"Scratch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you," screamed Dorothy, springing like a tigress from her chair. "Not another word from you or I will—I will scratch you. I will kill some one. Don't speak to me. Can't you see that I am trying to calm myself for an interview with father? An angry brain is full of blunders. I want to make none. I will settle this affair with father. No one else, not even you, Aunt ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... in his heartiest element. Men would make a scratch team at the sound of his voice, just to be led by him as captain. No mean field or batsman, he excelled in bowling. His resource in taking wickets was only equalled by the good temper with which adversaries ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... ascended, but he did not find his dearest Rapunzel above, but the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks. "Aha!" she cried mockingly, "Thou wouldst fetch thy dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it, and will scratch out thy eyes as well. Rapunzel is lost to thee; thou wilt never see her more." The King's son was beside himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell, pierced his eyes. Then ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... garden as I followed my own New England road. The flower-plots were in gay bloom all along the way; almost every house had some flowers before it, sometimes carefully fenced about by stakes and barrel staves from the miscreant hens and chickens which lurked everywhere, and liked a good scratch and fluffing in soft earth this year as well as any other. The world seemed full of young life. There were calves tethered in pleasant shady spots, and puppies and kittens adventuring from the doorways. ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... that the finest sense of all—the joyous sense of bodily well-being—comes only with exercises and restraints and fine living. There I think lies the way of my disposition. I do not want to live in the sensual sty, but I also do not want to scratch in the ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... think that was much kinder of her than to ask us to dinner. I hate going out to dinner in the country almost as much as I hate not going out to dinner in town. Besides with that great hook nose of hers, I'm always afraid that in an absent moment I might scratch her on the head and say 'Pretty Polly.' Is she a great friend of yours, Mr Pillson? I hope so, because everyone likes his best friends being ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... phrase "your scratch team" pleased him. His aunt's energy had infected him, and he began to marshal ...
— Laugh and Play - A Collection of Original stories • Various
... native, or that the native understood the meaning of the monkey's chattering. At length Kallolo got within reach of Quacko, when, gently stretching out his hand, he began to tickle the monkey's nose. Then he got a little nearer, till he could scratch its head and back. All this time the monkey sat perfectly still, although its companions were climbing here and there, some swinging backwards and forwards on the vines, others making all sorts of grimaces at us. At length, to our surprise, we saw Kallolo take Quacko in his arms, and quickly ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... understood; I think he saw everything that happened. The girls at my stall were sulky because no one bought of them, while I was surrounded; and one, in lifting a handful of roses, drew them towards her with a spiteful jerk that left a long thorn-scratch across my hand. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... was out of patience. "All money's honest, after you get it!" he cried. "It's gettin' it that draws blood. I never knew the silver bird to fly off a dollar and scratch a guy, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... shook him vigorously. "Shut up," he said, roughly, partly to hide his own feelings, "Charley's comin' back without a scratch. The good Lord, I reckon, don't make lads as true and white as he to be killed off by a pack of jail vermin. Come to the wall as he told us to. Maybe we'll get a shot at those murderers before the day is done. Come along an' stop that blubberin'," and he grabbed the soft-hearted ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... that Association is the pure caseine, and must be eaten by the human race if it would save its soul alive, which, indeed, it will; only don't you think me a good fellow for not crying out, when I never had more to do than scratch myself and away went the fleas. But you all were real bricks; and if you were riled, why let him that is without sin cast the first stone, or let me cast it for him, and see if I don't hit ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... where only eight had been before. The mounted men hurried on the daubed and wearied droves of Commissariat beasts. Smoots Beste drove the scratch team of bullocks, but his heart was as water within his belly, and there was no resonance in the smack of his whip. When the convoy came to a town, he vanished, and the story thenceforth knows him no more. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... incessantly at work; the phenomenon would have been had they stopped. From time to time Mademoiselle du Guenic took a long knitting needle which she kept in the bosom of her gown, and passed it between her hood and her hair to poke or scratch her white locks. A stranger would have laughed to see the careless manner in which she thrust back the needle without the slightest fear of wounding herself. She was straight as a steeple. Her erect and imposing carriage might pass for one of those coquetries of old ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... amusements of the ghosts came very opportunely to my aid, and immediately I put into execution what now appeared my only hope of its safety. Just as a corner of the paper was entering the flame I gave a pretty loud scratch, at the same time anxiously observing the effect it might produce. I was overjoyed to find the enemy intimidated at least by the first fire. Another volley, and another succeeded, until even the sceptical Gilbert was dismayed. My uncle seemed riveted to the spot, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... often noticed how pussy can stretch out her claws when she wishes to climb or to scratch, but you know they are most often hidden within this velvet sheath. If you have ever watched your cat creeping cautiously nearer and nearer to her prey, and then suddenly springing upon the poor little mouse or bird, you will know exactly how such great and terrible cats ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... dumb astonishment, now on the grey unknown, and now on the writing. In the mean time he had dipped a new pen in a drop of my blood, which was flowing from a scratch made by a thorn in my hand. He handed the pen ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... behind it for the street's amusement. At the hour when the crowd issued from the matinee at the Hyperion Theatre, our wittiest students paced on all fours up and down behind this grill and roared for raw beef. E—— was the wag of the building and he could climb up to a high place and scratch himself like a monkey—an entertainment of more humor than elegance. Elated with success, he and a companion later chartered a street-organ—a doleful one-legged affair—and as man and monkey they gathered pennies ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... irritability we should ignore it, as we would ignore a little snapping dog across the street, while at the same time removing its cause as quickly as we can. There is nothing that delights the devil more than to scratch a man with the irritability of hunger, and have him respond to it at once by being ugly and rude to a friend; for then the irritation immediately becomes moral, and every bit of selfishness rushes up to join it, and to arouse whatever ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... of the man of action, who does not bite his nails or scratch his head in doubt and indecision. Sparing of gestures as of words, he always stood motionless like a soldier before his superior; but when he moved, his step showed a firmness, a freedom of movement, which proved the confidence and ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... thought to stanch so simple a wound, and so lose all this blood—bad Tressilian blood though it be." He laughed in the immensity of his reaction from that momentary terror. "Stay thou there whilst I call Nick to help us dress this scratch." ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... after I had turned this over in my head. Then I put them back in the holsters, and I examined my little mare, she jerking her head and cocking her ears the while, as if to tell me that an old soldier like herself did not make a fuss about a scratch or two. The first shot had merely grazed her off-shoulder, leaving a skin-mark, as if she had brushed a wall. The second was more serious. It had passed through the muscle of her neck, but already it had ceased to bleed. I reflected that if she ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the thing contracted, pulling itself lower into the sand. At the same instant something thin and sharp lashed out through a fold in the skin, striking at Brion's boot and withdrawing. There was a scratch on the hard plastic, beaded ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... "Hunt for x and report. Hunt for the spirit of the coming ruction and try to scrag it! Live in the open when I can, sleep with the lice when it rains or snows, eat dead goat and bad bread, I expect; scratch myself when I'm not looking, and take a tub at the first opportunity. When you see me on my way back, have a bath made ready for me, ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... and ends of ideas that we have already mastered, on to which we can hitch our new ones; but to multiply them in respect of such a matter as thought, is like scratching the bite of a gnat; the more we scratch the more we want to scratch; the more we define the more we shall have to go on defining the words we have used in our definitions, and shall end by setting up a serious mental raw in the place of a small uneasiness that was after all quite endurable. We know too well what thought ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... forcing them down the slope, for when the freckled-faced lad thrust his hand in to grasp the nest a sharp prick made him withdraw it, while this action brought it in contact with a natural chevaux de frise, scarified the back, and made a long scratch on his thumb. ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... pushing up her sleeve and displaying a scratch at least an inch in length, and still roughened and red. "I suppose you don't remember trying to MURDER me?" she inquired, sweetly triumphant. "If you could shoot as well as Jack, I'd have been killed very likely. And you'd be in jail ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... day, he thought, for to accompany the stranger they had lighted a lamp; he had heard the scratch of the match, and through the brass fretwork had ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... rain squall hid her from view in a thick white mist, and, with agony and despair in his heart, he gave up all hope of life, knowing that the only other boat was turned bottom up on the main hatch of the barque, and that the ship was only half-manned by a scratch crew of long-shore loafers. ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... Great Isabel so that he should have some means to help himself if nothing could be done for him from the shore. And here she had come out to meet him empty and inexplicable. What had become of Decoud? The Capataz made a minute examination. He looked for some scratch, for some mark, for some sign. All he discovered was a brown stain on the gunwale abreast of the thwart. He bent his face over it and rubbed hard with his finger. Then he sat down in the stern sheets, passive, with his knees close together ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... concluded gravely, "there's only one man I know or ever heard of to whom I would have considered it worth while even to think of sending that telegram, and you are he. Somehow I knew you'd come to the scratch." ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... darling. No horse could scratch a foothold in the place where our mules are as safe as in a meadow. Come, dear heart, let us be going." But Hedwig hung her head, and did not stir. "What is it, Hedwig?" he asked, bending down to her and softly stroking her hair. "Are ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... begged of him. But he was on top of me in a breath and we rolled over and over in the sloop's cockpit. Why it was that he did not seriously injure me, I cannot tell to this day! He struck at me viciously a dozen times; but by a miracle I escaped even a scratch. ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... afflicted Persons in order to their healing or recovery out of a sick Fit, why may not the Diseased Person be as well ordered to touch the Witch for the same cause? And if to touch him, why not to scratch him and fetch Blood out of him, which is but an harder kind of touch? But as for this Mr. Perkins doubts not to call it a Practice of Witchcraft. It is not safe to meddle with any of the Devils Sacraments or Institutions; For my own part, I should be loath ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... to six inches, and leave them at this distance, for Winter Spinach may be a little crowded with advantage, because the weather and the black bot will now and then remove a plant. Should ground vermin claim attention, the best way to proceed will be to scratch shallow furrows very near the plants, taking care not to injure them. This may be done with the hoe, but if time can be spared it will be better to do it with a short pointed stick, having at hand, as the work progresses, a vessel into which to throw the grubs as they ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... wheels ceased to be rotatory: I got cold and damp; and the moths found their way to my inside: one or two persons who came to inspect me declined becoming purchasers, and peering closely at my panels, said something about "old scratch." This hurt my feelings, for if my former possessor was not quite so good as she might have been, it was no ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various
... will fight on," said Etarcumul. Cuchulain dealt him a well-aimed edge-stroke. [4]With the edge of his sword[4] he sheared the hair from him from poll to forehead, from one ear to the other, as if it were with a light, keen razor he had been shorn. [5]Not a scratch of his skin gave blood.[5] [6]"Hold, fellow.[6] Get thee home now," said Cuchulain, "for a laughing-stock I have made of thee." "I go not," [7]rejoined Etarcumul.[7] "We will fight to the end, till I take thy head and thy spoils and boast over thee, or ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... in England last year," she said; "I—I saw A Woman of Honour in London. What could possibly be done with it by an Australian scratch company in a Calcutta ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... the honest first person, I was something of a fraud. The days when I believed everything I was told did not run much beyond my teething time. I soon began to question if fire was really hot, if the cat would really scratch. Presently, as we have seen, I questioned God. And in those days my religion depended on my mood. I could believe anything I wanted to believe. I did believe, in all my moods, that there was a God who had made the world, in some fashion unexplained, and who knew about me and ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... up came somebody with a kit, or a bag, or a box of tools, and they were as good as new before you could wink your eye. Indeed, so great was the desire to keep things up that it was only necessary (so a wag said) to scratch a match on old Seymour's front door to have its ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had no sheep, the sight was a very fine one (so far at least as the weather permitted any sight at all); yet for us, with our flock beneath it, this great mount had but little charm. Watch began to scratch at once, and to howl along the sides of it; he knew that his charge was buried there, and his business taken from him. But we four men set to in earnest, digging with all our might and main, shovelling ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Woods this morning. Now I must wait until to-morrow morning. I hate night trains. My best razors are, of course, at the bottom of some unidentifiable trunk. It is a plot to drive me to bay rum and a monologueing, thumb-handed barber. Give me a pen that doesn't scratch. I hate ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... for a scratch or two of no account. More was Kynan, and that was a wonder, or his luck, as he would have it. But Jefan said, trying ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... vital necessity of his visiting the site of ancient Memphis and the Tombs of Sakkara on the morrow. This was in the interests of his archaeological researches, and he pleaded special leave. One officer only came up to scratch, which was but a minor difficulty. Other means could be resorted to for ensuring comparative safety. Military police and some of the sergeants, especially if friends, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... were borne from the roundhouse at Conemaugh, two miles away, are conspicuous. Amid the general wreck, beneath one of these heavy iron tanks, a looking glass, two feet by one foot in dimensions, was discovered intact, without even a scratch on the quicksilver. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... that when Sir Burne Jones' little daughter was once in such a specially angry mood as to scratch and bite and spit, her father somewhat roughly shook the child and said, "I do not see what has got into you, Millicent; the devil must teach you these things." Whereupon, the little one indignantly flashed back this reply:—"Well ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... had indulged. She said it, however, rather too innocently on this occasion. Miss Farrar was not dull, and had suspected from the beginning who was at the bottom of the mischief; indeed, it was easy enough by this time to trace the noise to the right spot, for the kitten had begun to scratch, and lifted up its voice in a series of emphatic wails, evidently ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... up altogether than do it in a scratch way," said Ralph. "I've got into a fashion of having a second horse, and I ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... instinct," replied Mr. Tarbox. "The study of human nature comes just as natural to me as it does to a new-born duck to scratch the back of its head with its hind foot; just as natural—and easier. The pot-hunter is a study; ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the savages dashed in the door with sich force that three or four o' 'em fell sprawlin' on the floor. We jumped over these before they could rise, and fired a volley, which sent three or four o' the reptiles behind on their backs. We got into the bush without a scratch, an' used our legs well, I can tell 'ee. They fired a volley after us, which missed us all except poor Tommy. A bullet entered his brain, an' killed him dead. For some time his father would not drop him, though I told him he was quite ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... dig up the ruin by the roots, and closely examine it, and the earth about it. Never, while he lived! They offered money for it. They! Men of science, whom he could have bought by the gross, with a scratch of his pen! He showed them the garden- gate again, and ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... imagined that he was an idiot, or lacking in intelligence in any way, but he had some curious mental twists that marked him as something out of the normal. His chief peculiarity lay in his dread of pain to himself. An ache, a trifling bruise, a mere scratch upon himself, would hurl him into a paroxysm of terror which frequently terminated in a fit, or, at least, convulsions of a serious nature. This drove the girl, who was his only living relative, to ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... milk-white hide, on which it is seldom possible to discover a spot, wrinkle, or scratch, the full-grown white whale is an animal of extraordinary beauty. The young whales are not white, but very light greyish brown. The white whale is taken in nets not only by the Norwegians at Spitzbergen, but also by the Russians and Samoyeds at Chabarova. In former times they appear to have been ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... crowded universe, between all whose great verities moved countless small and smaller truths. Little notion had he that to learn these after the measure of their importance, was his business, with eternity to do it in! He made of himself but a cock, set for a while on the world's heap to scratch and pick. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... "it is only a scratch, and I will make you a present of some new trousers. Also, here is tobacco for you. Come to ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... for that row of gold bottles back of you, you brute of a farmer!" Tanrade counseled me, as the cure found his seat. "If you scratch those monograms the Baroness will ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... that Tolstoy was a combination of genius and insanity. Undoubtedly Tolstoy is actuated by a genuine desire to free Russia, but the idea was unmistakably imbedded in my mind that his Christianity was like Napoleon's description of a Russian. Scratch it and you would find Tartar fanaticism under it,—the fanaticism of the ascetic who would drive his own flesh and blood into the flames to save the soul of his domestics. This impression grew as I watched the attitude of ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... little note-books for impromptu jottings in pencil to refresh my memory of names and circumstances, and what was specially wanted, &c. In these, I brief'd cases, persons, sights, occurrences in camp, by the bed-side, and not seldom by the corpses of the dead. Some were scratch'd down from narratives I heard and itemized while watching, or waiting, or tending somebody amid those scenes. I have dozens of such little note-books left, forming a special history of those years, for myself alone, full of associations ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... game's been missus an' kids to me, Sir— Aye, an' a rare good girl she's been! I met her first at my father's knee, Sir, An' married her young on Richmond Green. An' as she's proved so true a lover, Never inclined to scratch or scold, When the long day's fun at last is over, I'll love her ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... ash, which already began to come off and soil my fingers; on the blank side had been written with the same material the one word "Depposed." I have that curiosity beside me at this moment; but not a trace of writing now remains beyond a single scratch, such as a man might make ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the border for divers years, Where he fou't the red-skins, and he fou't the bears And there wasn't a thing that could bite or scratch For which Tom Johnson wasn't a match, Excepting his wife, and she was the better Half by all odds—he'd often get her In a tight place, and give her a strapping. But somehow or other 'twould always happen, In every tussle and every bout, In every 'scrimmage' and every rout, She'd ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of the fifteen— amongst whom, he was glad to say, was one fellow who had had the pluck to act on his own judgment of what was due to the School—(loud and prolonged cheers, in the midst of which Corder perked up, and looked pleased)—they had held their own with a very scratch team. They couldn't expect to do as much again—(Why not?)—and it was not fair to the School to play matches without all their best men in the team. The proposal he had to make was that unless the fellows now standing out chose to return to ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... asked the old dumb servant to carry Sir Lancelot's shield to the tower. It was a large shield of silver, with three lions emblazoned upon it in gold and blue, but its polished surface was covered with dents and scratches. Elaine knelt before it, and made a story for each scratch and mark, picturing to herself the contests in which the good shield had taken part. For many weeks she stayed near it all day long in the turret, watching for Sir Lancelot and her brother ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... second time, he again came off second best, losing one of the button-holes of his collar in the melee. I rushed in from behind, and flirtatiously, perhaps, tried to grab hold of her hands, coming off the field minus a necktie, but plus that picturesque scratch you see on my nose. Stopping a moment to count up my profit and loss, I let Bradley make the next assault, which resulted in a drawn battle, Bradley losing his watch and his temper, the jewel losing her breath and her balance. So it went on for probably three ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... all. He did well. Then either there were no pictures in his book, or (if there were any) they were done by some other man that loved him not a groat and would not have walked half a mile to see him hanged. But now it is so easy for a man to scratch down what he sees and put it in his book that any fool may do it and be none the worse—many others shall ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... he could be induced voluntarily to enter a house; he seemed, like Mowgli, to have a suspicion of houses. And if he did come in he had no respect for the house at all. When first I had him he would dig and scratch out of a dog-house on the coldest night, if he could, and lay himself down comfortably on the snow. Cold meant little to him. Fifty, sixty, seventy below zero, all night long at such temperatures he would sleep quite contentedly. The ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... Linden; it was long before the Baron and Von Wetten could smooth its phrases to a suavity and deference which satisfied them. Coffee was brought them to lubricate their labors, but none to Herr Haase; his part was to write down, scratch out, rewrite, while beyond the windows the night marched up from the east and the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... except for a slight scratch on Billy's forearm, none of the arrows did much harm to the voyagers themselves, and borne on the swift current the ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... to tattle. Clatter, noise, tattle, talk, disputation, babble. Clatter, to make a noise by striking; to babble; to prattle. Claught, clutched, seized. Claughtin, clutching, grasping. Claut, a clutch, a handful. Claut, to scrape. Claver, clover. Clavers, gossip, nonsense. Claw, a scratch, a blow. Claw, to scratch, to strike. Clay-cauld, clay-cold. Claymore, a two-handed Highland sword. Cleckin, a brood. Cleed, to clothe. Cleek, to snatch. Cleekit, linked arms. Cleg, gadfly. Clink, a sharp stroke; jingle. Clink, money, coin. Clink, to chink. Clink, to rhyme. Clinkin, with ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... blanches white while I write; I start at the scratch of my pen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would I unsay this audacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice, and prints down every letter in my spite. Fain would I hurl off this Dionysius that rides ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... melancholy exhibition, that scratch match; all the more melancholy that the other courts gradually emptied and a ring of Juniors formed, who stared silently now at the players, then round at Pontifex, and wondered what on earth he found to interest him in a miserable show like this. For our heroes mulled everything. ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... was fulfilled. On the following Wednesday there was a match between the Under Sixteen and a scratch side. Mike's name was among the Under Sixteen. And on the Saturday he was playing for the third eleven in ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... agent grew pale with jealousy, when Doctor Direful was announced. He rushed into the room like a whirlwind, but stood aghast at beholding the devout crowd that encircled me. Instead of the usual apophthegms, and serious discourse, he heard nothing but "Pretty Poll," "Scratch a poll," "What a dear bird," &c. The malicious moral agent chuckled, and explained that the bird had, for the moment, usurped the attention which should exclusively belong to his reverence, who had taken the pains to come so far to enlighten the dark inmates ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... Many times they surrounded the band, but Manuelito always escaped. Many shots were fired at him, but he was never hit; and once, when he was cut off from his men and surrounded, he broke through the line, and though fifty bullets whistled around him he did not receive a scratch. ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... of the young pilot amused me immensely, and all went on smoothly enough till the shades of evening closed in upon us; at which time, entering the Narrows, the satin-vested youth felt himself quite nonplused, despite his taking off his beaver, and trying to scratch for knowledge; in short, had it not been for Captain Harrison, who is a first-rate seaman and navigator, as all who ever sail with him are ready to testify, we might have remained out all night: fortunately, his ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Whitworth before my Cherry had befallen me as a gift, and which I had without thought brought into that prison with me, I parried the blow of the knife at my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner, but not in such a manner as to prevent a glancing of that knife, which inflicted a scratch of considerable depth upon my forearm under its sleeve of ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... had been more frightened than hurt by Antoine the bear. When Pepin Quesnelle had satisfied himself that there were no bones broken, and that the wound from which the blood flowed was a mere scratch, he, as usual, became ashamed of his late display of feeling and concern, and again assumed his old truculent attitude. He gave the breed time to recover his breath, then roughly asked him whom he thought he was that he should ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... discussions between Mrs. Ess Kay and Potter, and though she seemed so angry with Mrs. Van der Windt and several other members of the Ball committee, for trying to make a stand against her, she was perfectly ruthless about the names she would scratch off the lists her secretary was continually making out ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the face, they were struck dumb by its beauty, and I think tears sprang into the eyes of some of them. No such perfect piece of marble had ever been found before. There was not a scratch. The skin still glowed with the polishing that Praxiteles' own hands had given it. There was even a hint of color on the lips. The soft clay bed had saved the falling statue. Here was a statue that the ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... we say) struggles against this sweet enchantment of autumn, but Nature is too strong for us. Why is it that all these strikes occur just at this time of year? The old hibernating instinct again, perhaps. The workman has a subconscious yearning to scratch together a nice soft heap of manila envelopes and lie down on that couch for a six months' ear-pounding. There are all sorts of excuses that one can make to one's self for waving farewell to toil. Only last Sunday we saw this ad ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... subterfuge," Sommers answered hotly, "fit only for clergymen and beggars for charities. I am not sure, anyway, that I want 'to do for' people. I think no fine theories about social service and all that settlement stuff. I want to be a man, and have a man's right to start with the crowd at the scratch, not given a handicap. There are too many handicaps in the crowd ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... my dear fellow. Do something to rouse her heart. It is only suffering from shock and will come to the scratch when it is stirred by pity. The best thing to do is to get seriously ill. Too much grief—mental strain—has brought on a heart attack. Lie down to it and kick up a devil of a fuss. I'll tip the doctor ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... voice trembled with emotion, "there's no one in the wide world nearer my affections than you and the boys and Margaret. It hurts me to go, but it's best I should. I might scratch along here for a few years, but I was not born to the work and the time would come when I'd be a burden on some one, and it would make me unhappy. I know that I'll wish often enough to be back here with ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... scratch, but I tell you," enthusiastically, "it was a splendid hit. Any fellow would have done the same if another chap had ragged his friend. I say," he continued bashfully, "would you two chum up with me? It's beastly dull for ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... do it, eh?" He had misinterpreted my expression. "Well, let me tell you I did just a year ago and got over without a scratch. To get across no-man's-land you have to play dead, as you Yankees put it; you lie flat on the ground and pull yourself forward a foot at a time and keep your eye on the search-lights so that when they come ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... star to pass rapidly over the retina, you produce a row of coloured beads, the spaces between which correspond to the periods of extinction. Fine scratches drawn upon glass or polished metal reflect the waves of light from their sides; and some, being reflected from the opposite sides of the same scratch, interfere with and quench each other. But the obliquity of reflection which extinguishes the shorter waves does not extinguish the longer ones, hence the phenomena of colours. These are called the ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... some sort, be half so dangerous as a single touch with a finger which had been dressing a wound, picking a scab out of the nose, rubbing an ulcerated gum, or scratching an itching scalp. If it be a cut on the finger, or scratch on the hand, for instance, don't suck it, or lick it, unless you can give an absolutely clean bill of health to your gums and teeth. If not thoroughly brushed three or four times a day, they are sure to be swarming with ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... might have been kept up. As for Mahoudeau, still very shaky and growing dazed; he complained of a stiffness which he had not felt before; his limbs began to hurt him, he had strained his muscles and bruised his skin as if he had been caught in the embrace of a stone siren. Christine washed the scratch on his cheek, which had begun to bleed again, and it seemed to her as if the mutilated bathing girl had sat down to table with them, as if she alone was of any importance that day; for she alone seemed to interest Claude, whose narrative, repeated a score of times, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... "He can't play nothin' but two jig tunes and he plays them like the very Old Scratch," she snapped, ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... each dead man Dravot pours a little milk on the ground and waves his arms like a whirligig and, ‘That’s all right,’ says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of each village by the arm and walks them down into the valley, and shows them how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives each a sod of turf from both sides o’ the line. Then all the people comes down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says,—‘Go and dig the land, and be fruitful ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... whence also the great length of its fore legs as compared with its hinder ones. Carnivorous animals, in like manner, have had their organs modified in correlation with their desires and habits. Some climb, some scratch in order to burrow in the earth, some tear their prey; they therefore have need of toes, and we find their toes separated and armed with claws. Some of them are great hunters, and also plunge their claws deeply into the bodies of their victims, trying to tear out the part on ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... constantly bathing in the blood of these turtles, the lepers become cured.[324-3] The turtles in infinite number come there three months in the year, June, July, and August, from the mainland, which is Ethiopia,[324-4] to lay eggs in the sand and with the claws and legs they scratch places in the sand and spawn more than five hundred eggs, as large as those of a hen except that they have not a hard shell but a tender membrane which covers the yolk, like the membrane which covers the yolk of the hen's egg ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... expressive smile, which caused Miss Tabitha's angular form, perched as it was on the high music-stool, to quiver with spite, and moved Miss Tabitha's neatly gloved fingers to clench like a cat's claws in their kid sheaths with an insane desire to scratch the fair face on ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... army-cutlers sell, and call it a sword-blade.' He held up a sort of apology for a sabre, all notched, and bent, and blunted; then he began to inquire if I had been hit at all. I had escaped with hardly a scratch; but I saw an ugly cut above his knee, and blood stealing down his bridle-arm. 'Bah! it's nothing,' Royston observed, answering the direction of my eyes; 'but—if the tulwar and the reprimand had both been sharper—confess, Hal, that this time, Le ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... which sensation is a factor are voided by its suppression. Besides, vivisection may be painless in cases where the experiments are very cruel. If a person scratches me with a poisoned dagger so gently that I do not feel the scratch, he has achieved a painless vivisection; but if I presently die in torment I am not likely to consider that his humility is amply vindicated by his gentleness. A cobra's bite hurts so little that the creature is almost, legally speaking, a vivisector who inflicts no ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... I did not date my last letter: I can date this: for it is my Birthday. {153} This it was that made me resolve to send you the Photos. Hey for my 65th year! I think I shall plunge into a Yellow Scratch Wig to keep my head warm for ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... of canvas and rode on listening to the sounds of the combat. A powerful figure stepped out of the bushes and stood beside his horse. It was Sergeant Whitley, who had passed through the battle without a scratch. ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Nancie, ma petite!" she would cry, at sight of Nance. "What a hurry you are in. It is hurry and scurry and bustle from morning till night with you over there. The hens? Let them wait, ma garche, 'twill strengthen their legs to scratch a bit, and 'twill enlighten your mind to hear about Guernsey and Granville. Oh the beautiful country! Mon Dieu, if only I ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... the Honourable George, talking in whispers to Frank about his widow—"Not such a catch as yours, you know; but something extremely snug;—and have it all my own way, too, old fellow, or I shan't come to the scratch." And the Honourable John prepared to toady Frank about his string of hunters; and the Lady Amelia, by herself, not quite contented with these democratic nuptials—"After all, she is so absolutely nobody; absolutely, absolutely," she said ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... had been riding the rooster, this very gobbler called out, "You stupid fellow! Stop running round and round! Go under the fence and scratch that beast ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery
... Lombard-street to a china orange. The Masked Festival on the 18th is a subject of considerable attraction, and wigs of every nature, style, and fashion, are in high request for the occasion—The Bob, the Tye, the Natural Scratch, the Full Bottom, the Queue, the Curl, the Clerical, the Narcissus, the Auricula, the Capital, the Corinthian, the Roman, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch—oh! we are full of business just now. Speaking of the art, by the by, reminds me of a circumstance ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... mahogany face when 'Ugly' said that he had knocked his head against the hatchway, and I told a 'banger' by volunteering the statement that I had broken a plate on the mess-table, and one of the pieces had run into my arm. The wound in my side, which was really only a scratch, I never mentioned to any one, not even to Mick, who thought, and to this day knows nothing to the contrary, I believe, that I had guarded off 'Ugly's' thrust, and had been only stabbed ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... be hard and prepared for the flowing process, if the wagon is to stand the scrutiny of critical eyes. Too often the paint is laid on thickly—perhaps too thickly—over indifferent material, and the first shock or scratch makes it scale ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... this question, and while she continued to search out objects in the darkness she saw the stranger reappear around the corner of the cabin and approach the door. He fumbled at it for a moment and threw it open. He disappeared within and an instant later Sheila heard the scratch of a match and saw a feeble glimmer of light shoot out through the doorway. ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... I shud want to scratch me head or blow me nose? Or what if an earwig shud chance to have got inside this iron pot, and take a fancy to go into ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... Schilsky. "A ... a what do you call it?—a ... Meg ... a Meg—" He gave it up and went on: "By God, but Lulu knows how! Keep clear of her nails, boys—I'd advise you!" At this point, he pulled back his collar, and exhibited a long, dark scratch on the side of his neck. "A little remembrance she gave me to take away with me!" While he displayed it, he seemed to be rather proud of it; but immediately afterwards, his mood veered round again to one of bitter resentment. To illustrate the injustice she had been guilty of, and his own long-suffering, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... but I was not so confident that, should a grizzly scent me out, he might not poke in his nose. Still I could trust to Him who had hitherto protected me. I had my knife and my long stick, and, at all events, I might give Master Bruin an unpleasant scratch on the snout, should he come within ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... them a sprinkling of the general public, whose time apparently hangs heavily on their hands. In a Stage-box is the Author herself, with a sycophantic Companion. A murky gloom pervades the Auditorium; a scratch orchestra is playing a lame and tuneless Schottische for the second time, to compensate for a little delay of fifteen minutes between the first and second Tableaux in the Second Act. The orchestra ceases, and a Checktaker at the Pit door whistles ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... lives had one taste or sight of a generous, clean, unmixed and unulcerated joy. For it follows not that, if it be vexatious to have one's body itch or one's eyes to run, it must be therefore a blessing to scratch one's self, and to wipe one's eye with a rag; nor that, if it be bad to be dejected or dismayed at divine matters or to be discomposed with the relations of hell, therefore the bare avoiding of all this must be some happy and amiable ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... something grotesque in it. The chair and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why should my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord's peculiar ideas of beauty, my landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant's nose, which has no pimple on it. His ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... shot a flight of arrows, and one slightly wounded the bank clerk on the arm. The wound was at once treated with antiseptics, after the window had been barricaded, and Ned declared that he was ready to renew the fight. Tom, too, got an arrow scratch on the neck, and one of the barbs entered Mr. Durban's leg, but the sturdy elephant hunter would not give up, and took his place again after the wound ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... amateur gardener should undoubtedly be the blue-flowered shrub known as "plumbago". This homely but hardy plant will grow anywhere. It naturally prefers a good soil, and a sufficient rainfall, but if need be it will worry along without either. Fowls cannot scratch it up, and even the goat turns away dismayed from its hard-featured branches. The flower is not strikingly beautiful nor ravishingly scented, but it flowers nine months out of the year; smothered with street dust and scorched by the summer sun, you will find that faithful old plumbago ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... all as right as possible," he said. "I am going up to bed as usual, and when mother and Alice and Dave are safe in their rooms I'll slip down again. I'll be in the hall. Don't ring when you come back; just walk up the steps and scratch against the door with your knuckles, and I'll hear you and let you in in a trice. I am awfully pleased about that sovereign; it will make me one of the greatest toffs in the school. I'll have more money than any of the other fellows. I'm ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... some one else; "think of Ippolit and his fate from this day forth. His wife will scratch his eyes out to-morrow ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... dared? What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen? 60 We ride and I see her bosom heave. There's many a crown for who can reach. Ten lines, a statesman's life in each! The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier's doing! what atones? They scratch his name on the Abbey-stones. My riding is better, ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... moment, and then began to scratch his head furiously, as he was in the habit of doing whenever his memory failed him and he wished to recall it to duty. "I'm not sure whether the number is eighteen or forty-six," he ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... "Nay, the merest scratch, Madame," I answered hastily, for it added to my pain to mark such anxiety in her face. "Not worthy your thought, but I will ask you to call the others at once, and have them load everything into the boat without ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... said: "I've had the luck to pick up two or three other agreeable people that I know will be glad to meet you. Usually it's such a scratch lot at Thanksgiving, for everybody dines at home that can, and you have to trust to the highways and the byways for your guests, if you give a dinner. But I did want to bring Mrs. Strange and you together, and so I chanced it. Of course, ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... 'for Jonah is in the sea.' In less than half an hour, mates, we were tossed ashore, without a bruise or scratch. We walked the beach till daylight, and then we saw that the mast had disappeared. None ever saw more a timber or a rope's-end of the Lively Nan. She had been staked and won; but the greasy cards, mates, lay wet and dank upon the beach, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... up," said the fellows of the Fortieth that night, a propos of the snub given Devers, and the pursuit by members of another troop of material witnesses, "but when he locks horns in dead earnest, the other party's got to scratch gravel; ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... I remember is the moment when I saw blood dripping from my hand, and she asked apathetically: "Did you scratch me?" ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... off the insignia of his rank, and was dressed like one of the other natives, would then, it was hoped, pass without discovery. Little Lionel, whose wound was slighter than at first supposed, and who seemed to look upon it as a mere scratch, some times trotted alongside them, and at others clambered up by the side of the driver, to whom he took an especial fancy. Denis frequently called him to sit in the corner at the other end of the waggon, and amused himself by trying to teach him English, which the boy acquired with wonderful ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... thoroughly was a blessing after all. While we were cooking supper the wagon passed us, its wheels and frame creaking, its great whip cracking like a rifle, its men shrieking at the imperturbable team of eighteen oxen. It would travel until the oxen wanted to graze, or sleep, or scratch an ear, or meditate on why is a Kikuyu. Thereupon they would be outspanned and allowed to do it, whatever it was, until they were ready to go on again. Then they would go on. These sequences might take place at any time of the day or night, and for ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... nicer to select one's own forebears than to allow them all the responsibility, and said it would save a world of trouble if the method could be universally adopted. He added that he should be glad to part with a good many of his, but doubted whether I would accept them, as they were 'rather a scratch lot.' (I use his own language, which I thought delightfully easy for a belted earl.) He was charmed with the story of Francesca and the lamiter, and offered to drive me to Kildonan House, Helmsdale, on the first fine day. I told him he was quite safe in making the proposition, for we had already ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... practiced during a long time such rigid poverty that he would neither receive nor touch a penny, either with leave or without it. For a considerable time he strove to attain such a high degree of purity that he would neither scratch nor touch any part of his body, save only ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... these earthy or tufaceous beds pass into jaspery and into beautifully mottled and banded porcelain rocks, which break into splinters, translucent at their edges, hard enough to scratch glass, and fusible into white transparent beads: grains of quartz included in the porcelainous varieties can be seen melting into the surrounding paste. In other parts, the earthy or tufaceous beds either insensibly pass into, or alternate ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... what they did for grammar before his day! Oh, the delicious blunders one sees when they are irretrievable! And the best of it is the critics never get hold of them. Thank Heaven for second editions, that one may scratch out one's blots, and go down clean and gentlemanlike to posterity." Smith asked him if he had ever reviewed one of his own books. "No, but I could! And then how I should like to recriminate, and defend myself indignantly! I think I could be preciously severe. Depend upon it, nobody ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... she plunged the sharp pointed knife into his body in the region of his heart and gave it a quick, sharp turn. So thoroughly and well did she do her work that the great, fierce brute could only throw up his paws and fall over dead. The brave squaw had killed him without receiving a scratch herself, and when her husband returned with his sled he found that, not only had his wife skinned the deer, but also a big ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... probably a part of the continent of Asia, were to be submitted to his sway if he had it, there was every reason why the sovereigns should be unwilling to maintain for him the broad rights which they had been willing to give when a scratch of the pen was all that was ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... becoming rare, as compared with those of remote ages, because nobody thinks it worth while to preserve them. It is almost as easy to get a personal memento of Priam or Nimrod as it is to get a harpsichord, a spinning-wheel, a tinder-box, or a scratch-back. An Egyptian wig is attainable, a wig of the Georgian era is hardly so, much less a tie of the Regency. So it is with the scenes of common life a century or two ago. They are being lost, because they were familiar. Here are two of them, however, which have limned themselves ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... was no doubt about its tameness. It suffered Ruby, who showed no fear of it whatever, to stroke it on its plated beak, and even to scratch it behind its bristly ears, with every sign ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... curtains have been dyed; but there, Unbroken, is the same, The very same cracked pane of glass On which I scratch'd her name. Yes! there's her tiny flourish still, It used to so enchant her To link two happy names ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... me more eggs, or I'll scratch your eyes out,' shrieked the owl, and began to whet its beak on a beam in such a savage manner that the three cocks fled in terror to the top ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Betty Fye; I live in the log shanty over the creek, at the back of your'n. The farm belongs to my eldest son. I'm a widow with twelve sons; and 'tis —- hard to scratch along." ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... are wrong, Muscula,' put in the third lady. 'The lord Basil cares naught for such things, and would not contradict you lest you should scratch his face—so dangerous you look, much more like a cat than a mouse. By the beard of Holy Peter! should not Heliodora know, who, though she is too young to remember it herself, has heard of it many a time from her father. You think too much of yourself, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... my masters," said Rienzi: "it is a good omen, and a true prophecy. It implies that he who girds on his sword for the good of the state, must be ready to spill his blood for it: that am I. No more of this—a mere scratch: it gave more blood than I recked of from so slight a puncture, and saves the leech the trouble of the lancet. How brightly breaks the day! We must prepare to meet our fellow-citizens—they will be here anon. Ha, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... post; rocket, blue light; watch fire, watch tower; telegraph, semaphore, flagstaff; cresset[obs3], fiery cross; calumet; heliograph; guidon; headlight. [sign (evidence) on physobj of contact with another physobj] mark, scratch, line, stroke, dash, score, stripe, streak, tick, dot, point, notch, nick. print; imprint, impress, impression. [symbols accompanying written text to signify modified interpretation] keyboard symbols, printing symbols; red letter[for emphasis], italics, sublineation[obs3], underlining, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Jock—and in his religious tenets we feel sure he was a Quaker. The English officers attached to the staff had immense difficulty in bringing the troops (if they deserve to be called so) to the scratch; and we trust that, in all future commentaries on the Art of War, the method adopted by Commodore Napier, of throwing stones at his gallant army to force them forward, will not be forgotten. The author before us had no sinecure, and after the news of Ibrahim's retreat, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Washington! Well, you must know, we marched up the g'yully that runs from the river; and bang went the savages' g'-yuns, and smash went their hatchets; and it came to close quarters, a regular rough-and-tumble, hard scratch! And so I war a-head of the Major, and the Major war behind, and the fight had made him as vicious as a wild cat, and he war hungry for a shot; and so says he to me, for I war right afore him, 'Git out of my way, you damned big rascal, till I git a crack at 'em!' And so I ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... always bears a nail or claw, which is sometimes very strong and hooked, as is the case with the birds of prey, while in other species it is only slightly curved and is not meant as a weapon of offense or defense, but chiefly to enable the bird to "scratch for a living." ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... him go to sleep in my lap. I used to put him in his basket by the table with all the care that you would put a baby. Then I made a dash for upstairs and closed the doors. Ha! ha! In two minutes he was scratching at the door. I let him scratch. "He must be disciplined," I said. There was a cushion at the door, and finally he would settle' down and in the morning he was there when I woke. "He will learn," I ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... statues within reach of swords and pikes, it was a continual scene of amusement to the licentious to knock off the ear of one angel, and scratch the face of another. Not an epitaph was left to retrace the patriotic deeds of an upright statesman, or the more brilliant exploits of a heroic warrior; not a memento, to record conjugal affection, filial piety, or grateful ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... log-impeded, losing itself in the dusky, fragrant depths of the hemlocks." They used to play hookey down at Stratton Falls, too, and get the green streaks in the old red sandstone rocks to make slate pencils of, trying them on their teeth to make sure they were soft enough not to scratch their slates. The woods have been greatly mutilated in which they used to loiter on the way to school and gather crinkle-root to eat with their lunches,—though they usually ate it all up before lunch-time came, he said. In one of his books Mr. Burroughs speaks of a schoolmate ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... that dunghill cock of mine in there, that used to belong to the old woman, had to come within an inch of ruining me, beginning to scratch and claw around where this (looking under cloak) was buried. Enough said. It just got me so worked up I took a club and annihilated that cock, the thief, the ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... three-fourths come off free; they are subjected to some kind of punishment (excepting a few cases of judgment respited); the others feel, no doubt, what they undergo, but it is only as a soldier in the fight considers a scratch—otherwise coming off with a whole skin, being ready for action again. Another evil arises out of this irregularity of judgments. All punishments are rendered severe and useful in proportion as the offender feels he deserves it, and is conscious of having only ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... hand is not always called the "miss." Some players designate it the "cat"; the term possibly originating from its un-certainty; hence the expression, often used in connection with the spare hand—"Let us hope she will not scratch us." ...
— Round Games with Cards • W. H. Peel
... almost monstrous shortness of legs, so that they move by jumping rather than by walking; they are said not to scratch up the ground. I have examined a Burmese variety, which had a skull of ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... the young gnome was playing with the cat, and began to pull his tail. The cat, not liking this, began to scratch Class 81, Q. At this, the little fellow cried and yelled, while the cat scratched all the more fiercely. But Selma, who ran into the room on hearing the noise, was equal to the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... no pity for the Communists," Cuthbert said, "not one spark. They would not pull a trigger or risk a scratch for the defence of Paris against the Germans, now they are fighting like wild-cats against their countrymen. Look there," he exclaimed, suddenly, "there is a fire broken out close to the Place de la Concorde, a shell must have fallen there. I fancy it ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... step when the barking of Cesar alarmed me. He was tearing along from the wood. The sight of the dark shadow on the gymnasium appeared to the faithful dog to bode no good. He was furious, and began to scratch the ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... all, Captain. I cut myself while I was shaving this morning—just a scratch," was the ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine |
