"Prodding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... required. Lew Cawley washed out a plate for him, as a special favor; and Raw Harris, pessimist as he was, and who had a way of displaying the fact in all the little every-day matters of life, cleaned and sharpened a knife for him by prodding it up to the hilt in the hard-beaten earth, and cleaned the prongs of a fork with the edge of his buckskin shirt. But he could not thus outrage his principles without excusing himself, which he did, to the effect that he guessed "invalid fellers need onusual feedin'." Jacob Smith, ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... in the buckboard and drove out to where the men were working in the hay. I was taking their dinner out to them, neatly packed in the chuck-box. One of the new men, who'd been hired for the rush, had been overworking his team. The brute had been prodding them with a pitchfork, instead of using a whip. Dinky-Dunk saw the marks, and noticed one of the horses bleeding. But he didn't interfere until he caught the man in the act of jabbing the tines into Maid Marian's flank. Then he jumped for him, just as I drove up. He cursed that man, ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... was often possible to detect them by a slight depression in the surface or by a faint, shadowy difference in tint, but in the half-light of cloudy and misty weather these signs failed, and there was no safety but in the ceaseless prodding of the pole. The ice-axe will not serve—one cannot reach far enough forward with it for safety, and the incessant stooping ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... I happened to observe Skirrl playing with a staple in his cage. He had found it on the floor where it had fallen and was intently prodding himself with the sharp points, apparently enjoying the unusual sensations which he got from sticking the staple into the skin in various portions of his body, and ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... troubled by the apparently general foe, for the specimen in which they were just then interested continued his course entirely unconcerned. Soon, however, he seemed to feel fatigue, for he drew his feet and head within his shell, which he tightly closed, and after that no poking or prodding had ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... He lay there for a moment in acute distributed pain. Then his discomfort became centralized in his stomach, and he regained consciousness to discover that a large foot was prodding him. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... heard, gave no sign of hearing. He had turned to hail Brother Warboise, who came along the river path with eyes fastened on the ground, and staff viciously prodding ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... whole business slips up,' replied Jim, prodding the table with a pen in a misanthropic manner. 'Betting's the one thing he's absolutely down on. He got done rather badly once a few years ago. Believe he betted on Orme that year he got poisoned. Anyhow he's always sworn to lynch us if we made fools of ourselves that ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... together and shook their heads as they looked at the weary baggage-camels on which the prisoners were perched. The greatest laggard of all was one which was ridden by a wounded Soudanese soldier. It was limping badly with a strained tendon, and it was only by constant prodding that it could be kept with the others. The Emir Wad Ibraham raised his Remington, as the creature hobbled past, and sent a bullet through its brain. The wounded man flew forwards out of the high saddle, and fell heavily upon the hard track. ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... last, where the stones were plentiful and of proper size. There he paused; the thing was still angry and prodding within him; Gral could not have known that this "thing-that-prodded" was not anger but a churning impatience, a burning nameless need—that he was in very truth a prototype, the first in the ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... thin wooden veneer. These were manufactured by Ira L. Quay of East Berne, New York, at a price of 12c per gross. The pill factory often must have been a little slow in paying, for Quay was invariably prodding for prompt remittance, as in this letter ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... could think of, for it set up a local irritation of the sort most calculated to make a person clean his finger nails. The average man and woman is not very neat, Walter. I was not sure but a scientific prodding was necessary to transfer my evidence to some object I could borrow ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... This was the first one, and I remember it very well, because I found in the morning that it had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the widow's garden as clean as a boy's kite. When I looked over the hedge, widow—Tom Lamport's widow that was—was prodding for her nasturtiums with a daisy-grubber. After I had watched her for a little I went down to the "Fox and Grapes" to tell landlord what she had said to me. Landlord he laughed, being a married man and at ease with the sex. "Come to that," he said, "the tempest has blowed something ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... Las Casas describes the finding of this nugget by an Indian girl, who accidentally turned it up while idly prodding the ground with a sharp instrument. He gives its weight as 3600 castellanos, equivalent to thirty-five pounds. The vessel which was to carry it to Spain was wrecked in a violent storm, just outside the harbour, and the famous nugget was lost. Las Casas, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... to the indignity of allowing this dessicated hag to pass her fumbling hands all over her body, pinching her and prodding her. The old woman smelt horribly of daikon (pickled horse-radish). Furthermore the terrified girl had to answer a battery of questions as to her personal habits and her former marital relations. In return, she learned a number of curious ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... know, that he never could rise to the conception of anything else. He took them to a cheap, second-class hotel, and he was afraid to go with them anywhere because he never was sure that it was the right thing to do; and he was too proud to ask, and they had to keep prodding him all the time." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... through the village of Ballyfuchsia, was an eventful one, but by dint of prodding, poking, and belting, Benella had accomplished half the distance in three-quarters of an hour, when the donkey suddenly lay down 'on her,' according to Peter's prediction. This was luckily at the town cross, where a group of idlers rendered hearty assistance. Willing as they ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... responded Perry, from the cushioned chair on the hearthrug, where he sat prodding the wood fire with a small brass poker, "it's stuck in my chest, and the doctor tells me if I don't look out I'll be in for bronchitis or pneumonia or something ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... donc claquemure ainsi toute la matinee! And all for an omelette—a puny, good-for-nothing omelette. And you—you've lost your tongue, it seems?" And a shrill voice pierced the air as Colinette gave her painter the hint of her prodding elbow. With the appearance of the omelette the reign of good humor would return. Everything then went as merrily as that marriage-bell which, apparently, is the only one absent ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... cub. On top of this his eyes were so nearly closed that his vision was bad, and the fifth time he stumbled he lost sight of Neewa entirely, and sent out a protesting wail. Neewa stopped and began prodding with his nose under a rotten log. When Miki came up Neewa was flat on his belly, licking up a colony of big red vinegar ants as fast as he could catch them. Miki studied the proceeding for some moments. It soon dawned upon him that Neewa was eating something, but for ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... pantechnicon was doing quite eight miles an hour and the steepest declivity was yet to come. Further, the dropping of the left-hand shafts jerked the van to the left, and Denry dropped the other pair only just in time to avoid the sudden uprooting of a lamp-post. The four points of the shafts digging and prodding into the surface of the road gave the pantechnicon something to think about for a few seconds. But unfortunately the precipitousness of the street encouraged its head-strong caprices, and a few seconds later all four shafts were broken, and the pantechnicon seemed ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Sentinel's role suits my style passing well; The enemy won't find me napping or nodding. But what I most like as I do sentry spell, Is the fine opportunity offered for—prodding! I watch like a lynx, as a sentry should do, With an eye like a hawk, and a smile sweet as syrup; But when there's a chance for 'a thrust—whirraroo! My bayonet-point is agog for a stir up! JOE, the Sentry, you know, like Joe Bagstock, is sly, Ay, "devilish sly,"—if I may speak ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... a pretty name,' snarled Slivers, prodding the ground with his wooden leg, as he always did when angry. 'Neither are you. What do you mean by banging into my office like an insane giraffe?'—this in allusion ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... in the undecided way of men assuming other people's clothes. She was in the hall when he descended, humming a tune and prodding at her shoe; her smile showed all her pearly upper teeth. He caught hold of her sleeve ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... said Bob; "but, of course, if you get prodding at us with those spikes you have at the ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... Risaldar, prodding at the man with his scabbard-point, "is none other than the High Priest of Kharvani's temple here, the arch-ringleader in all the treachery afoot—now ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... Great War the open spaces of the Park were freely used for the drill and training of soldiers, and many people used to go to watch the fresh-faced young lads springing out of the trenches they had dug and prodding with their bayonets at stuffed swinging sacks representing the enemy. There is always something going on and something to see in ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... cultivation in order to keep up to the standards. Many people are so constituted that their ambition wanes and their ideals drop when they are alone, or with careless, indifferent people. They require the constant assistance, suggestion, prodding, or example of others to keep ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... a board fence, with guards walking their beats on the ground outside. A small creek flowed through the southern end of the grounds, and at its lower end was used as a sink. The boards of the fence came down to the surface of the water, where the Creek passed out, but we found, by careful prodding with a stick, that the hole between the boards and the bottom of the Creek was sufficiently large to allow the passage of our bodies, and there had been no stakes driven or other precautions used to prevent egress by this channel. A ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... prone on his stomach to peep under bedsteads; and hops up ladders, like some extinct bird, to survey the tops of presses and cupboards; and provides himself an iron rod which he is always poking and prodding into dust-mounds; the probability is that he expects to ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... matched by Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson himself. And I once met an American medical man, in Munich to sit under the learned Prof. Dr. Mueller, who ate no less than five portions of it nightly, after his twelve long hours of clinical prodding and hacking. He found it more nourishing, he told me, than pure albumen, and more stimulating to ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... on his perch, thrust out his hooked beak to nip his master's prodding finger, then disdainfully turned ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... growing restless at such searching examination, but Daughtry, in the midst of feeling out the lines and build of the thighs and hocks, paused and took Michael's tail in his magic fingers, exploring the muscles among which it rooted, pressing and prodding the adjacent spinal column from which it sprang, and twisting it about in a most daringly intimate way. And Michael was in an ecstasy, bracing his hindquarters to one side or the other against the ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... folks c'n take yeh in. I'm goin' to kick yeh off'n the face of the earth," he continued, prodding uncertainly at Danvers. "Stop, I tell yeh! Why do I want yeh to walk slow? 'Cos (hic) I want to wipe the road up with yer English hide. Yeh think yeh're all ri', but yeh ain't. Yeh look's if yeh owned the town, ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... boys?" he said, looking around at the silent group. "Corraled us without lettin' off a gun. That's what I'd call re-diculous. You're right welcome. But mebbe you wouldn't have had things so easy if we hadn't left our guns in the cabin. Eh, Bill?" he questioned, prodding the other ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... way ter do hit, suh, en dat's ter dung hit," replied Uncle Boaz, and he remarked a minute afterwards, as he put down the lowered handles of the wheel barrow, and stood prodding the ashes in his pipe, "I'se gwinter vote fur you, Marse Abel, I ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... Nebbie also knew that presently that same master of his would return again to make the circuit of the garden in the company of Bainton, according to custom,—and as he stretched his four hairy paws out comfortably, and blinked his brown eyes at a portly blackbird prodding in the turf for a worm within a stone's throw of him, he was evidently considering whether it would be worth his while, as an epicurean animal, to escort these two men on their usual round on such a warm pleasant morning. For it was ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... front—only to be instantly eclipsed by the white star of Aldegonde. Aramis began to hang—the angry roar of his backers told he was out of it. Simultaneously, the jockeys sat down to ride—there was the cruel swish of catgut, the crueler prodding of steel. In the crowd a great hushed breath, like the sigh of a forest before the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... the way. In "A Traveler at Forty" Dreiser is surely frank enough in his vivisections; he seldom forgets a vanity or a wart. In "A Hoosier Holiday" he goes even further; he speculates heavily about all his dramatis personae, prodding into the motives behind their acts, wondering what they would do in this or that situation, forcing them painfully into laboratory jars. They become, in the end, not unlike characters in a novel; one misses only the neatness of a plot. Strangely enough, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... as we fare inland, to know she has a Christian mark over her grave. . . . You have the bearings accurate no doubt,' said I, lifting the heavy cross and, as I stooped to shoulder it, picking up the ship's mallet, which lay at my feet. 'Will it be here—or here?' I asked, choosing the spot and prodding the sharpened foot of the cross into the sand. . . . His face blanched. 'You accursed fool!' said I, 'do you suppose I haven't, these four days, been watching you and the dog?'—and, as I said it, the point ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... frivolities, and a deep and abiding conviction that Scotland was the only country in the world for a self-respecting human being to dwell in, and that everything outside of the Established Church was foredoomed to flames and sulphur and the perpetual prodding of red-hot pitchforks. And last, but not least by any means, he found Mr. Michael Bawdrey just what he had been told he would find him, namely, a dear, lovable, sunny-tempered old man, who fairly idolised his young wife and absolutely adored his frank-faced, affectionate, big boy ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... planted about the field, and there were three formidable-looking men of straw and rags with hats on their heads and wooden guns under their arms. But the rooks were there all the same; I counted seven at one spot, prodding the earth close to the feet of one of the scarecrows. I went into the field to see what they were doing, and found that it was sown with vetches, just beginning to come up, and the birds were ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... principle of criminology. Soon or late they falter. My son Leslie is of a like opinion. He has declared all along that the mystery will be cleared up if we are quiescent. A guilty conscience takes its own way to relieve itself. If you keep prodding it with sharp sticks you encourage fear, and stealth, and all that sort of thing, without really getting anywhere in the end. Give a murderer a free rope and he'll hang himself, is my belief. Threaten him with that self-same rope, and he'll pay more attention ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... she thought. He was cheeky enough for anything. But now he was prodding her. "Say yes. Say ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... whomsoever it exalts to my high office. Some African tribes—not to draw the comparison disrespectfully—some savage African tribes, when they make a king require him perhaps to achieve an exhausting foot-race under the stimulus of considerable popular prodding and goading, or perhaps to be severely and experimentally knocked about the head by his Privy Council, or perhaps to be dipped in a river full of crocodiles, or perhaps to drink immense quantities of something nasty out of a calabash—at all events, to undergo some purifying ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens |
