide safely to earth. ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... root which shoots out over your head, sir, for 'tis ticklish work getting along just here. Do you feel ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... pretty ticklish," Charley admitted, "but just the craft for our purpose. She's so light she will float on a good heavy dew, and then she's so easy to take to pieces and pack away. But we'd better stop our chattering, for we are ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... they have altered or changed any thing concerning the generalitie of matters, but rather to wrest and turne the judgement of the events many times against reason, to our advantage, and to omit whatsoever they supposed to be doubtful or ticklish in their masters life: they have made a business of it: witnesse the recoylings of the Lords of Momorancy and Byron, which therein are forgotten; and which is more, you shall not so much as find the name of the ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... and death with people, without feeling a something in common with them, that you do not have even with life-long friends. The high officer and the cockney Tommy have that linking up. There was one person whom I couldn't grow to like. But with him I have shared a ticklish time, and there is that cord of connection. Then, too, one is glad of a record of oneself. There is some one to verify what you say. You have passed through an unbelievable thing together, ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... the poignancy of the drama. They had been married only six days; in three days more they were to return to the Five Towns, where Stephen was solidly established as an earthenware manufacturer. You who have been through them are aware what ticklish things honeymoons are, and how much depends on the tactfulness of the more tactful of the two parties. Stephen, thirteen years older than Vera, was the more tactful of the two parties. He had married a beautiful and elegant ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... a ticklish operation to get by if the men are on the watch. We can manage to, though, if we are prudent and don't lose our heads. Don't breathe a word or make any noise with your paddles. ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... (f) Form remainder of mixture into a nest. ("That's a nice little homely touch.") (g) Arrange eggs in the nest and (1) Pour over one cup White Sauce. ("Memo: See p. 266 for White Sauce.") (2) Sprinkle with buttered crumbs. ("Allow plenty of time for buttering those crumbs; that sounds rather ticklish work.") (3) Bake until crumbs are brown. (h) Garnish with a border of toast points and a ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... to the theatre, to see if I could extract as much fun from the metropolis of a free state as I had previously obtained from the capital of slave-holding Maryland; for I knew the Americans, both North and South, were as ticklish as young ladies. I found very much the same style of thing as at Baltimore, except that her abolitionist highness, the Duchess of Southernblack, did not appear on the stage by deputy; but as an atonement for the ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... for Mr. Marsh, who was now more at her beck and call than ever, and told him she had a ticklish letter to write. "I can talk with the best," said she, "but the moment I sit down and take up a pen something cold runs up my shoulder, and then down my backbone, and I'm palsied; now you are always writing, and can't say 'Bo' to a goose in company. Let ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... It was ticklish work paddling the raft. The logs were fastened together so insecurely, owing to the fact that all the rope was in the runaway boat, that Harry was in constant fear that they would come apart, and was obliged to paddle very carefully to avoid putting any ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... It was a ticklish business, very much like managing a treacherous mule, loaded with kicks and bites at both ends. One little error of judgment, and the result would be a spill that must toss the occupants into the ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... And yet Schiller contrives, with splendid artistic cunning, that we do take him from first to last at his own estimate. His assumption of superiority appears perfectly reasonable; and even in the ticklish astrological scenes, about which Schiller himself was in doubt until reassured by Goethe, he never becomes ridiculous. His belief in destiny and his unctuous palaver about the occult connection of events do not detract from his dignity. One understands that his ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... this ticklish steed and in company with my friend, I made various excursions to Bolivar, Marion, Columbia, Anahuac, incipient cities consisting of from five to twenty houses. We also visited numerous plantations and clearings, to the owners of some of which we were known, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... job in the Secret Service—Intelligence Department. I had the whole thing cut and dried—to get at the ramifications of German espionage in socialistic and so-called intellectual circles in neutral and other countries. It would have been ticklish work, for I should have been carrying my life in my hands. I could have done it well. I started out by being a sort of 'intellectual' myself. All along I wanted to put my brains at the service of my country. I took some time to hit upon the real way. I hit upon it. I learned ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... ticklish along about this time; for I knowed if there was no danger then, there had been, and I felt exactly like ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... learn we are going after treasure—hear it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure is ticklish work; I don't like treasure voyages on any account; and I don't like them, above all, when they are secret, and when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the secret has ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said, and I understood; a situation not exactly uncommon, but ticklish on a planet like Darkover. I said carelessly, "I may have seen you around the HQ. I ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... when he looked at her, calmed, he knew that he had done well for himself. He knew that if he had not yielded to that terrific impulse he would have done badly for himself. Mrs Machin had what she called a ticklish night of it. ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... was a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde, Desirable, distinguished, celebrated For several winters in the grand, grand Monde: I'd rather not say what might be related Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground; Besides there might be falsehood in what's stated: Her late performance had been a dead set ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... hardly time to swallow his dinner before he is back on the bridge. It's a ticklish ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... two months since I opened this book. But it cannot be, it cannot be that we shall be beaten—Oh! God—why am I not a man again to fight! The raids are continuous—All the fluffies and nearly everyone left Paris in the ticklish March and April times, but now their fears are lulled a little and many have returned, and they rush to cinemas and theatres, to kill time, and jump into the rare taxis to go and see the places where the raid bombs burst, or Bertha shells, and watch ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... ticklish question, and the mate hardly knew how to answer it, recollecting, as he did in an instant, what I had said—of our being much further westwards than the skipper thought. Even if he did not agree with me, the point should have been referred to Captain Billings, ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... but he paused abruptly, as if he had suddenly remembered that tact and not pugnacity was the requirement for the handling of this ticklish situation. ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Secret Session in one of his briefest speeches. "Mr. Speaker," he said, "I beg, Sir, to call your attention to the fact that strangers are present." The historic form of this advertisement, "I spy strangers;" is briefer still, but inadmissible in these ticklish times. One does not want to see, in the enemy Press, "British Prime ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... Channel we had trouble with a short circuit in our electric engines, and were compelled to run on the surface for several hours while we replaced one of the cam-shafts and renewed some washers. It was a ticklish time, for had a torpedo-boat come upon us we could not have dived. The perfect submarine of the future will surely have some alternative engines for such an emergency. However by the skill of Engineer ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for me to give out particulars about this special directors' meetin' that was goin' on. Speakin' by and large, though, when you clean up better'n thirty per cent. on a semi-annual, you got to do some dividend-jugglin', ain't you? And with them quiz committees so thick, it's apt to be ticklish work. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... so every nerve was strained anew. Presently Jack Drake, the Captain's page, yelled out Sail-ho! and scrambled down the mainmast to get the golden chain that Drake had promised to the first lookout who saw the chase. It was ticklish work, so near to Panama; and local winds might ruin all. So Drake, in order not to frighten her, trailed a dozen big empty wine jars over the stern to moderate his pace. At eight o'clock the jars were cut adrift and the Golden ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... was becoming ticklish, led him aside and explained things so satisfactorily to him that he soon drove off, recommending that watch should be kept, and that the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... a ticklish one, so to speak," he observed, vainly trying to dodge the palm leaves to the right of him; "but I think we are reasonably ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... current of old Missouri, thrusting against so large an object, was incredibly strong; but at last, little by little edging the heavy staging up over the limb of the snag, we got its end upon another fork and so made a ticklish support, half in and ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... devices, in good earnest, were those compelled to resort who ventured upon the ticklish experiment of presenting heroic entertainments for king's palaces, where 'hanging was the word' in case of a fright; but, with a genius like this behind the scenes, so fertile in invention, so various in gifts, who could aggravate his voice ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... come along downstairs. Lean on it pretty heavily, mind. Your spirit's too much for your strength, and you are apt to forget that you are an invalid. You've got to keep a check on yourself, my dear, and remember that a nervous shock's a ticklish thing, and ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... give, in a slight degree, an air of distrust to his manner. "But the eye that has often seen battles seldom winks. Mine has too often, and too steadily, looked danger in the face to be alarmed at the sight of a King's pennant. Besides it is not usual for us to be much on this ticklish coast; the islands, and the Spanish Main, are ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... and systematically robbed—burst into laughter. But this was the end. There was Allister's whistle; Jeff Rankin ran around from the other side of the train; the gang faded instantly into the thicket. Andrew, as the rear guard—his most ticklish moment—backed slowly toward the trees. Once there was a waver in the line, such as precedes a rush. He stopped short, and a single twitch of his rifle froze the waverers in ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Miss Lacey. "I'm having a doubtful moment right now; not one, but dozens! I'm on the most ticklish errand of my life. That's what I called on Judge Trent about ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... Armadale!" cried young Pedgift, greeting his patron gayly. "We can all go on the water together; I've got the biggest boat on the Broads. The little skiffs," he added, in a lower tone, as he led the way to the quay steps, "besides being ticklish and easily upset, won't hold more than two, with the boatman; and the major told me he should feel it his duty to go with his daughter, if we all separated in different boats. I thought that would hardly do, sir," pursued Pedgift Junior, with a respectfully sly emphasis on the words. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... through Rome is intensely interesting. The streets are mostly narrow and crooked, and we are always turning corners, driving across small triangular open places and in lanes where it is ticklish work to pass a vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Yet no boulevards, no great streets in the world, can rival in beauty the streets of Rome. They are skirted by old grey palaces built thousands of years ago rather than centuries, decorated ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... impassive, fleshy countenance. He has the very face for the driver in Sam Weller's anecdote, who upset the election party at the required point. Wonderful tales are current of his readiness and skill. One in particular, of how one of his horses fell at a ticklish passage of the road, and how Foss let slip the reins, and, driving over the fallen animal, arrived at the next stage with only three. This I relate as ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... before, to ascertain the name of the pretty black-eyed woman seated at his left hand; and the consciousness of so great a curiosity gratified, may have augmented his unaccustomed embarrassment. Certain it is, Sam Rice had driven six horses, on a ticklish mountain road, for four years, without missing a trip; and had more than once encountered the "road-agents," without ever yet delivering them an express box; had had old and young ladies, plain and beautiful ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... the state of the river, we came in just at the right time. The Rusniacks—the people generally employed in this perilous work—certainly display great skill and coolness in the management of their ticklish craft. If by any mischance the timbers come in contact with the rocks, then the danger is extreme; and hardly a year passes that some of the poor fellows do not get carried away in the swirling waters, ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... arm, for knowledge is power, and the ignorant man is but an infant, and to give him knowledge is like putting a loaded blunderbuss into the hands of a child. What can an ignorant man do with knowledge? He is as likely to use it wrong end uppermost as in any other manner. Learning is a ticklish thing; it was said by Festus to have maddened even the wise and experienced Paul and what may we not expect it to do with your downright ignoramus? What is ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... off for the Vega, eight hundred feet sheer below the mine. It was a ticklish zigzag, just to the left of the transporting machinery, with twenty places in which a ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... am sure I should make one of his Midland speeches to admiration.... I really find nothing new to say. Of course, there is the old story of Afghanistan, but the latter is already discounted, and it is rather a ticklish question. I never felt it so difficult to mix a prescription good for the present feeling of the constituencies.... Depend upon it, if we are to win (as we shall), it will not be on some startling cry, but by the turning over to us of that floating mass of middle votes which went over to the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... A man of our party might, could, would and should keep his mouth shut about such a ticklish matter; but outside our party, any who begins it has got to ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... have another dose of it before you're entirely finished!" he responded. "When the case comes on in London. That's the ticklish part of the business. We'll meet there again, I expect, as Mr. Lake and I will be bound to give our evidence—which is a thankless task at the best of times.... Hello! Dollops, got the golf-clubs and walking-sticks? That's a ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... I ain't the man to deny the truth of this transaction, you see; but, then, you must know, much depends upon the way you manage a clock. A clock is quite a delicate and ticklish article of manufacture, you see, and it ain't everybody that can make a clock, or can make it go when it don't want to; and if a man takes a hammer or a horsewhip, or any other unnatural weapon to it, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... girls, she was very "ticklish," and when he dallied with his fingers about her plump neck, she dropped to the ground and kicked and rolled over to get away from him. He let her up, and said with pretended gravity that he never allowed any trifling with him without punishing ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... wants to zet in that chair. To hiss the curate, 'tis a ticklish sort of a job after that. Vurst comes afore second, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the woods on the right side of a clear field where a portion of the afternoon battle had raged, and lay down by the side of the road, conscious that we were in a ticklish place. There was occasional firing over us into the field, and once in a while a bullet dropped near us. But this soon ceased and the battlefield, as a whole, was quiet, and I began to hope that the battle was over. But our colonel was of another mind. He had ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... shots, and having skill in the use of the sword and with their fists, the boys had fought themselves out of many ticklish situations. And now, free again, they were making all speed to deliver the message from the combined leaders of two countries to Grand Duke Nicholas, a message that would mean closer cooperation between the Russians in the east and the British and ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... went on eating and drinking with Pao-ch'ai, Hsiang-yn and the other girls, P'ing Erh turned her head round. "Don't rub me like that!" she laughed, "It makes me feel quite ticklish." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... world. But sleep did not come. Oh, no! Nothing new came at all except that particularly wretched, itching type of insomnia which seems to rip away from one's body the whole kind, protecting skin and expose all the raw, ticklish fretwork of nerves to the mercy of a gritty blanket or a wrinkled sheet. Pain came too, in its most brutally high night-tide; and sweat, like the smother of furs in summer; and thirst like the scrape of hot sand-paper; and chill like the clammy horror of raw fish. ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... been a most ticklish undertaking, and but for his diplomacy, he believed one foredoomed to failure. But of course Lorraine was a woman of the world, with a larger mixture of the other kind of womanliness, perhaps, ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... appearance, to herself, by suggesting that it would not do for the husband of her sister to detest her! That was sophistry, and it was sophistry that served her now; but the subjects upon which she exercised it were becoming hourly more and more ticklish. The woman of two weeks back would have started and turned pale ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... 1838, M. de Talleyrand, feeling his end draw near, thought it necessary to act a last lie in accordance with human prejudices, and he resolved to be reconciled, in appearance, to a Church whose truth, once acknowledged by him, convicted him of sacrilege and of dishonour. This ticklish job could best be performed, not by a staid priest of the old Gallican school, who might have insisted upon a categorical retractation of errors, upon his making amends and upon his doing penance; not by a young Ultramontane of the new school, against whom M. de Talleyrand would at ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... prophecy, the dark-blue cloud dispersed itself without having produced the threatened consequences. "The weather"—as he observed the next morning—"the weather, you see, 's a ticklish thing, an' a fool 'ull hit on't sometimes when a wise man misses; that's why the almanecks get so much credit. It's one o' them chancy things ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... of it I had turf underfoot; but where this ended and the rock began, I had to leave the barrow behind. It was ticklish work, climbing down; for footing had to be found, and Lydia was a monstrous weight. Pah! how fat she was and clumsy—lolling this way and that! Besides, the bag hampered me. But I reached the foot at last, and after a short rest clambered out along the ridge as fast as I could. I was sick ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... welcome death. Trust not too much, vain Monarch, to your pow'r, Know fortune places all her choicest gifts On ticklish heights, they shake with ev'ry breeze, And oft some rude wind hurls them to the ground. Jove's thunder strikes the lofty palaces, While the low cottage, in humility, Securely stands, and sees the mighty ruin. What King can boast, to-morrow as to-day, Thus, ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... with women and baggage, is always a ticklish operation, your honour, especially if an enemy is pressing your rear! Then we have a wilderness before us, and the ladies could hardly hold out for so long a march as that from this place to the Mohawk; short of which river they will hardly ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... "Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?" laughed they: "Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, 20 And with flow at full beside? Now 'tis slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring? Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ship will ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... that ever riz. Yea, verily, and moreover, not only this here bay, but the hull coast all along to Bosting. Why, I'm at home here on the rollin biller. I'm the man for Mount Desert, an Quoddy Head, an Grand Manan, an all other places that air ticklish to the ginrality of seafarin men. Why, young sir, you see before you, in the humble an unassumin person of the aged Corbet, a livin, muvin, and sea-goin edition of Blunt's Coast Pilot, revised and improved to a precious sight better condition than it's ever possible ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... a ticklish path in the steep side of the moraine, and invaded the glacier. There were tourists of both sexes scattered far and wide over it, everywhere, and it had the festive look of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... men which of the parties do most harm to the liberty of England, he who affirms that no woman may be exalted above any realm to make the liberty of the same thrall to any stranger nation, "or they that approve whatsoever pleaseth Princes for the time." Leaving thus the ticklish argument which he cannot withdraw, but finds it impolitic to bring forward, he turns to the Queen's individual behaviour in her position as being the thing most important at the present moment, now that she has ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... "'Tis a ticklish business," said I after a minute, "to carry the King's letter. Not one in four of his messengers comes through, they say. But since it keeps you ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... saw a creature in such a tearing fidget. Her long nose was nearly stuck into my face, and both her hands, all claws extended, seemed ready for my cheeks. I felt a little ticklish, I assure you; but I kept up my courage, determined to see the game out, and answered very deliberately, after I had put a fresh ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... 'singing pine,' and the 'overwandering ivy and vine,' and 'festoons,' and 'gnarled boughs,' and 'tree tops,' and 'berries,' and 'flowers,' and all the inanimate beauties of the scene. It would be unjust to the ingenuus pudor of the author not to observe the art with which he has veiled this ticklish interview behind such luxuriant trellis-work, and it is obvious that it is for our special sakes he has entered into these local details, because if there was one thing which 'mother Ida' knew better than another, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... closely, old man, and report to me everything that happens. Find out more about Kedsty, if you can. I shall advise you how to act. It is rather ticklish, you know—for you! And"—he smiled at Mercer—"I'm unusually hungry this morning. Add another egg, will you, Mercer? Three instead of two, and a couple of extra slices of toast. And don't let any one know that my ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... looked all around, and got off and tightened the cinch a bit more. Shylock—I always rode him when I could—threw his head around and nearly took a chunk out of my arm, and in reproving him I forgot, for a minute, the ticklish game I was playing. Then I loosened my gun—I had learned to carry it inconspicuously under my coat, as did the other boys—made sure it could be pulled without embarrassing delay, and went on. Around the next turn a five-wired fence stretched across the trail, with a gate fastened by a chain and ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... schooners, built at Bermuda during the war of 1814; they went through the waves without rising to them, and consequently were too ticklish for ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... to be angry by this time, and after she had tickled him till he begged for mercy—Bobby was extremely ticklish—they crawled out again, disheveled and panting, and ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... neat. After I had made speech to crowded meeting, lot of questions put. Answered them all satisfactorily. At last one fellow got up, asked me, in voice of thunder, 'Are you, in favour of temperance?' Rather ticklish thing that, you know. As many against it as for it. Looked all round the room; seemed remarkably decent lot; the man who was heckling me a little rubicund as to the nose; but that might be indigestion. Anyhow, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... the hampers," said Cheesacre. "Wine is a ticklish thing to handle, and there's my man there ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... matter is settled, and we are safe for the present. But you can see the ticklish ground we stand on. These men will not rest satisfied with the immense concessions we have made them; they will demand more and more as the consciousness of their power increases. They know we are afraid of them. In time they will assume the absolute control of ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... business has been established on the Ponte Vecchio for centuries, although, long since, it was an art of far higher pretensions than now. Benvenuto Cellini had his workshop here, probably in one of these selfsame little nooks. It would have been a ticklish affair to be Benvenuto's fellow-workman within ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... young savage into the water was a difficult and ticklish job; but they finally succeeded, after Donald had first removed the gag from his mouth. He took the Indian's knife, and, as the latter slid into the water, Bullen held him by the scalp-lock, while Donald severed the thong that bound his wrists. In his rage, the Indian attempted ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... ticklish job," he whispered. "There's the tinklers, mind, that's campin' in the Dean. If they're still in their camp we can get by easy enough, but they're maybe wanderin' about the wud after rabbits.... Then we maun ford the water, for ye'll no' cross it lower down where ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... "It's a ticklish job," argued Parson Ranson, "an' I wouldn't want to wuck at de debbil's task aroun' de ribber, ca'se you mout fall in, ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... had a very ticklish part to play. They were afraid of any popular shout which might bring down the avalanche of Roman power on them, and they were nervously anxious to keep things quiet. So Gamaliel did not wish to have any fuss made about 'these men,' lest it should be supposed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... huge cat, which I now saw was an enormous panther, I waited until I could place a shot where I felt it would do the most good, for at best a frontal shot at any of the large carnivora is a ticklish matter. I had some advantage in that the beast was not charging; its head was held low and its back exposed; and so at forty yards I took careful aim at its spine at the junction of neck and shoulders. But at the same instant, as though sensing my intention, the great creature lifted its ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... as the fear of being measured still possessed me, 'Take care,' said I to him, 'what you are going to do with me; I am very ticklish, I warn you.' But he, with his soft voice (for he is a courteous fellow, we must admit, my friend), he with his soft voice, 'Monsieur,' said he, 'that your dress may fit you well, it must be made according to your figure. Your figure is exactly reflected ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all youths whose vanity is excessively ticklish, seemed annoyed at being lectured on the threshold of ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... the first place," replied Colonel Anderson coolly, "We are in a ticklish situation, and that's a fact, but there must be some way out of it. Now let's see. We can't get out the front door without being shot down. The same goes for the window as the house undoubtedly is surrounded. Then what are we ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... sticks, Janet. Money atween me an' Billy is a ticklish matter. Don't lay it up agin Susan Jane, girl, the conniverin' in money ways an' the Holy Book is all that Susan Jane has, ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... There is seldom an apology to be offered for a mother that will hazard the happiness of her children by a second marriage. The law allows it, to be sure; but there is, as Prior says, 'something beyond the letter of the law.' I know what ticklish ground I am treading on here; but, though it is as lawful for a woman to take a second husband as for a man to take a second wife, the cases are different, and widely different, in the eye of morality and ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... was characteristic. Even with a competent pilot, Papeetee Bay, is considered a ticklish, one to enter. Formed by a bold sweep of the shore, it is protected seaward by the coral reef, upon which the rollers break with great violence. After stretching across the bay, the barrier extends on toward Point Venus, in the district of Matavia, eight or nine miles distant. Here there ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... It was ticklish work, as the dusk deepened, getting from one wreck to another; and at last—after nearly going down into the weed between two of them, because of a rotten belaying-pin that I caught at breaking in my hand—I had to resign myself to giving over ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... the Earl to recover consciousness in order to obtain instructions concerning the attitude to be adopted towards Austria, regarding whom a ticklish point of policy had on the previous evening arisen. The political horizon of Europe changes from ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... cleverness and tact—and beauty. For our sakes I'm sorry that she's serving our interests professionally for the last time. For her own sake, I ought to rejoice, as she's engaged to be married. And if you can save her from coming to grief over this very ticklish business, she'll probably live happily ever after. Did you ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... maxim; and besides, I did not recollect that, in bestowing praise and strongly censuring in the same article, without naming the persons, the language must be so appropriated to those to whom it is applicable, that the most ticklish pride cannot find in it the least thing equivocal. I was in this respect in such an imprudent security, that I never once thought it was possible any one should make a false application. It will soon appear whether or ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... hazard connected with such occasions. At every station, for instance, some or all of the six horses had to be roped, thrown, and blindfolded before they would let themselves be harnessed. To adjust the harness was itself a ticklish undertaking and had to be done with minute regard for sensitive nerves, for if any part of it struck a horse except with the pressure of its own weight, the devil was loose again, and anything might happen. But even when the harness was finally on the refractory backs, the work was not half ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... belie him, for his good conduct and honesty of purpose are without parallel. His muzzle projects dog-monkey fashion, and is adorned with a regular set of sharp-pointed alligator teeth, which he presents to full view as constantly as his very ticklish risible faculties become excited. The tobacconist's "jolly nigger," stuck in the corner house of —— street, as it stands in mute but full grin, tempting the patronage of accidental passengers, is his perfect counterpart. This wonderful man says he knows nothing of his genealogy, nor ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... not killed. I give the alarm, and we put scouts up trees to direct the ticklish pursuit along the bloody trail. We drive herds of buffaloes into the long grass and brush to drive out the wounded tiger. Our general himself takes charge, with ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... coming to-night," said he; "for on this ticklish frontier it is always safer to terminate one's journey by sunset. The rogues pass so easily from one side of the water to the other, that it is difficult to ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... be a ticklish one, as a man less sincerely attached to his home might have been turned into a ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... stopped short and shook its head, and they saw it try to turn it, as if to touch a tender or ticklish ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... Mountain"—Watchikwe Powistic—so called from a peak at its head, which towered to a great height above the neighbouring banks. The rapid extends diagonally across the river in a low cascade, with a curve inward towards the left shore. It was decided to unload and make the portage, and a very ticklish one it was. The boats, of course, had to be hauled up stream by the trackers, and grasping their line I got safely over, and was thankful. How the trackers managed to hold on was to me a mystery; but the steep and slippery bank was mere child's play to them. The right ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... Lisette?" Howell asked. "I agree that, like Yvonne, she has been of great use to us in many ways. Beauty and wit are always assets in our rather ticklish branch of commerce. Where ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... it!" Had his question been about truth, only a pragmatist could have told him the particular go of it. I believe that our contemporary pragmatists, especially Messrs. Schiller and Dewey, have given the only tenable account of this subject. It is a very ticklish subject, sending subtle rootlets into all kinds of crannies, and hard to treat in the sketchy way that alone befits a public lecture. But the Schiller-Dewey view of truth has been so ferociously attacked by rationalistic philosophers, and so abominably misunderstood, that ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... we're not going to have rain for our trip," he remarked, more for the sake of something to say than because, even if rain came, it were likely to last. "It's just the ticklish time of the month for weather, you know: to-morrow we shall have the ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... or eight hundred thousand francs—or a million, it may be (how should I know?)—it is very unpleasant to have it slip through one's fingers, especially if one happens to be the heir-at-law. . . . But, on the other hand, to prevent this, one is obliged to stoop to dirty work; work so difficult, so ticklish, bringing you cheek by jowl with such low people, servants and subordinates; and into such close contact with them too, that no barrister, no attorney in Paris could take up ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... got the pluck and the sand. But it's a ticklish place. There is a good many places in there that I ain't never explored, and don't want to; and it's safe to bet that the hoboes ain't done it, neither. I reckon, mister, that that's about all I ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... am well aware that I am making public a research that is by no means free from objections, I nevertheless believe that it may be of use to those who have to undertake the ticklish and intricate analyses of commercial fats.—Translated from the Chemiker ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... pink of clerkly portraiture, seemed but a fair prototype of this individual, Geoffrey Chaucer at this time being a setter forth of rhymes and other matters for the ticklish ears of sundry well-fed and frolicksome idlers about the court ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... a "stern parent" and exceedingly ticklish on the Pundonor saw at first sight her servile origin which had escaped the mother. Usually it is the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... of my mission secretly and well. You must know that when I set forth I was scarce in favour with my lord the King. He held me in suspicion; though I dare swear I have served him as well as any man could, in more than one ticklish charge. ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... been on it fur years, anyhow," he says, reassuring the Captain, who has again taken him aside to talk over the ticklish matter. "I'm ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... another, for Sir Jacques had told her, only yesterday night, that a very long time must go by before Jervis would be fit to go back. "Any injury to the foot," he had said casually, "is bound to be a long and a ticklish business." The words had given her a rush of joy ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... voyage of theirs, is highly desirable. "Shall I join with the English, in hope of some tolerable bargain from Austria? Shall I have to join with the French, in despair of any?" Readers may consider how stringent upon Friedrich that question now was, and how ticklish to solve. And it must be solved soon,—under penalty of "being left with no ally at all" (as Friedrich expresses himself), while the whole world is grouping itself into armed heaps for and against! If the English would but get me a bargain—? Friedrich dare not think they will. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... an unsavory creature in the basement of one's house is rather ticklish business; not so perilous as a stick of dynamite, yet fraught with unpleasant possibilities. They cleared away the exhibit and left the door open, hoping their uninvited guest would take his departure. ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... again without drawing rein, and as if by sheer momentum; for the heavy vehicle now seemed to have a diabolical energy of its own. It ground scattered rocks to powder with its crushing wheels, it swayed heavily on ticklish corners, recovering itself with the resistless forward propulsion of the straining teams, until the lights of Three Pine Station began to glitter through the trees. Then a succession of yells broke ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte |
