"Toothpick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... toothpick is a finely-pointed stick of cedar. Toothbrushes should not be too hard, and should be used, not only to the teeth, but to the gums, as friction is highly salutary to them. To polish the front teeth, it is better to use a piece of flannel than ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... anything left more dangerous than a toothpick," he reported to Frank, with a grin, as he picked up his rifle and ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... for he was small, pale, nervous, shifty, and rat-like; and neither his hands nor his eyes were still for an instant. Further to set him apart he wore a hard-boiled hat, a flaming tie, a checked vest, a coat cut too tight for even his emaciated little figure, and long toothpick shoes of patent leather. A fairer mark for cowboy humour would be difficult to find; but I had a personal interest and a determined character so the gang took a look at me and ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... stands, boxes, riding on One another's backs, and loaded with terrenes, filigree, figures, and every thing upon earth. Every favour she has bestowed is registered by a bit of Dresden china. There is a glass-case full of enamels, eggs, ambers, lapis lazuli, cameos, toothpick-cases, and all kinds of trinkets, things that she told me were her playthings; another cupboard, full of the finest japan, and candlesticks and vases of rock crystal, ready to be thrown down, in every corner. But of all curiosities, are ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... countesses. Every time I beheld her, with a big emerald earring gleaming at either side of her head, I thought of a Lenox Avenue local in the New York Subway. However, it was not so much her jewelry that proved such a fascinating sight as it was her pleasing habit of fetching out a gold-mounted toothpick and exploring the most remote and intricate dental recesses of herself in full view of the entire dining room, meanwhile making a noise like somebody sicking a ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... two about four feet apart; and lifting into the air a rock weighing a hundred or more pounds, dropped it on the middle of the fragment; and it did not even bend what this man of awful strength had severed with his two hands as one would break a wooden toothpick between the fingers. Then Peters picked up a stove which stood, fireless, in the room; and he cast it through an open window, seven or eight feet away, into the yard beyond, where it fell, breaking into a hundred pieces. I need ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... in lacquer-ware of many kinds, on the sides and covers of carven boxes, on tobacco-pouches, on sleeve-buttons, in designs for hairpins, on women's combs, even on chopsticks. Bundles of toothpicks in tiny cases were offered for sale, each toothpick having engraved upon it, in microscopic text, a different poem about the war. And up to the time of peace, or at least up to the time of the insane attempt by a soshi(4) to kill the Chinese ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... said after the girls had begun to gather in Number 2 duet, and Belle Tingley, who had drawn the unlucky short toothpick, was banished to the corridor to keep watch—but with a great plateful of goodies and the "golden goblet" used in the hazing exercises, filled to ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... it appeared. The waiters never saw the colour of his money, and were warned not to furnish the poor gentleman with any liquor for which some other party was not responsible. He swaggered sadly about the coffee-room there, consumed a toothpick, and looked over the paper, and if any friend asked him to dinner he stayed. Morgan heard at the George of Pen's acquaintance with Mr. Foker, and he went over to Baymouth to enter into relations with that gentleman's man; but the young student was gone to a Coast Regatta, and his servant, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a lb. of calf's liver cut in thin slices, parboil for 5 minutes, wipe each piece dry, lay a thin slice of bacon on each slice of liver, season with salt and pepper, roll up and fasten with a wooden toothpick, dredge with flour and fry until done in bacon fat or drippings. When done take out the rolls and thicken the gravy with a little brown flour. If there is not gravy enough add a little boiling water. A teaspoonful of mushroom catsup added to the gravy is an improvement or ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous
... the breakfast table, shaved a splinter off the edge of the water bench for a toothpick and sharpened it carefully ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... toothpick in his waistcoat pocket, or in the thing that serves him for a waistcoat—an instrument that, he says, has been in his family the last fifty years. Conceive, my dear Fotherby, an hereditary toothpick! No, Mr. Davis does not deserve that fate. And now let me give you a bit of ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... were!" exclaimed Nyoda fervently. "A rhinocerous, a wild rhinocerous, with an ivory toothpick on his nose, would be a simple problem compared to Kaiser Bill. No, my dears, Kaiser Bill is a goat, a William goat, with the disposition of a crab, the soul of a monkey and the constitution of a battle tank. We named him Kaiser Bill for reasons too numerous ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... wife had been too lazy to put her toothpicks away properly; and every day, after having used a new toothpick, she would stick it down between the mats on the floor, to get rid of it. So the little fairies who take care of the floor-mats became angry ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... to this effect: "Young man, you have not only pleased the public, but you have pleased me; and, as a slight token of my regard and good wishes, I beg your acceptance of a small piece of plate." It was, beyond all question, a very small piece, for it was a silver toothpick! ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... will be my holy mission. As for spittoons and toothpicks, they are conspicuous in every hotel in the United States. They should be on our coat-of-arms, and the Great American Novel will be called 'The Great American Toothpick.' Statesmen have cut their teeth on it, and it has been their solace in the great crises of the nation's history. As for spittoons, they were invented for our own Southern aristocrats who loved tobacco then as now. They decorate our Capitol as a mere matter of form. I don't ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... Weldon, "and here is the reason. The letters spread out on the table, Munito walked about through this alphabet. When it arrived before the letter which it should choose to form the word required, it stopped; but if it stopped it was because it heard the noise—imperceptible to all others—of a toothpick that the American snapped in his pocket. That noise was the signal for Munito to take the letter and arrange it in ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... use a toothpick at the table or in the presence of others. If it seems absolutely necessary to use one at the table, cover your lips with your napkin; ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous
... but two Maroons would carry them along until they could again walk, and thus—struggling, cursing and singing—the party of weary and disappointed marauders neared the place where they had left their ship. A messenger was sent forward with a golden toothpick to those left behind upon the vessel and a request that the ship be brought into the narrow channel of a certain river. It was done, and when at last the weary plunderers reached the shore, they gave a mighty cheer as they saw the white, bellying ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... sorry," cried the Cornishman. "Poor chap! How savage he'll be to find he has lost his toothpick. Look here," he continued grimly, "if you all don't mind, I'll take care o' this bit of steel. We may meet the chap as lost it, and I should like to give ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... to show his contempt for butter as raw material in sculpture, seized a wooden toothpick, and with it modelled a beautiful head of Minerva out of the pat that stood upon the small plate at his side, and before Burns could interfere had spread the chaste figure as thinly as he could upon a piece of bread, which he tossed to the shade ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... in their own liquor over a quick fire. When plump wrap each oyster in a slice of bacon, and fasten with a small skewer (wooden toothpick). Saute in the blazer, heated very hot. Serve on thin rounds of toast. These cromeskies are most easily cooked in a double broiler, resting on a ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill
... said," said Captain Leezur, who sat on the log fondly applying his deer-bone toothpick, which had been restored to him for a season, "'t ye keep yer mouth shet, and ye ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... If you visit him en famille, you will find him especially characteristic at meals, during which he is wont to sit absorbed, with an air of 'I cannot shake off the god'; and when they are over he goes off, moodily chewing a toothpick, to his den, where, maybe, the genius finds vent in a dissertation on 'Peg-Tops,' for The Boy's Own, or 'The Noses of ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... had, even in boyhood, written so gravely of the hat-in-hand deference due to lords, and other "Persons of Quality," or had concerned himself with things so trivial as the proper use of the fork, napkin, and toothpick. Something is said too about "inferiours," before whom one must not "Act ag'tt y'e Rules Moral." But in 1888 the Rules were subjected to careful and literal treatment by Dr. J.M. Toner, of Washington City, in the course of his magnanimous ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... Corrie!" cried the excited seaman, leaping to a perpendicular rock, against which he placed his back, and raised his fists in a pugilistic attitude. "Keep one or two in play with your broken toothpick, an' I'll floor 'em one after another as they comes up. Now, then, ye black baboons, come on—all at once if ye like—an' Jo Bumpus'll shew ye wot he's ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... was undoubtedly the Nova Scotian mate of the Thames, the man who had dissuaded me from following Carlos on the day we sailed into Kingston Harbour. He was chewing a toothpick, and at the ruminant motion of his knife-jaws I seemed to see him, sitting naked to the waist in his bunk, instead of upright there in red trousers and a blue shirt—an immense lank-length of each. I pieced his history together in a ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... nasty subjects together, then the fastidious reader can skip them. The toothpick is more in vogue in America than in any country I have seen. A prolonged use of it is made after each meal, but some people are never without it. It is held in the hand when an argument is enforced with manual action, and when the ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... meal, it is essential to cleanse the interstices between the teeth with a quill toothpick or dental floss, never with a pin, for it is the decomposition of tiny particles that starts decay; a tooth ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... about in a woman who, despite a veritable yearning to look slender, cared also for freedom to breathe, and, as she said with a sigh, guessed she must make up her mind to be happy without looking like a toothpick. At the back of the waist, the dress leapt suddenly out and away from the dorsal column—every lady's dress did that for a season or two at the time we are telling of, and at every step she took the back of her skirt gave a bob, for the bustle was supplemented by three or four concealed semi-circles ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... all over." The man turned his attention to his plate and the meal proceeded in solemn silence to its conclusion. The two ranch hands arose and disappeared through the door, and tilting back in his chair Thompson produced a match from his pocket, and proceeded to whittle it into a toothpick. "I heard in town how you was out in the hills," he began. "They said yer paw went back East—" he paused as if uncertain how ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... a few other rules that would seem unnecessary to mention here were it not that they are so constantly sinned against. Among others it may be suggested not to do anything disagreeable in company. Do not scratch the head or use a toothpick, earspoon or comb; these are for the privacy of your own apartment. Use a handkerchief whenever necessary, but without glancing at it afterwards, and be quiet and unobtrusive in the action as possible. Do not slam the door, do not tilt your chair back to ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... Sprinkle grated cheese on thin slices of wheat bread that has been buttered, sprinkle a little paprika over it and toast until cheese is melted, holding cheese side to the flame. Then roll quickly, hold together with a toothpick and toast ...
— Desserts and Salads • Gesine Lemcke
... learn the cause of the bustle, proposed a game at cards. James and Caroline desired to set out, so, while the rest of the company were at cards, they amused themselves by tormenting me. At last tired by constant exercise, and irritated by James, who pricked me with his toothpick whenever I attempted to rest, I waited for a good opportunity, and as he laid his finger close to my cage, (while he was talking to some of the card party) I gave him a bite he has remembered ever since, I dare say. It so exasperated ...
— The Adventures of a Squirrel, Supposed to be Related by Himself • Anonymous
... Her father realized that his fellow-passenger had been teasing him when he referred to this place as a boarding-house, but he was not at all crushed by the magnificence he was encountering. He felt that he was in for it—so he cocked his toothpick pluckily and wrote on the loose-leaf register the room clerk ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end. There was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish apothecary's apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick out ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the country were not less savage and horrible. The wild rocks raised their lofty summits till they were lost in the clouds, and the valleys lay covered with everlasting snow. Not a tree was to be seen, nor a shrub even big enough to make a toothpick. The only vegetation we met with was a coarse strong-bladed grass growing in tufts, wild burnet, and a plant like moss, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... write a story about a man who fell off a bridge and landed in a kettle of tar on a canal boat and, before I have completed a full paragraph, I can have stopped to clean the small o, small e, and small a of my typewriter with a toothpick, stopped to think about the pearl buttons on a vest I owned in 1894, the Spanish-American War, what the French word for "illumination" is, and whether I paid my last Liberty Loan installment. Before I have finished that ...
— Goat-Feathers • Ellis Parker Butler
... marquis was confined almost three years, in a cell three paces broad and five and a half long, containing no other ornament than two French verses which rhymed with the words "to suffer and to die." And yet his great soul went out to his suffering fellow-man as free as the air of heaven; and with a toothpick (for he was deprived of pen and ink) he wrote to a princess, who sympathized with him, on a scrap of paper which came to him almost miraculously, and with soot and water, these noble words: "I know not what disposition ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... and the whirr of the engine itself as it shuddered and strained on its anchored skids, reeling up half a mile, more or less, of inch and a quarter steel cable, snaking a forty-foot log out of the woods as a child would haul a toothpick on the ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... quoth the Siwash, studying me with dusky eyes, "is a mighty passion. Know you that our first circulating medium was shells, a small perforated shell not unlike a very opaque quill toothpick, tapering from the middle, and cut square at both ends. We string it in many strands and hang it around the neck of one we love—namely, each man his own neck. And with this we buy what our hearts desire. Hiaqua, we call it, and he who has most hiaqua is wisest ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... the Toothpick and Joint Keeper of the Snuffbox? I mind me! Thou heldest these posts under our royal Sire. They are restored to thee, Lord Spinachi! I make thee knight of the second class of our Order of the Pumpkin (the first class being reserved ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beneath the table and sat back, hands deep in pockets, and a toothpick hanging limp from ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... a toothpick, the heavy panel split in half and dropped sidewise, and without a moment's hesitation Bill grasped the half-breed girl about the waist and swung her through the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... these humiliating occasions when Symes dined cheek by jowl with hoi polloi who left their spoons in their cups and departed using a toothpick like a peavy, his thoughts turned to his coming triumph in Crowheart. And although his gorge rose at the sight of a large, buck cockroach which scurried across the table and turned to wave a fraternal leg at him before it disappeared, ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... "Toothpick Kid is here," said he, "and Limber Jim, and the Doughie. You'd think he'd stay away after the trouble he—I expect that ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... "Khilal," as an emblem of attenuation occurring in Al-Hariri (Ass. of Alexandria, etc.); also thin as a spindle (Maghzal), as a reed, and dry as a pair of shears. In the Ass. of Barka'id the toothpick is described as a beautiful girl. The use of this cleanly article was enjoined by Mohammed:—"Cleanse your mouths with toothpicks; for your mouths are the abode of the guardian angels; whose pens are the tongues, and whose ink is the spittle of men; and to whom ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... or spit you upon the rapier. I will cleave you with the axe, transfix you with the arrow, or blow you to the pit with the devil's sulphur. I will fight any of you or all of you with any weapons from a battering-ram to a toothpick—and God assist the better man. And there you have ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... leagues of the ships, they found a town built in their absence by the Symerons, at which Drake consented to halt, sending a Symeron to the ship, with his gold toothpick, as a token, which, though the master knew it, was not sufficient to gain the messenger credit, till, upon examination, he found that the captain, having ordered him to regard no messenger without his handwriting, had engraven his name upon it with the point of his knife. He then sent the pinnace ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... nine cases out of ten, would wander to the dock in search of the prisoner, in vain; for that gentleman would most likely be lounging among the most distinguished ornaments of the legal profession, whispering suggestions in his counsel's ear, or making a toothpick out of an old quill with ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... with a clove or toothpick in his mouth: he is the very mint of compliment, all his behaviours are pointed: his face is another volume of essays, and his beard is Aristarchus. He speaks all cream skimmed, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. The other gallant is his zany, and doth most of these tricks after him, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... hill with blocks, which have served one Dr. Borlase and others as occasions for earning the character of blockheads. One thing is man's doing, without much dispute, and that is, an obelisk in honour of old Lord De Dunstanville, which is a conspicuous toothpick on the hilltop: no doubt, as in this case, nature brought the stones there, and man did his part in arranging them; poor Dr. B. would have you believe that every natural rock had been lifted here bodily for architectural purposes, and as bodily made ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... indignities to which the public submits its 'bus-tickets. Some people use the ticket as a toothpick, some put spectacles on and read it without understanding, some decorate outstanding features of the 'bus with it. But I myself tear it gradually into small strips, and grind the strips by means of massage into fine powder. If the inspector comes, I am perfectly willing to pour the powder ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... the least surprise, slowly got up, pulled a toothpick out of his pocket, and began to use it, while he looked down upon the Indian. "What's he done?" ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... that the apache was lounging in the doorway, using a toothpick and examining her with interest. The voices from the inner room had ceased; everyone was listening, but she did not care. All at once a click louder than those preceding told her she had been put through at last. Hope leapt within her. Alas! It suffered an immediate extinction, when she found ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... to look at the floor, keeping the eyeball as stationary as possible. Take a clean wooden toothpick or slender pencil, wrapped with cotton, place on the upper lid about one-fourth of an inch from the edge, grasp the eyelashes with the other hand, give a slight push downward toward the cheek with the toothpick, a slight pull upward on the lashes and turn the lid over the toothpick. Remove ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... breeding refers to the conventional rules of propriety and good taste. Of these, the first class relates to the avoidance of all disgusting or offensive personal habits: such as fingering the hair; obtrusively using a toothpick, or carrying one in the mouth after the needful use of it; cleaning the nails in presence of others; picking the nose; spitting on carpets; snuffing instead of using a handkerchief, or using the article in an offensive manner; lifting up the boots or shoes, as some men do, to tend ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... market's overstocked. With what? shouted I. With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in the world? I tell you what it is, landlord, said I, quite calmly, you'd better stop spinning that yarn to me —I'm not green. May be not, taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, but I rayther guess you'll be done brown if that ere harpooneer hears you a slanderin' his head. I'll break it for him, said I, now flying into a passion again at this unaccountable farrago of the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... sagged, and his skin felt dangerously dry and tight. Happy was so adipose that his hands engulfed the broom handle like a toothpick; under the transparent skin, his flesh was clear and translucent, and there could be seen the tiny red lines of the branching veins. Happy was like a jellyfish, ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... are ambling about with their 'eads in the air, And their riders are tilting like true toothpick paladins. SMUDGE over there Makes a bee-line for SCRATCH in this corner, whilst MUCK and the Mawkish at odds, Clash wildly, and Naturalism pink Sentiment ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... Pull up the rope a little until we break This bar away—or some kind friend may see The dangling end below. Now here's a toothpick, Six inches of grey steel, for you to work with, And here's another for ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... said. And taking a toothpick out of his pocket he stuck it into the stump of the cigarette which had become too short to hold ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... meet many in the street,' rejoined Mr Swiveller. 'I saw one—a stout pencil-case of respectable appearance—but as he was in company with an elderly penknife, and a young toothpick with whom he was in earnest conversation, I felt a delicacy ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a very little salt and pepper. Trim the rind from the bacon and wrap each oyster in one slice, pinning this "blanket'' tightly on the back with a tiny Japanese wooden toothpick. Have ready a hot frying-pan, and lay in five oysters, and cook till the bacon is brown and the edges of the oysters curl, turning each over once. Put these on a hot plate in the oven with the door open, and cook five more, and so on. Put them on a long, narrow platter, ...
— A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl • Caroline French Benton
... history we find that the latest act of the duke on the scaffold, before submitting to the stroke of the executioner, was to call his servant, and put into the man's hand a toothpick-case, the last token of ill-starred love. "Give it," he said, "to that person!" After the description of Monmouth's burial occurs the ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... so," replied Mrs. Rudolph Meyerburg, herself squirming to rights in an elaborate bodice and wielding an unostentatious toothpick behind the cup of her hand; "like I told Roody just now, if I take on a pound to-day he can blame ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... a stick and whittling a toothpick, "but I rayther guess you'll be done BROWN if that ere harpooneer hears you a slanderin' ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... imperturbably, and left it bare as a toothpick with one or two bites at it. His face shone in two clean sections around his nose and mouth. Behind his ears the dirt lay undisturbed. The grease on his hands ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... his sister's reputation this gentleman went out as Sir Kit's second next day, when he met the last of his adversaries. He had just hit the toothpick out of his enemy's hand, when he received a ball in a vital part, and was brought home speechless in a hand-barrow. We got the key out of his pocket at once, and my son Jason ran to release her ladyship. She would not believe but that it was some new trick till ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... for a time, though jaws worked like mill-clappers, it was to better purpose than words. But when the last shred of garlic or last gobbet of pork had been fished up, when the wine-skin was flabby, the last crust's memory faded from the toothpick, Petruccio slapped Silvestro ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... cousin Sadako explained. "We call such chop-sticks komochi-hashi, chopstick with baby, because the toothpick inside the chopstick like the baby inside the mother. Very ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... books of etiquette in the chapter on table manners the authors used to state that it was not polite to butter your bread with your thumb, to rub your greasy fingers on the bread you were about to eat, or to rise from the table with a toothpick in your mouth like a bird that is about to build her nest. We have never seen any one butter his bread with ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... big monkey, chewing a straw just like some of the men in front of the hotel at home chew toothpicks," said Nan, pointing to a chimpanzee crouched in a corner of his cage. He did, indeed, look like a little old man thoughtfully chewing on a toothpick. And he was so natural, and so much in earnest about it, that the Bobbsey twins, all four of ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City • Laura Lee Hope
... in his pockets, chewed a branch for a toothpick, and strolled about the clearing, making fun of the other elephants who had ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the college is the portrait of Commodore Decatur by Gilbert Stuart, his ivory chess-board and men, and his jeweled toothpick box. The grave of Mrs. Decatur was discovered some time ago in the cemetery of Georgetown College. It had been ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... they got back and Old King Cole asked where he was. There'd be a row and a bit o' shooting, I dessay, for it's amazing, that it is, amazing, the way the old vagabone has took to our lad. But I don't like his going off with 'em, and with nothing better than a bit of a toothpick of a knife. Wouldn't be long before he got hold of a club, though, ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... a piece," said one of the volunteers, Jim drew a toothpick a foot long and did me the favor, for which I here ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... but not always successful chess player dining with a friend at Simpson's one day, the latter recurred to the changes which had taken place there and expressed regret that the Grand chess Divan had been transformed into a dining room. "Faix," said Mr. C. B. as he took up a toothpick," It's the first time in my life that I ever felt disposed to say grace after mate in ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... dynamite. In Italy a socialist is an anarchist pure and simple, who wishes to destroy everything existing for the sake of dividing a wealth which does not exist at all. It also means a young man who orders a glass of water and a toothpick at a cafe, and is able to talk politics for a considerable time on this slender nourishment. Signor Succi and Signor Merlatti have discovered nothing new. Their miracles of fasting may be observed by the curious at any ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... out of the hotel the next morning, after he had eaten his breakfast, and stood, with a wooden toothpick between his lips, looking up and down the street, he felt a sense of exultation. If he had been a victorious general, and Kilo a captured city of great importance, he would have had a similar feeling. Already he felt that, if he was not the captor of the town, he was one of its important citizens, ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... upper gallery and watch the throng issuing from the dining-room, I make a nice and unerring social distinction between the Toothpick Brigade who leave the table with the final mouthful semi-masticated, and those who have an ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... Simon must have noted that and perhaps resented it, for his face darkened. He made no comment, however, but celebrated the end of dinner in his usual manner by pushing back his chair a little, crossing his legs comfortably, and beginning a series of excavating operations with a quill toothpick which he drew from his vest pocket. Miss Ocky winced. This was the postprandial habit of his that annoyed ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... some of them rolled in their blankets trying to sleep, and others smoking. I went over beside the chap who had answered my first question, and after telling him who I was and what I was there for, he made room for me and I sat down. He was a funny-looking little chap about the build of a wooden toothpick, but he looked as if he was made of steel wire. We soon struck up a conversation, and his "Cockney" sure did sound funny to me; he was one of the sappers, and when he found that I had left the Infantry to join ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... Zeb observed gravely, "an' so fur as I can see, he ain't none too perticular how he gets it." He helped himself to a toothpick, and followed by the head sawyer, abruptly left the room— after the fashion of sawmill men and woodsmen, who eat as much as they can as quickly as they can and eventually die of old age rather than indigestion. Bryce ate his noonday ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... He closed his toothpick with a snap, spat dexterously at a spittoon which stood in a corner of the room, and ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... candied cherry on the tooth pick. The children in turn jump up and try to catch the cherry in their mouth. The cherry is the prize and when won by one of the children another cherry must be put on the toothpick until each child has had ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... make dolls," said Alice as she spread out the picks. "Use the biggest apples for the body; stick in two toothpicks for arms and two for legs. And a middle-sized apple makes the head. Then take another toothpick and mark out eyes and nose and mouth—so!" And she set up the finished doll for the ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... head colds and occasional attacks of dyspepsia, due to his inability to abstain from certain foods. He was, therefore, sensitive to draughts and would not eat hot bread. He carried an umbrella absolutely upon all occasions and a celluloid toothpick in ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... was leaning gratefully on the counter—as, indeed, he was always leaning against something—his legs crossed, lazily plying the afternoon toothpick. ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... have been recognized and carried into effect much more generally than have copyrights. The patentee of an improved toothpick would be able to secure to-day a wider recognition of his right as a creator than is accorded to the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or ...
— International Copyright - Considered in some of its Relations to Ethics and Political Economy • George Haven Putnam
... trusting to Allah's grace, And ascetic signals his gait display'd. He had studied Love both by day and night * And had special knowledge of Wrong and Right; Both for lad and lass had repined his sprite, * And his form like toothpick was lean and slight, And old bones with faded skin were o'erlaid. In such arts our Shaykh was an Ajam[FN382] * With a catamite ever in company; In the love of woman, a Platonist he[FN383] * But in either versed to the full degree, And Zaynab to him was the same as Zayd.[FN384] ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... And as for the toothpick habit! Let no one ever tell me that that atrocity is American! Here it goes with every course, and without the pretended decency of holding one's serviette before one's mouth, which, in my opinion, is a mere ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... "Bless my toothpick!" gasped Mr. Damon. "This is awful!" And the airship rushed on toward the volcano which could be plainly seen now, belching forth ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... you could see him, Dele. Fat man with a woollen muffler and a quill toothpick. He saw the sketch in Tinkle's window and thought it was a windmill at first. He was game, though, and bought it anyhow. He ordered another—an oil sketch of the Lackawanna freight depot—to take back with him. Music lessons! Oh, I guess Art ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Butch, hearing a tumult in the bunkhouse, and a confused Babel of voices. "Hicks has awakened the camp. Now watch the fellows wreak summary vengeance on his toothpick frame!" ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... been introduced to each other, Polly passed each one a paper plate containing a picture, cut and jumbled into small pieces, and a tiny paper of paste and a toothpick. Each girl and boy was asked to put the "pi" together and paste it on the inside of the plate. When arranged, the pictures were found to be of Thanksgiving flavor. "Priscilla at the Wheel," "The Pilgrims Going to Church," "The First Thanksgiving," and others ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... of the tympanic membrane, mentions the following: A blow in sparring; violent sneezing; blowing the nose; forcible dilatation of the Eustachian canal; a thorn or twig of a tree accidentally thrust into the head; picking the ear with a toothpick. In time of battle soldiers sometimes have their tympanums ruptured by the concussion caused by the firing of cannon. Dalby mentions an instance of an officer who was discharged for deafness acquired in this manner ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... answer. Cranly dislodged a figseed from his teeth on the point of his rude toothpick and gazed at ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... them, something smacking of the spacious days of the Regency. Nowadays, the spirit seems to have deserted England. When Mr. Asquith became Premier of Great Britain, no earnest forms were to be observed rolling peanuts along the Strand with a toothpick. When Mr. Asquith is dethroned, it is improbable that any Briton will allow his beard to remain unshaved until the Liberal party returns to office. It is in the United States that the wager has found a home. It is characteristic of some minds to dash into a wager with the ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... example that Mr. Sponge quickly followed, and each assumed an attitude that as good as said 'I don't care twopence for you.' A dead silence then prevailed, interrupted only by the snap, snap, snapping of Jack's toothpick against his chair-edge, when he was not busy exploring his mouth with it. It seemed to be a match which should keep silence longest. Jack sat Squinting his eyes inside out at Sponge, while Sponge pretended to be occupied with the fire. The wine being with Sponge, and at length wanting some, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... attacked, and had never the slightest notion that anybody would take such a liberty with him as to speak first: then I handed him the paper: then, as he would take no notice of these advances, I used to look him in the face steadily and—and use my fork in the light of a toothpick. After two mornings of this practice, he could bear it no longer, and fairly ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... perfection of bad cookery, and barefaced chicane—pronounced that the love of travel was the imperial impulse. The politicians of the clubs—who, having nothing to do for themselves, manage the affairs of all nations, and can discover high treason in the manipulation of a toothpick, and symptoms of war in a waltz—were of opinion, that the Czar had come either to construct an European league against the marriage of little Queen Isabella, or to beat up for recruits for the "holy" hostilities of Morocco. With the fashionable world, the decision was, that he had come to see ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... trouble. 'Oh! no trouble at all, sir; he just didn't know his place, and I taught him. He could read and write a little—a negro is very apt to think, sir, that if he can write he is educated—he could write, and thought he was educated; he chewed a toothpick and thought he was a gentleman. I soon taught him better. He was impertinent, and I put him off the train. After that I told them that I must have my own servant if I was to remain with them, and I got Nick. He is an excellent boy (he was ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... his meal so as to leave the dining-room at the same moment with Fetters. He went up to Fetters, who was chewing a toothpick in the office, and ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... between rustic simplicity and city acumen. A diagnosis of the provincial's ways in Paris, like every form of life there, has been given by a shrewd observer, who mentions among other signs that the novice may be recognized by the fact that he keeps his toothpick after dinner and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thing! To fight this cruel, invulnerable, resistless giant that went roaring down the world with a huge uprooted oak tree in its mouth for a toothpick! This yellow, sinuous beast with hell-broth slavering from its jaws! This dare-devil boy-god that sauntered along with a town in its pocket, and a steepled church under its arm for a moment's toy! ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... Toothpick in his boot, so, comparatively speaking, He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone, Because there was no one going his way. He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for Toll-gates; he swam the Eske River where ford There was none, and saved fifteen cents In ferriage, but lost his pocket-book, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... together all the loose threads of Operation Retrograde and deftly wove them into a workable pattern. Now the director leaned back in a chair which was too small for his bulk, chewing thoughtfully on a toothpick. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... fared forth for Baghdad, but the camel-man forewent them and, setting Ghanim down at the Spital gate, went away with his beast. The sick man lay there till dawn and, when the folk began to go about the streets, they saw him and stood gazing on him, for he had become as thin as a toothpick, till the Syndic of the bazar came up and drove them away from him, saying, "I will gain Paradise through this poor creature; for if they take him into the Hospital, they will kill him in a single day."[FN131] ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... if I shouldn't see you any more,' said Maddox, trembling with fear, as he obeyed the awful summons—which was to demand a toothpick. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... out of the window, and then, still deep in thought, rattled at the wires of the cage with a quill toothpick and played a moment with the parrot. Then, looking up at the window again, he said: "That is Mr. Lloyd, isn't it, coming back in ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... going to be killed!" cried Gladys hysterically, as they huddled together at the sound of the falling tree. A wild blast that rang like the scream of an enraged beast came like an answer to her words, and a sapling maple snapped off like a toothpick. Sandhelo snorted with fear and ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... lolling against the clustered pillars of the gothic porch, staring thoughtfully at the low evening light, yellow and red behind the brown trunks of the elms, and picking his teeth with a gold toothpick. ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the bones, got into an argument over who was Lazarus with the fellow at the end of the table, and were too engrossed to eat a mouthful while it lasted. We had the bad manners to pick our teeth thoroughly with the wooden toothpicks, and Frosty showed me how to balance a knife and fork on a toothpick—or, perhaps, it was two—on the edge of his cup. I tried it several times, ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... Dorothy had been to some of the big department stores where you can buy everything under one ruff from a elephant to a toothpick, and have a picture gallery and concert throwed in. They had got a big trunk full of things to wear. I wondered what they wanted of 'em when they wuz goin' off on another long journey so soon; but considered that it wuzn't my ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... found on low, marshy soil a white incrustation like dried salt, a very minute portion was removed by needle or toothpick, deposited on a slide, moistened with a drop of water, rubbed up with a needle or toothpick into a uniformly diffused cloud in and through the water. The cover was put on, and the excess of water removed by touching with a handkerchief the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... that at Scarborough and Brighton he frequently received a couple of guineas for singing a few songs at private houses after the public entertainment. Afterwards he appeared at the Pavilion, and for many years supplied the axioms and aphorisms that young Toothpick and Crutch was in the habit of using to garnish the baldness of ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... the valiant Slingsby Into armour of Seville, With a strong Arkansas toothpick Screwed in every joint ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... was a bore, and I was squeamishly out of sorts with him for his volubleness, but I could not help admiring him as I watched him go down. Past seventy years of age, lean as a toothpick, and shrivelled like a mummy, he was doing what few young athletes of my race would do or could do. It was forty feet to bottom. There, partly exposed, but mostly hidden under the bulge of a coral lump, I could discern his objective. His keen eyes had caught the projecting tentacle of a squid. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... on the floor on the other side of the steps. Pulls out a bone toothpick and begins ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... accordingly gave Pasgrave Mackenzie's note, and thrust the note which he had received from his master into a corner of his trunk, where he usually kept little windfalls, that came to him by the negligence of customers—toothpick-cases, loose silver, odd gloves, &c., all which he knew how to dispose of. But this bank-note was a higher prize than usual, and he was afraid to pass it till all inquiry had blown over. He knew his master's regularity; and he thought that ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... men and women, talk about marriage being slavery and a lottery and not worth the price folks have to pay for it. But I'm freer as a married man than ever I was single. Why, where I boarded before I married Jennie, you couldn't get a slice of bread and butter or a toothpick between meals even if you'd been a growing kid. And in those days I was always hungry. And I've always hated restaurants where food is cooked in tanks instead of nice little home kettles in a blue ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... space-differences of sensations. The touch of the point of a toothpick on the skin has a different space quality from the touch of the flat end of a pencil. Low tones seem to have more volume than high tones. Some pains feel sharp and others dull and diffuse. The warmth felt from spreading the palms of the hands out to the fire has a "bigness" not felt from heating ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... mantelpiece, that no irreverent sleeve may ruffle its gloss: several others who rarely do more than nod assent range themselves on the flanks; one younger man who looks as if he understood horses pulls out his toothpick. The chairman, stout and gouty, seizes a quill and sternly looks over the ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... shocked everybody by his dreadful manners. He put his muddy boots on the fauteuils, did mon ami Thomas; he fell in love with a gay woman of the Boulevards whose skin was all plastered up like an old cathedral; he ate oysters with a hair-pin at dinner; he offered his toothpick to his vis-a-vis, and altogether conducted himself in such a manner that one was forced to say to him (chorus), Ah, my friend Thomas! at Paris that's hardly done. Ah, mon ami Thomas! at Paris that is not done at all. The audience is in ecstasies of delight at this ill-bred conduct on the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... we will do," spoke the papa giant. "I know, I'll get a spool of thread from the lady giant next door, and that will answer for a table for you, Uncle Wiggily, and you can use another toothpick for ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Adventures • Howard R. Garis
... advises "Myra" that if ladies were to confine themselves to a single round oath, it would be quite sufficient; and he objects, when he is at the public table, to the conduct of his neighbor who carelessly took up "Simeon's" fork and used it as a toothpick. All this, no doubt, passed for wit in the beginning of the century. Punning, broad satire, exaggerated compliment, verse which has love for its theme and the "sweet bird of Venus" for its object, an affectation of gallantry and of ennui, with anecdotes of distinguished visitors, out ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... noises of the great Parisian bee-hive. Then, after breakfast, the actor would sally forth for the day; would go to "do his boulevard," that is to say, to saunter to and fro between the Chateau d'Eau and the Madeline, with a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, his hat a little on one side-always gloved, and ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... with conviction. "What good does it do you to know Greek, anyway? I'll bet you anything that Uncle Sim himself couldn't go to Athens tomorrow and order a cup of coffee and a hard-boiled egg! Or, if he did order them, he'd get a morning newspaper and toothpick. Last Spring I was in the boot-blacking emporium in the village one afternoon and Horace came in to get his ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... from the west. Tahan's bronze shop, at the corner of the Rue de la Paix, marks (or did mark) its western boundary. There are costly trifles in that window—as, book cutters worth a library of books, and cigar-stands, ash-trays, pen-trays, toothpick-holders (our neighbours are great in these), and match, and glove, and lace, and jewel-boxes—of wicked price. Ladies are not, however, very fond of bronze, as a rule. The great Maison de Blanc—or White House—opposite, is more ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... did you use that confounded old stereotyped waiter's expression? I wonder you did not hand me a toothpick." ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... rum 'n' played Ned in general. 'N' afterwards they went to bed in the guest-room where Mrs. Brown never lets any one sleep, 'n' they got right in on top o' her Hottentot pillow-shams 'n' old Dr. Carter tore a sham with his toothpick. 'N', added to all that, Amelia 's furious 'cause she read in a book 't teaches how to stay married 't a husband's first night out is the first rift in the lute, 'n' she was down town buyin' a dictionary so 's to be sure what a lute is afore she accuses young Dr. Brown. 'N' there's ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... lobster with a little salt (unless the lobster is salt enough) and a grain of cayenne. This made into cutlets, egged, crumbed, and fried, is excellent, but our purpose now is to use it for stuffing. Take as many fillets of sole as required, spread the lobster mixture on each, roll them up, run a toothpick through them to keep them in shape; trim till each will stand; put them on a buttered baking-sheet, cover with buttered paper, and bake ten minutes. Chop up two truffles, two hard-boiled yolks of eggs, and a tablespoonful of parsley, each chopped separately. Take up the turbans, pour over them ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... friend, and we want accommodation." "Mr. Jorrocks, indeed!" replied Mr. Creed, altering his tone and manner; "I'm sure I shall be delighted to receive Mr. Jorrocks—he's one of the oldest customers I have—and one of the best—none of your 'glass of water and toothpick' gentleman—real downright, black-strap man, likes it hot and strong from the wood—always pays like a gentleman—never fights about three-pences, like some people I know," looking at Jemmy. "Pray, what ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... the pulpit, bar, or stage; If half-bred surgeons, whom men doctors call, And lawyers, who were never bred at all, Those mighty letter'd monsters of the earth, Our pity move, or exercise our mirth; Or if in tittle-tattle, toothpick way, Our rambling thoughts with easy freedom stray,— 110 A gainer still thy friend himself must find, His grief suspended, and improved his mind. Whilst peaceful slumbers bless the homely bed Where virtue, self-approved, reclines her head; Whilst vice beneath imagined horrors mourns, And conscience ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... as many of my readers know him, it will be highly amusing to them, although any thing but amusing to the Major. He says: "In the office of the penitentiary, I was stripped of my clothing and closely searched. Everything in the way of papers, knife, money, toothpick, and even an old buckeye, which I had carried in my pocket all through the war, at the request of a friend, were taken from me. I was then marched to the wash-room, stripped again, and placed in ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... when, luncheon over, he asked for a toothpick, which he quickly passed between his teeth. At this, applause broke out on all sides, and the performance ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... owl that my friend once shot at twilight. There was a porcupine quill imbedded for nearly its entire length in his leg. Two more were slowly working their way into his body; and the shaft of another projected from the corner of his mouth like a toothpick. Whether he were a young owl and untaught, or whether, driven by hunger, he had thrown counsel to the winds and swooped at Unk Wunk, will never be known. That he should attack so large an animal as the porcupine would seem to indicate that, ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... a bayonet stuck in the wall of the trench close to the mouth of a funk-hole—"There, hanging on the toothpick there." ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... select oysters and very thin slices of nice bacon. Season the oysters with a little salt and pepper. Roll each oyster in a slice of bacon; pin together with a toothpick; roast over hot coals, either laid on a broiler, or fasten them on a meat fork and hold over the coals. Cook until the bacon is crisp and brown. Don't remove the toothpick. ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... on it, was brought to him that evening as he was finishing his coffee. She had no difficulty in getting it taken in. Mr. Parke's theory was that a newspaper man gained more than he lost by accessibility. He came out immediately, furtively returning a toothpick to his waistcoat pocket—a bald, stout gentleman of middle age, dressed in loose gray clothes, with shrewd eyes, a nose which his benevolence just saved from being hawk-like, a bristling white mustache, and a pink double chin. It rather pleased Frank Parke, who was born in Hammersmith, to be so constantly ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... she came back with the painful news that the only thing in the neighborhood which looked like a goose was a quill toothpick, and that was ungreasable. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... are, mister; every man ought to mind his own business, and I'll bet a pewter toothpick you understand flatboats, even if you don't know anything else. I will speak to my friend Mr. B. in regard to his end of the business, for I see him coming. That's him walking this way along the shore; you can know Harman a mile off by ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... snug inches of stowage for something that would have exactly fitted nowhere else. His gleaming little service of plate was so arranged upon his sideboard as that a slack salt-spoon would have instantly betrayed itself; his toilet implements were so arranged upon his dressing-table as that a toothpick of slovenly deportment could have been reported at a glance. So with the curiosities he had brought home from various voyages. Stuffed, dried, repolished, or otherwise preserved, according to their kind; birds, fishes, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... the name Lubliner," Gifkin replied, "which his father was Pincus Lubliner, also a crook, Mr. Polatkin, which he would steal anything from a toothpick to an oitermobile, ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... costs a hundred and twenty-five dollars a night," said Mr. Spragg, transferring a toothpick ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... Medjidis, cheriks, piastres, and paras now take the place of Serb francs, Bulgar francs, and a bewildering list of nickel and copper pieces, down to one that I should think would scarcely purchase a wooden toothpick. The first named is a large silver coin worth four and a half francs; the cherik might be called a quarter dollar; while piastres and paras are tokens, the former about five cents and the latter requiring about nine to make one cent. There are no copper coins in Turkey ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to get this financial misquotation out of Murkison's head, but we might as well have tried to keep the man who rolls peanuts with a toothpick from betting on Bryan's election. No, sir; he was going to perform a public duty by catching these green goods swindlers at their own game. Maybe it would ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... and goes out with HAROLD into the billiard-room. SIR WILLIAM enters from the dining-room, applying a gold toothpick to his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fish, but he ain't no ways progressive—he don't go with the march o' the times. They're chock-full o' labour-savin' jigs an' sech all. 'Ever seed the Elector o' Gloucester? She's a daisy, ef she is a toothpick." ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... setting were in a little basket by themselves. Peggy hung over them breathlessly, and saw in fancy eighteen balls of yellow down, teetering on toothpick legs. Then her imagination leaped ahead, and the cream-colored eggs had become eighteen lusty, pin-feathered fowls, worth forty cents a pound in city markets. Peggy's heart gave a jubilant flutter. Many a fortune had started, she was sure, with less ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... fellows on the other side of the fountain.' After a side-glance of scrutiny, the reply was, 'Neapolitans.' The waiter was ready to make an additional remark, but Ammiani nodded and communed with a toothpick. He was sure that those Neapolitans were recruits of the Bolognese Polizia; on the track of the Guidascarpi, possibly. As he was not unlike Angelo Guidascarpi in figure, he became uneasy lest they should blunder 'twixt him and La Scala; and the notion of any human power stopping him short of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... language! And yet even the crocodile likes to have his teeth cleaned; insects get into them, and, horrible reptile though he be, he opens his jaws inoffensively to a faithful dentistical bird, who volunteers his beak for a toothpick.'" ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... plains; but it is clumsily done, and never accompanied with the grasping air and insufferable whine of the latter. They are constantly armed with a long, heavy, straight knife,* [It is called "Ban," and serves equally for plough, toothpick, table-knife, hatchet, hammer, and sword.] but never draw it on one another: family and political feuds are ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... prelates implored him to address to the soldiers and to the people a few words on the duty of obedience to the government. "I will make no speeches," he exclaimed. "Only ten words, my Lord." He turned away, called his servant, and put into the man's hand a toothpick case, the last token of ill starred love. "Give it," he said, "to that person." He then accosted John Ketch the executioner, a wretch who had butchered many brave and noble victims, and whose name has, during a century and a half, been vulgarly given ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... whatever to guests at dances; but when it was done, it took the form of a "tooth-pick-supper" (souper aux curedents). Small pieces of chicken, tongue, or beef were piled on plates, each piece skewered with a wooden toothpick. The guests picked these off the plate by the toothpick, and nibbled the meat away from it, eating it with slices of bread. This obviated the use of plates, knives and forks, most Portuguese families having neither sufficient silver table-plate for ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... "A—a miserable toothpick that I just dropped into my pocket when we ate that dinner at the restaurant!" groaned the wretched Bumpus, staring first at the offending object, and then turning a piteous ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... blaze of wondrous apparel. It was natural that he should create a sensation with his red face and gaudy-coloured clothes, and huge, dyed whiskers, and the eternal flower in his mouth, which was always on duty save when relieved by a cigar or a toothpick. Pew it could scarcely with propriety be called, inasmuch as it was more like a box at the opera than a seat in a place of worship. We entered by a staircase outside the church, with a private door of our own; passing through ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... the packing business, and I'll tell you all about corned beef and wienies." He then went on with a lot of sickening details and when he got through he found that the younger men had not eaten any dinner. The older men paid no attention to him and worked right ahead to the pie and toothpick stage, but the younger fellows had been euchred out of dinner and went back to work with wabbly ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... starboard airlock. Its atmosphere was withdrawn, the outer door opened, and he glanced across a bare hundred feet of space at the rocket-plane which, keel ports fiercely aflame, was braking her terrific speed to match the slower pace of the gigantic ship of war. Shaped like a toothpick, needle-pointed fore and aft, with ultra-stubby wings and vanes, with flush-set rocket ports everywhere, built of a lustrous silvery alloy of noble and almost infusible metals—such was the private speedboat of the chief of the T. S. S. The ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... Britain in glory. A new struggle has already commenced with the same nation in the arts as connected with agriculture, commerce, and manufacture." Another contributor urged the necessity of protecting and cherishing the manufacture of everything—from a toothpick to a ship, from a needle to a cannon, a thread of yarn to a bale of cloth—unless we could exchange some commodity for them. "You spread too much canvas," was the reason reported to have been given an American by an Englishman for certain restrictive measures ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... then pour the batter into two pans, and bake in a moderate oven for about eighteen minutes. When done, spread one sheet of cake with the jelly, and press the other sheet over it; and when cold, cut into little squares and triangular pieces. Stick a wooden toothpick into each of these pieces and dip each one into the hot icing, afterwards removing ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa
... dusty coats a tramp. Now in Canada no one is the superior of any one else, but that did not make a bit of difference in the startling change of demeanour which overtook the clerk. He straightened up. He removed his toothpick. He arranged the register in his best manner and chose another nib for his pen. When Callandar had registered, the clerk was very sorry indeed that the hotel arrangements were rather arbitrary in the matter of meal hours. He was afraid that the kitchen fires were down and everything cold. Still if ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay |
