"Flop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wind doth blow, It sets a pace And hits our face And we are froze Down to the toes And in the slush, That's just like mush, We cannot stop, But go ker-flop!" ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... toward a miniature rapid in the middle of the beck. Lydia, clinging with one hand to a stump of willow, caught up a stick lying on the bank with the other, and, hanging over the stream, tried to head back the truant. All that happened was that her foot slipping on a pebble went flop into the shallow water, and part of ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... He gave me a flop on the cheek with the back of his head as he shook himself loose, and I didn't stop to give him another chance. But you did bring that down smart, and no mistake. Let's ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... vases. The heavy chairs had disappeared, and nice light elegant chairs were bought, insufficient, however, for heavy weights, for one of Mr. Furze's affluent customers being brought to the Terrace as a special mark of respect, and sitting down with a flop, as was his wont, smashed the work of art like card-board and went down on the door with a curse, vowing inwardly never again to set foot in Furze's Folly, as he called it. The pictures, too, were all renewed. The "Virgin Mary" and "George the Fourth" went upstairs to the spare bedroom, ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... of heroic mould as are its men. Sons of the open, deep-chested, tall and straight, they ride like conquerors and walk—like bears. Slow to anger and quick to act, they carry their strength and health easily and with a dignity which no worn trappings, faded shirt, or flop-brimmed hat may obscure. Speak to one of them and his level gaze will travel to your feet and back again to your eyes. He may not know what you are, but he assuredly knows what you are not. He will answer you quietly and to the point. If you have been fortunate ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... replied Texas, fingering the wound as roughly as if it had been in the flesh of a beast. "Reckon he'll flop round. May do mischief, if we ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... on, Isham! Sing on, da'kies! But I flop my wings an' go Fu' de sheltah of de ve'y highest tree, Fu' dey 's too much close ertention—an' dey's too much fallin' snow— An' it's too nigh Chris'mus mo'nin' now ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... new puppy. Is not he a dear? I'll let you hold him,' and she attempted to deposit the fat, curly, satiny creature in Dolores's arms, which instantly hung down stiff, as she answered, half in fright, 'I hate dogs!' The puppy fell down with a flop, and began to squeak, while the girls, crying, 'Oh! Dolly, how could you!' and 'Poor little pup!' all crowded round in pity and indignation, and Wilfred observed, 'I ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... don't know. I thought I could, but now I ain't so sure. I could make 'em whirl 'round and 'round like a mill or a set of sailor paddles, but to make 'em flap is different. They've got to be put on strong enough so they won't flop off. You see," he added, solemnly, "if they kept floppin' off they wouldn't keep flappin' on. There's all the difference in the world between ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... like to flop m'lip over one of her biscuits right now," he said aloud. "If I do strike it, I wonder will she git too high-toned ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... and a Cow Brand Soda cap on, stealthily closed the gate. Johnny didn't know he had on a Cow Brand Soda cap, and he didn't know that the gate was shut, but he did know that that kind of a yell meant business. He wasn't afraid. Pshaw! He'd give young Mr. Flop-Ears a run for his money. Come on, kid—r-r-r-r-r! Johnny ran straight to the gate with a rabbit's unerring instinct, and hurled himself against it in vain. The flop-eared boy screamed with laughter. Then there ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... beauty without fear, and as she sat there she heard an ever-increasing number of little sounds; they were caused by she knew not what: small creatures moving among the pine needles, night birds on the watch for prey, water rats, the flop of fish, the fall of some leaf over-ripe on the tree, her own slow breathing, the muffled ticking of her heart; and into this orchestra of tiny instruments there came slowly, and as if it grew out of all ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... happy and beautiful in life and mean; they can spend their lives in jest as honerable and worthy a way as if they wuz a flyin' round, and make a good honerable appearance from day to day, till they begin to flop their wings, and fly — then their mean is not beautiful and inspirin'; no, it is fur from it. It is tuff to see 'em, tuff to see the floppin', tuff to see their vain efforts to soar through the air, tuff to see 'em fall ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... to think about it any more, thank goodness," Jane exclaimed, rising from the grass and laying a hand on the bag. "Let's put an end to the whole thing now and go home. Take a holt of the other end, and we'll flop it in." ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... stuck tighter than those cakes adhered to that griddle; she worked carefully, she insinuated her knife under just the outer edge of the cake, then gradually approached the centre, but when the final flop came, they went into little sticky hopeless heaps. "They are too thin," she ejaculated. "Joanna, bring flour. Now we shall have it all right." Then another set took their places on the griddle; these held together, they turned—triumph ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... they are ready. For a moment they stand and squirm like angle-worms on a hook, and froth at the mouth, and look, as they stand there, like a pile driver that has been run into by an engine. They teeter up and down a little, and then fly off on a tangent, and they flop around in unexpected places among the other dancers, jump like a box car, bump against other couples, and at every bump they are driven closer together, until they are so near that it does seem as though they will have to be pried apart with a handspike; they look into each other's ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... persisted Phillida, who was a zealous convert. "The dances are to make you graceful always. You so get into the poetry of motion that it's quite impossible for you ever to flop again!" ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... it somehow, so I came straight off here, through the Wild Wood and the snow! My! it was fine, coming through the snow as the red sun was rising and showing against the black tree-trunks! As you went along in the stillness, every now and then masses of snow slid off the branches suddenly with a flop! making you jump and run for cover. Snow-castles and snow-caverns had sprung up out of nowhere in the night—and snow bridges, terraces, ramparts—I could have stayed and played with them for hours. Here and there great branches ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... beauty sleep already." His voice was dryly sarcastic. "It's too bad you rode this far for nothing; can't even get a look at me. But it's no time to visit a man, anyway. You and your boys flop outside. We'll swap palaver in the ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... continuous "whirr," the sound growing fainter and fainter till it finally ceases; but if it should run down with the notched side downward, the friction of the point against the table will reduce this final whirr to half its ordinary length, and the coin will finally go down with a sort of "flop." The difference of sound is not sufficiently marked to attract the notice of the spectators, but is perfectly distinguishable by an attentive ear. If, therefore, you have notched the coin on the "tail" side, and ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... stifling as a June night can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... rationing parties, and such-like. Every night our supports were heavily shelled; every road leading to the lines had a battery trained on it and every little while it was swept by shrapnel. We gradually got used to the danger, and if they started to shell the road we were on we would flop into a ditch or shell hole till the storm had passed. Speaking of this reminds me of something that happened in that first week. A party of us were carrying coke to the front line, and we had two sacks each; I ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... of Skeensboro, when I was baskin' in the sunshine of offishal life, and had a politikle ax to grind, MARIAR'S biled dinners used to fetch Polerticians to their milk, ekal to the way a big dinner at DELMONICO'S, N.Y., will flop over a New ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... gradually it quickened to the ferocious snarling roar, the charge song, as the tiger rushed forward and leaped against the side of the house with a heavy jarring thud. A shriek from all the seven throats went up on the instant, and then came a scratching, tearing sound, followed by a soft, dull flop, as the tiger, failing to effect a landing on the low roof, fell back to earth. The men started to their feet, clutching their weapons convulsively, and, led by Che' Seman, they raised, above the shrieks of the frightened women, a lamentable attempt at a ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... an' you see de han's, an' you tink dat dey kin go an' do like oder han's an' feet, but dey doesn't an' dey can't. Dere ain't no backbone runnin' up troo de min' an' wen dere ain't no backbone in de min' de pusson jest flop down yere an' flop down dar whareber dere's a com'fo'ble place to flop. Dere's 'flictions dat we kin pray agin an' pray out'n ob, an' dere's oders we jes got ter bar, an' we gits so kinder used to'm at las dat we'd be mo' mis'ble ef dey wuz tooken ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... by the big toe. 'Hands up, Hans'! I said, and he didn't argue, all that he did was to swear like one of ourselves and flop down. 'Why don't ye bury yer sausages, Hans?' I asked (p. 079) him. 'I smelt yer, me bucko, by what ye couldn't eat. Why didn't ye have something better than water in yer bottle?' I says to him. Dang a Christian word would he answer, only swear, an swear ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... chance to go on. He just grabbed her, and got her away in a hurry—and Charley went to fussing with the cover of the wheel, putting it on again, so she couldn't get at him to shake hands for good-bye. He said afterwards he felt that weak, when he fairly was shut of her, all he could do was to flop down into a chair anyway and sing out to Blister Mike to come and get the sheets off the bar quick and give him his own bottle of Bourbon and a tumbler. And he said he never took so many drinks, one right on top of another, since he ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... pound. From the kitchen window above his head came the flop-flop of a churn, accompanied by the wailing song of Aunt Cindy, the cook. Tommy glanced shrewdly up at this window from whence proceeded the melancholy refrain. He must not let Aunt Cindy see him leave the yard. That morning after breakfast his father and mother had driven ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... tired out, and you think you never saw such a nice bass, and that it weighs at least six pounds, and just as you are reaching out with the landing net, to take him in, he gives one kick, chews off the line, you fall over backwards, and the bass disappears with a parting flop of the tail, and a man who is fishing a little ways off asks you what you had on your hook, and you say that it was nothing but a confounded dogfish, anyway, and you wind up your reel and go home, and you are so mad and hot that the leaves on the trees curl up ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... added Terry, "because he lost his gun that now that he has also lost his knife he may get so much madder that he'll flop over and become ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... will place on my mother's. You can pick my mother out by a small piece of grass which I will put in her hair, and you can pick me out from my cousins, for when we commence to dance, I will shake my head, flop my ears and switch my tail. You must choose quickly, as they will be very angry at your success, and if you lose any time they will make the excuse that you did not know, that they may have an excuse to trample you ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... was brought; too short and too narrow. A spoon; better, but still inadequate. An outsider suggested that all hands lay hold of the thing on one side and flop it over suddenly. But the jealous proprietors demurred, fearing that the movement might not be simultaneous and that thus a flap-jack rupture might ensue, followed by possible skedaddling of the shrewd ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... don't!" I yells, jumpin' to my feet an' blushin' clear to my ears. "I ain't neither one o' your parents an' I ain't your teacher. If you want to know things you ask Melisse. If you don't put a curb on yourself I'm goin' to flop myself on Starlight an' streak for the Lion Head this very minute, an' I won't stop before ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps, and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat, and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the street was well blocked up, the drivers all swearing like demons in bad hats, and the chief actor's circulation decidedly quickened by every variety of kick, cuff, jerk, and haul. When the last breath seemed to have left his body, and "doctors were in vain," ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... business. We feel now that there are romantic possibilities about letters setting forth on their journey from our floor. To start life with so many flipperties might lead to anything. Each time that we send a letter off we listen in a tremble of excitement for the final FLOP, and when it comes I think we both feel vaguely that we are still waiting for something. We are waiting to hear some magic letter go flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty ... and behold! there is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... soon as he had expended all his breath in shouting for help, sat down with such a flop of despair on the thwart of the boat, as very nearly to swamp it. As it was, the water poured over the starboard gunwale, until the boat was filled up to his ankles. This alarmed him still more, and he remained mute as a stock-fish for a quarter of an hour, during which he was swept away by ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... making this request, While tears and curses drop, Please send along a booklet on What Makes the Engine Stop. The folk around here all await With interest your reply: To them the reasons why she goes Don't seem to signify. So while we wait and chew the cud Don't let the matter flop; For Gawd's sake write and let us know What makes ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... looked at my watch. It was twenty past four. Reveille would be at half-past five, so I abandoned myself to more than another hour, so I thought, of delicious indolence. I closed my eyes and was beginning to doze and dream again when I heard the flop, flop of heavy feet treading the mud and slush outside. The canvas of the tent was banged violently and a voice, which I recognized as that of the ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... said Miss Jemima. "I wish I could play it and the piano both. You have to run round and round, and then, when the music stops, you flop down on the nearest chair, and there's always one left out, and the last one wins ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... a window, climbed to a roof. Then bang, bang, bang, seven shots went at him rapidly, one after another. In spite of the volley the man still crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... flopper-ti flop, flopper-ti flop, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was not a soldier, he was a Boxer; and in place of the former incomplete ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... a drop of any kind in him. If I wanted him to go on one side of the road he was sure to be possessed of an equal desire to go on the other side. Finally I and my mule fell out. I got a big hickory and would frail him over the head, and he would only shake his head and flop his ears, and seem to say, "Well, now, you think you are smart, don't you?" He was a resolute mule, slow to anger, and would have made an excellent merchant to refuse bad pay, or I will pay your credit, for his whole composition seemed to be made up the one word—no. I frequently ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... still looking for work and not finding any. Times were desperate. For five cents a man could get a glass of beer and floor room to sleep on in a lodging-house for homeless men. This was called a "Five Cent Flop" house. My pals were not able at times to raise the five cents a day to buy sleeping quarters. It was late fall and too cold to sleep in the "jungle" down by the levee. The poor fellows were able to stave off starvation by visiting various free ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... and their white petals beginning to unclose. But what slippery stalks they had. Aunt Emma held Milly, and father held Olly, while they dived their hands under the water and pulled hard. And some of the lilies came out with such short bits of stalk you could scarcely hold them, and sometimes, flop! out came a long green stalk, like a long green snake curling and twisting about in the boat. The children dabbled, and splashed, and pulled, to their hearts' content, till at last Mr. Norton told them they had got enough and now they must sit quite still while he rowed ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sad! oh, dire to tell!" (Said BAINES). "Be good enough to stop." And senseless on the floor he fell, With unpremeditated flop! ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... Shif'less Sol; "but if I'd been through what I reckon you've been through, I'd fall flop on the ground, an' Jim Hart would have to come an' feed me or I'd starve to death right before ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... situation. They say, chuckling to themselves, 'that villain's got his dose at last, and serve him right too.' They want to enjoy his struggles, while the heroine stands grimly at the door taking care that he doesn't get away. Then when my fist comes down flop on the stage and they realise that I am indeed done for, the yell of triumph that goes up is something delicious ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... sweeping away her traces with the broom. She dashed up to the fiery river, gave a glance, and said, 'A capital bridge!' She drove on to the bridge, but had only got half-way when the bridge broke in two, and the Baba Yaga went flop into the river. There truly did she ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... contrived to get a tree or bush between him and me, just at the critical instant. In despair I tried to hold on the last one, got a bead on it through my peep sight, moved it with him as we moved, and holding tight, I fired. With a great flop and scattering of bronze feathers he went down. I ran up the slope and secured him, a fine gobbler of about ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... on brick pillars. The roofs of these are rather steep, and are mostly tiled, and have deep eaves, but do not as elsewhere form the cover of the veranda. While I was looking through the cactus screen of one of these houses, a man came out with a number of low caste, leggy, flop-eared, mangy dogs, who attacked me in a cowardly bullying fashion, yelping, barking, and making surreptitious snaps at my feet. Their owner called them off, however, and pelted them so successfully that some ran away whimpering, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... flop yo' wings w'en you laff, kaze den if you duz, sump'n 'ill drap fum up yer, en my gol'-mine won't do you no good, en needer will yone do me ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... everything happened! Grisha will keep up his character, too. Although he is a blockhead, he has some sense. Now he'll flop down on the hay and he'll lie there on his belly ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... were shaking, but he answered gravely: "Well that's a way it has of puffing itself up and making a great big pretense that it is going to flop us, and then if just little Bobbie or Ma waves an apron or a stick it gets out of the way in ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... him thirsty, so he flew over to the Round Pond to have a drink. He stooped, and dipped his beak in the pond; he thought it was his beak, but, of course, it was only his nose, and, therefore, very little water came up, and that not so refreshing as usual, so next he tried a puddle, and he fell flop into it. When a real bird falls in flop, he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry, but Peter could not remember what was the thing to do, and he decided, rather sulkily, to go to sleep on the weeping ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... a colour and length of flowering season to be used in jungle-like masses for summer colour? Second—has it fragrance or decorative quality for house decoration? Thirdly, has it the backbone to stand alone or will the plant flop and flatten shapelessly at the first hard shower and so render an array of conspicuous stakes necessary? Stakes, next to unsightly insecticides and malodorous fertilizers, are the bane of gardening, but that subject is big enough for a ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Hall he had run flop into the arms of Mrs Stratton, who was carrying in her hands a small ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... collecting; it is not safe to put an inexperienced or nervous rider on a horse that has not been taught to carry a habit, which a groom can do by riding the animal with a rug or dark overcoat on the near side, and letting it flop about. Horses rarely object to the presence of a skirt, though I have known cases in which the animal went almost wild with terror when the right leg was put over the crutch. It is, therefore, wise to accustom a horse to the ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... brother's "little girl" Fleur frankly puzzled Winifred. The child was as restless as any of these modern young women—"She's a small flame in a draught," Prosper Profond had said one day after dinner—but she did not flop, or talk at the top of her voice. The steady Forsyteism in Winifred's own character instinctively resented the feeling in the air, the modern girl's habits and her motto: "All's much of a muchness! Spend, to-morrow we ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that bed more than anything else, which makes me feel that it's always Sunday in my room at Mrs. Ess Kay's. I'm used to old-fashioned, ruffly pillows and a plain white coverlet smelling of lavender, on which I can flop down whenever I like, to read a novel or to have a nice little "weep." But there's no flopping on this gorgeous pink and silver expanse, and it's small consolation to know that no queen of England ever ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... having checked his rapid, head-first and head-on slide down the slanting wire by grasping it in his gloved hands, gave a "flip-flop" and stood up, bowing to the loud applause. Jim Tracy and some of the other circus employees ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... fun they had; and he used to try to leap out of the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower came on; but somehow he never could manage it. He liked most, though, to see them rising at the flies, as they sailed round and round under the shadow of the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into the water, and the green caterpillars let themselves down from the boughs by silk ropes for no reason at all; and then changed their foolish minds for no reason at all, either; and hauled themselves ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... worked mechanically, shredding the flesh into long strips, he watched the lower trail. Ten days had gone by since he had fled across the Valley, but the danger of pursuit had not passed and, as he saw a great owl that was nesting down below rise up blindly and flop away he paused ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... Flop! A large segment of the cream blanc-mange had disintegrated itself from the fast-melting mass, and, evading William's encircling arm, had fallen on to the floor at his feet. With praiseworthy presence of mind William promptly stepped ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... heavy flop of the side Cloister door as it closed behind them, and then silence once more and the thin angry voice of Canon Foster, "Let ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... quite absorbed in an article by one of our most noted masters of literature. I drew one of the queer high-backed chairs scattered about the room, towards the table, and sat down to enjoy a "feast of reason and a flow of soul." As I turned the mildewed page, something suddenly fell with a dull "flop" upon the paper. It was a drop of blood! I stared at it with a strange sensation of mingled horror and astonishment. Could it have been upon the page before I turned it? No; it was wet and bright, and presented the uneven, broken disc which drops of liquid always possess ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... striking back. Other women's outbreaks had bored him and generally had ended his interest in them—this one was more charming than ever. He liked, too, her American pluck and savage independence. Jealous she certainly was, but there was no whine about it; nor was there any flop at the close—floppy women he detested—had always done so. Lucy struck straight out from her shoulder and ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... thing achieved; it has its rightful place, as well as any autocart that ever ran a race. The farmer, in the coming years, when eggs to town he brings, will flop along above the trees, upon his rusty wings. The doctor, when he has a call, from patients far or near, will quickly strap his pinions on, and hit the atmosphere. And airship racing then will be ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... remember about the poem which dealt with proving your soul?—how you spouted it. I know that you are gifted, child, but the world doesn't. If we fail, you at least can, after you pay proper respects to my remains, go back to that adorable aunt of yours and flop in the lap of luxury—but make the attempt ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... is just like brick-dust enlivened by half-boiled cauliflowers! Never mind, it will be all the better background. Now, I saw a majestic lady reposing somewhere. There, let her sit against it. Oh, she mustn't flop over. Here, that match-box, is it? I pity the person deluded enough to use it! Prop her up with it. Now then, let us have a presentation of ladies-she's a governor's wife in the colonies, you see. Never mind costumes, they may be queer. All that will stand or ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not swim, and he began to flop about in the wildest and most unreasonable manner. I threw him a board, but he did not seem to have sense enough to grasp it. I saw that he would be drowned in a moment more, unless he received more efficient help. I ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... like folks!" she said, holding it off and looking at it in high derision. "Look at that thing, Miss Gibbie, peart as the first crocus and proud as cuffy when the weather was good, and at the first touch of dampness or discouragement flop it goes, and no more spirit than a convict in court! It certainly is strange how many things in nature is like human beings. Now this here rooster and this here duck"—she smoothed the breast and ran her fingers down the feathers—"just naturally had no use for each other. If fowls could do what ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... The flap-flop of the horse's hoofs died on Winterbottom Road, and no sound came but the wind sighing in old apple-boughs, and from somewhere the melancholy creaking of a swinging shutter. The gate-way was grown about with grass; Ken crushed it as he forced open the gate, and the ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... fuff the creature sprang down the shrouds on the opposite side as if it had been born and bred a sailor. Unfortunately it made a wild leap at a pendant rope in passing, missed it, and came down on the deck with a prodigious flop. Only one of its nine lives, apparently, was damaged. With the other eight it rushed to the opening in the bow, and soon gained the shore, where it immediately sprang to the leafy head of a cocoa-nut palm. At the same moment a black-and-white cat was sent flying in the same direction ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... trouble is to char-ac-ter what a peg'll be to a creepin' vine—something to which the vine'll 'ook on and pull itself up by. Where there's nothink to ketch on to the vine'll grow; but it'll grow in a 'eap of flop." There was a tremor in his tone as he summed up. "That's ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... giving each other a dry bath in the shape of a shower of sand. There was a monotonous clank of chains, and an occasional deep abdominal rumble like distant thunder. All over the camp there was a confused subdued medley of sound. A hum from the argumentative villagers, a lazy flop in the tank as a raho rose to the surface, an occasional outburst from the ducks, an angry clamour from the water-hens and blue-fowl. My dogs were lying round me blinking and winking, and making an occasional futile snap ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... but some carrion crows moving around in the blue without flop of a wing," he grumbled. "Who started the dope that mankind is the chosen of the Lord? Huh! we have to scratch gravel for all we rake in but the birds of the air have us beat for desert travel all ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the tree top, When the shell comes the runners all flop, When the shell busts, good-bye to our station, We're up in ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... flight of flies or counting the warder's steps along the passage with particular attention to variations of tread and so on. But as it is, I'm like an insect that's flown into a room of its own accord. I dash against the walls, dash against the windows, flop against the ceiling, do everything on God's earth, in fact, except fly out again. And all the while I'm thinking, like that moth, or that butterfly, or whatever it is, 'The shortness of life! The shortness of life!' I've only one night or one day, ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... big, flop-branched tree, with the great supports like stays. I remember it as well as can be. Off to the right, sir, and in a quarter of an hour we shall be ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... was nevertheless a cunning one. Several jurors expressed their appreciation of his sympathy and one answered: "Tired o' talkin'! Wall, I reckon so. I'm jes' tireder an' dryer 'n if I'd been tailin' down beef steers all day. My ol' tongue's been a-floppin' till thar ain't nary 'nother flop left in her 'nless I could git to ile her up with a swaller o' red-eye, an—" regretfully—"I reckon thar ain't no sort ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... crossed with tame ones. They were the cutest, most knowing things. I kept them at the house until they were able to care for themselves, then I turned them out mornings. I would go in the pasture and say, "Is that you nice gooses?" They would act so human, be so tickled to see me and flop against me and squawk. When Mr. Fitzgerald came home they would run for him the same way as soon as they saw the horse. They were ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... boys have seen a mother quail flop and flutter and play wounded, to lead the dangerous boy away from her brood of little quail mites, and work the ruse so daringly and successfully as to save both her babies and herself. I well remember my surprise and admiration ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... blowing, was he?" he said with a hard laugh, "the damn—darned fool!" he corrected, remembering Ophelia at his side. "Well, 'egg' him on—the higher he flies the worse he'll flop ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops: flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It flows purling, widely flowing, floating ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... his head, and the fly fell with a flop in the middle of the pool. He waited a breathless instant while Jock, Sandy, and Jean watched the fly with him, and then, as nothing happened, he cast again. When several such attempts brought no result, he said, "You're sure they ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... farewell to Russian hospitality, and, relinquishing all prospects of wearing the Muscovite diadem, returned to Paris and Dujarier. Her lover's influence secured her an engagement in La Biche au Bois at the Porte St. Martin Theatre; but, as had happened at the Academie Royale, she was a "flop." The critics said so with no uncertain voice; and the manager announced that he agreed with them. Clearly, then, the ballet was ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... to hear you have been doing your influenza also. It's a beastly thing, as I have it, no symptoms except going flop. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... anything—and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... require any of your argument, you flop-eared son of a tramp with half a tail," replied The O'Shannon. "You come and take it, if you think you ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... of what there is flitting here to see, The waked birds preen and the seals flop lazily, Soon you will have, Dear, to vanish from me, For the stars close their shutters and the Dawn whitens hazily. Trust me, I mind not, though Life lours The bringing me here; nay, bring me here again! I am just the same ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... prolonged shock of earthquake came. It was not a bump like the previous one, but a severe vibration which only served to shake the men in their chairs, but it shook the small monkey off the rafter, and the miserable little thing fell with a shriek and a flop into the rice-dish! ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... did the loop himself, hardly conscious of Bland's presence. Bland turned his head, signalling, and did a flop, righted, and was flying straight in the opposite direction. Again, and flew southeast by the sun. They practised that manoeuver again and again before Johnny felt fairly sure of himself, but once he did it he was one proud ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... ort 'o jes' to-day Git down and roll and waller, don't you know, In that-air stubble, and flop up and crow, Seein' sich craps! I'll undertake to say There're no wheat's ever turned out thataway Afore this season!—Folks is keerless tho', And too fergitful—'caze we'd ort 'o show More thankfulness!—Jes' looky hyonder, hey?— And watch that little reaper ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... because I saw him flop over," replied the other; "and that yelp meant sudden pain, as sure as it stood for anything. But he managed to get off, though possibly he will fall within ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... was too large to be Duke, Penrod's little old dog, and, besides, Duke wouldn't act like that. It crept rapidly out into the upper hall, and then, as she recovered the use of her voice and began to scream, the animated cape abandoned its creeping for a quicker gait—"a weird, heaving flop," she ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... reverberating chuckle. "Bless you! I'm as nimble as a sixpence. By the way I'll show you the advantage of having a bit of whalebone in one's composition;" and with these words the Whale curled himself up, then flattened out suddenly with a tremendous flop, and, shooting through the air like a flying elephant, disappeared with a great splash in ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... the old doorman with his look of sea dog recognized her, admitting her with a nod. The titter of music came back through the wings and quick, loud thumps of a tumbling act in progress. The smell of grease paint, like the flop of a cold, wet hand to her face, smote her with a familiarity out of all proportion to her limited ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... to be dragged out of the stern of the skiff, struggle to clasp his writhing legs about the pushpole that stood at an oblique angle, caught firmly in the tenacious mud, and then releasing his hold, flop with a great splash into the dark-colored water ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... "and the nigger outrode Grogan, if anybody should ask you. He had a chance—if he hadn't let that horse's head flop to go ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... this time wasted, and now to find ourselves farther back than when we started. I could cry!" protested Elsie dolefully; and Maud gave a little flop ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... unaware by the onslaught. When he started to run Stopper was already passing him, turning sharply to the right again so that the rope raked the horse's front legs. Two jumps and Stopper had stopped, faced the horse and stood braced again, his ears perked knowingly while he waited for the flop. ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... patted his back. That was the price he had always to pay for bread or butter or jam. Finally, she gave him the bread and let him go. Down the back steps he came, running eagerly and calling Frank. Once more in the kitchen began the flop of the churn, once more rose the wail ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... the very act of cultivating his consciousness. It was in the course of another minute the most extraordinary thing in the world: everything had altered, dropped, darkened, disappeared; his imagination had spread its wings only to feel them flop all grotesquely at its sides as he recognised in his hostess's quiet companion, the oppressive alien who hadn't indeed interfered with his fanciful flight, though she had prevented his immediate declaration ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... that thousand cannot readjust their nerves to the prospect of a violent end by powder and ball from unseen sources. Under other circumstances any one of the five might face a peril greater than that which now confronts him. Conceivably he might flop into a swollen river to save a drowning puppy; might dive into a burning building after some stranger's pet tabby cat. But this prospect which lies before him of ambling across a field with death singing about his ears, is a thing which tears with clawing fingers at the tuggs ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... this life. This is perfectly true, therefore the object of all religion (not religiousness), mental training and development should be the building of character. A religion that does not build up character is worthless. Those who think that they can "flop" through life, avoid, as far as possible, its discipline, make no effort to improve their character, and through believing in a certain creed can miraculously become perfect, simply by dying, are deceiving themselves. ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... bite me," Peggy returned confidently. "He knows I'm his friend, don't you, poor old fellow?" Hobo, realizing that the loved voice was addressing him, even though the trend of the question was beyond his comprehension, gave a feeble flop of his tail, and raised to Peggy's face eyes full ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... on, don't be a tightwad. Swell car—poor man with no eats, not even a two-bits flop for tonight. Could yuh loosen up and slip me just ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... had a certain element of mystery. In a flash unsensational ponderings were displaced by a picture of a steamer in distress far away. Had I not on a similar occasion of a secret-disclosing tide heard through seven miles of insulted and sullen air the flop of an inch or so of dynamite exploded by a heartless barbarian for the illicit destruction of vivacious fish? Had I not listened with amazement to the buzz of a steamer's propeller and the throb of her engines six miles away when unaccustomed "nigger-heads" of coral showed yellow in the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... that morning, through having had a fright in the night, and being woke up by old Shoutnight the owl, who had been out mousing and lost his wife, and sat at last in the ivy-tod halloaing and hoo-hooing, till the gardener's wife threw her husband's old boot out of the window at him, when he went flop into the laurel bush, and banged and bounced about, hissing and snapping with his great bill, while his goggle eyes glowed so angrily that the blackbird's good lady popped off her nest in a hurry and broke one of her eggs, and, what was worse, was afraid to ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... well recoil. A plank, by way of flying drawbridge, joined it to the shore. And it was a dreary moment for Jimson when he pulled this after him and found himself alone on this unwholesome fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in the abhorred interior; the key cried among the wards like a thing in pain; the sitting-room was deep in dust, and smelt strong of bilge-water. It could not be called a cheerful spot, even for a composer absorbed in beloved toil; how much less for a young gentleman haunted by alarms and awaiting ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at all, William. I have an excellent memory for figures. Four thousand, three hundred and fifteen. Ah-h! See how instinct inspires him to flop always toward the water! Did ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... moment a loud flop was heard on the quarter-deck. It was the forgotten mermaid, who, emerging from her stateroom, and ascending the companion-way at that moment, had fainted at the spectacle. The Pirate Prodigy rushed to her side ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... until the cub had stretched himself out comfortably in a crotch did Miki express himself. Then he gave an incredulous yelp, sniffed at the butt of the tree, and made a half-hearted experiment at the thing himself. One flop on his back convinced him that Neewa was the tree-climber of the partnership. Chagrined, he wandered back fifteen or twenty feet and sat down to study the situation. He could not perceive that Neewa had any special business up the tree. Certainly he was not hunting for bugs. He yelped ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... strive to escape the regulars; But the majority seek for the standardized premier faces That really mean so little in the life of the play. Listen to the comments during intermission: "It doesn't get over!" "It's a flop!" "What atmosphere!" "An absolute steal!" "Such originality!" "Not a bit life-like!" "That author has a wonderful memory!" "He copped that lyric from Irving Berlin!" "He's as funny as a crutch or a cry ...
— The Broadway Anthology • Edward L. Bernays, Samuel Hoffenstein, Walter J. Kingsley, Murdock Pemberton
... hunting-shirt, intending to use it as the toreador uses his mantle, to entangle the dangerous weapons of his adversary. Then he dragged himself across to the other end of the ledge and attempted to corner the captive. For this he was not quite quick enough, however. With a flop and a squawk the bird eluded him, and he realized that he had better postpone the undertaking till the morrow. Crawling back to his hollow by the bush, he sank down, utterly exhausted. Not till the sharp ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... abandon jealousy, forsake taking of tobacco, and cease to wear their beards so rudely long. Oh, to have a husband with a mouth continually smoking, with a bush of furs on the ridge of his chin, readie still to flop into his foaming chops, 'tis more than most intolerable;" and similar indications of dislike to smoking could ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... permanently lame. It was the whole man who limped and lurched, with nothing of him left in the same position as before. The tremendous cleverness, the literary society, the political ambition, the Bournemouth sisters all seemed to flop with his every movement a little nearer to the floor. I hadn't had an Oxford training and I had never encountered the great man at whose feet poor Dawling had most submissively sat and who had addressed him his most destructive sniffs; but ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... wouldn't have hurt you. None of these flop-over Janes for me!... An' I'll give you a hunch, Pretty Eyes. You might have run acrost a fellar thet was ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... the work of the office as, whenever the Assistant-Resident turned to any employee to ask how far such and such a place might be distant, or the tariff of carriages, etc., the person so addressed, no matter how engaged, would, before reply, immediately flop on to his knees. The Regent was also calling on the representative of the Government, and to him the Englishman was introduced. This native functionary was fat and well-looking, but did not seem to exactly ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... no shame to fight the lame When they deserve to cop it. So do not try to pipe your eye, Or with my flip I'll flop it.' ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... thunderstorm. So wrapped in cotton wool is a now-a-days Commander-in-Chief that this was the first musketry fire I could claim to have come under since the beginning of the war. To sit in a trench and hear flights of bullets flop into the sandbag parapet, or pass harmlessly overhead, is hardly to be under fire. An irregular stream of Irishmen were walking up the path along with us; one of them was hit just ahead of me. He caught it in the thigh and stretcher men ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... high-strung even about his play, as when, Mr. Mackail tells us, "he would imitate an eagle with considerable skill and humour, climbing on to a chair and, after a sullen pause, coming down with a soft, heavy flop." It seems odd that Mr. John Burns could say of this sensitive and capricious man of genius, as we find him saying in Mr. Compton-Rickett's book, that "William Morris was a chunk of humanity in the rough; he was a piece of good, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... night, it seemed suddenly to put on brakes. According to the radar, its original speed was close to mach 3, thirty-nine miles a minute. Then it checked swiftly. It came to a complete stop. Then it hurtled backward along the line it had followed. It wabbled momentarily as if it had done a flip-flop four miles above the ground. It dived. It stopped dead in mid-air for a full second and abruptly began to rise once more in an insane, corkscrew course which ended abruptly in a headlong fall toward ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... sure," said Rendel. "I am not sure that it is quite an easy thing to have an ardent hold on life. Some people keep letting it down with a flop. But I feel as if I could hold it tight this morning at any rate. I do not believe there is a creature in the wide world that I would change places with at this moment," he went on, the force of his ardent hope and purpose breaking ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... that on earth do dwell,'—the dear homely Old Hundredth. It was no wonder that a light, very light, footstep on the gravel outside did not rouse me. The door behind me opened, and Tinker turned his head lazily, and his tail began to flop heavier against the floor. The next moment two soft ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... not go too far. One may regret Adam, and his extinction may start fissures in many genealogical trees, but to such of us as only "came over in the Mayflower," or "with the Conqueror," his flop into oblivion may entail no serious damage to existing rights. Upon Moses I always looked as a person of doubtful parentage, and a leader who, had he lived in recent centuries, would have been sacrificed by his own men within a month at most. His only title to fame is that he ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... He dropped his chin into his chest with a recumbent bow, and his arm described an impressive semicircle. "Present to her 'surances my most disting'shed consider-ration—soon's you find her," and he went flop on his side ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... allowed me to put my hand under him and lift him gently out! Suddenly it occurred to me that I might paint him! The palette chanced to be at hand, so I began at once. In about two minutes the paddle gave a flop of discomfort as he lay on the rock; I therefore put him into a small pool for a minute or so to let him, breathe, then took him out and had a second sitting, after which he had another rest and a little refreshment in the pool. Thus in about ten minutes, I had his portrait, and put him back into ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... anchor flop overboard," she announced, springing up from a deck chair. "I think I shall accompany you, ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... are risks which the would-be young can and should avoid. Surely Miss Wilcox ought to have known better than to flop down on the grass with an effort and a bump, clasping (with some difficulty) her knees because Vera, who is sixteen, slim and lithe, with the gawky grace of a young colt, had made such an ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... down this street and see what it runs into," suggested Tessie. "Hope it doesn't flop off ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... flickered and went out. In the blackness which followed, each stage of the Phoenix's descent could be heard as clearly as cannon shots: the twanging and snapping as it tumbled through the wires, a drawn-out squawk and the flop of wings in the air below, the crash into the hedge, the jarring thud against the ground. Broken wires began to sputter ominously and fire out sparks. A smell of singed feathers and ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... during the forenoon a shoal of flying-fish rose out of the water alongside, and passed directly over the raft, nearly a score being intercepted in their flight by our sail, and caught before they were able to flop off into the water again. I thought that any attempt to preserve them would be sure to end in failure by their quickly becoming unfit for human food, and therefore proposed that they should be at once eaten, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... behind—making a beast of a row. Shouting wasn't any earthly. So I rushed in and grabbed him. 'Verney—drop it! What are you doing?' I said sternly; and he looked up at me like a sainted cherub. 'Flop, don't hinder me. I'm walkin' froo the valley of the shadow, an' goodness an' mercy are following me all the days of my life.' That's the fruits of teaching ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... that point, however, gravity, which he had successfully defied, wreaked vengeance upon him; it suddenly reached forth and made him its vindictive toy. He pawed, he fought, he appeared to be climbing an invisible rope. With a mighty flop he landed flat upon his back, uttering a loud and dismayed grunt as his breath left him. When he had dug himself out he found that the girl, too, was breathless. She was rocking in silent ecstasy, she hugged herself gleefully, and there ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... looking for the chickens. At least all of them but Polly would. Polly always took the part of old Buzzard, so she could flop down in Dilsy's seat, although she knew she would have ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... a long-winded lot, is BUCHANAN, slops over tremenjous, he do; Kinder poet, dear boy, I believe, and they always do flop round a few, Make a rare lot o' splash and no progress, like ducks in a tub, dontcher know, But cackle and splutter ain't swimming; so ROBERT, my nabs, it's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... held me while I skinned. It was very awkward. The tiny landscape almost directly beneath us was blue with the atmosphere of distance. A solitary raven discovered us, and began to circle and croak and flop. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White |
