"Skunk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... action, Julian," he agreed. "I'm hot with shame when I think of it. But don't, for heaven's sake, think I had anything to do with the affair! We have a secret service branch which arranges for those things. It's that skunk ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pointed to a thing like a Bear-track, but scarcely two inches long. "There's the B'ar we'll find in that; that's a bushy-tailed B'ar," and Bonamy joined in the laugh when he realized that the victim in the big trap was nothing but a little skunk. ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... — N. fetor^; bad &c adj.. smell, bad odor; stench, stink; foul odor, malodor; empyreuma^; mustiness &c adj.; rancidity; foulness &c (uncleanness) 653. stoat, polecat, skunk; assafoetida^; fungus, garlic; stinkpot; fitchet^, fitchew^, fourmart^, peccary. acridity &c 401.1. V. have a bad smell &c n.; smell; stink, stink in the nostrils, stink like a polecat; smell strong &c adj., smell offensively. Adj. fetid; strong-smelling; high, bad, strong, fulsome, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... are the various aroids (Aroideae), of which the calla (Richardia) is a very familiar cultivated example. Of wild forms the sweet-flag (Acorus), Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema) (Fig. 86, A, D), skunk-cabbage (Symplocarpus), and wild calla may be noted. In Arisaema (Fig. 86, A) the flowers are borne only on the base of the spadix, and the plant is dioecious. The flowers are of the simplest structure, the female consisting of a ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... to soil my hands on you," he said, "but I don't mind telling you that any man who ruins a girl's life and then tries to get out of it by defaming her, is a skunk." ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... appreciated, that is the most feared and detested, of wild creatures was the common skunk, found everywhere, mostly a night wanderer and a hibernator. He is a most fearless animal, having such abundant and well-reasoned confidence in his mounted battery, charged with such noxious gases ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... next shot and soon all were popping away in great glee. All the merry wood folk gathered near to watch the children at their sport. There was Johnny Chuck and Reddy Fox and Jimmy Skunk and Bobby Coon and ...
— A Parody Outline of History • Donald Ogden Stewart
... anything like what he'd do, in our places. He knows the Old Man and Chip are gone, and he knows we've just naturally got to sit back and swallow our tongues because we haven't any authority. Mamma! It comes pretty tough, when a low-down skunk like that just banks on your doing the square thing. He wouldn't do it, but he knows we will; and so he takes advantage of white men and gets the best of 'em. And if we should happen to break out and do something, he knows the herders would be the ones to get it in the neck; and he'd wait ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... he said gently, "you're talkin' foolish. An' you know it. What I did was only right by you. I'd 'a' been a skunk to have acted different. I lit on the trail o' your folk, don't matter how, an' I had to see you righted, come what might. Now it's done. An' I don't see wher' the hangin' comes in. Guess you ken come an' see ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... him, and it stopped to say so. It's seen him, I tell you, an' I'll git him. Ef it's an hour, or a day, or a week, it's all the same. I'm here watchin', waitin' dead on to him, the poison skunk!" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... for the sake of killing, but lives peaceably, so far as he can, with all creatures. And he stops fishing when he has caught his dinner. He is also most cleanly in his habits, with no suggestion whatever of the evil odors that cling to the mink and defile the whole neighborhood of a skunk. One cannot help wondering whether just going fishing has not wrought all this wonder in Keeonekh's disposition. If so, 't is a pity that all his tribe do ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... the nightie, and reached out her two eager arms to take the kid off Chip's knees where he was perched contentedly relating his adventures with sundry hair-raising additions born of his imagination. The Kid was telling Daddy Chip about the skunk he saw, and he hated to be interrupted. He looked at his Doctor Dell and at the familiar, white garment with lace at the neck and wristbands, and he waved his hand with ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... into the mug, and saw a turbid, yellow concoction, not at all attractive to the eye; he smelt of it, and was partly of opinion that Aunt Keziah had mixed a certain unfragrant vegetable, called skunk-cabbage, with the other ingredients of her witch-drink. He tasted it; not a mere sip, but a good, genuine gulp, being determined to have real proof of what the stuff was in all respects. The draught seemed at first to burn ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... waited. After a long while he backed to the bed and sat down, but he kept the gun pointed toward the door and the window. A skunk came prowling through the trampled snow before the cabin, hunting food where Mike had thrown out slops from the cooking. It rattled a tin can against a half-buried rock, and Mike was on his feet, shaking with ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... duck-legged, egg-suckin', skunk-backed loafers! Go on, there! Aw, don't yer talk back to me 'r I'll let m' horse bite yer pants off! Back yer go! Forrard! ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... but as to that Mr. Blasted Heyst, the time isn't yet. My head's cooler just now than yours. Let's go in again. Why, we are exposed here. Suppose he took it into his head to let off a gun on us! He's an unaccountable, 'yporcritical skunk." ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... right hand remained hanging loosely at his side. It was near the holster, as Donnegan noticed. And the bartender, having met the boring glance of the big man for a moment, turned surlily away. The giant looked to Donnegan and observed: "Know a good definition of the word, skunk?" ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... of a frowsiness beyond compare. A greasy neck scarf was embellished with a gem whose truthfulness was without pretence. The atmosphere of the room was accounted for by a remark which was made by one of the loungers as John came in. "Say, Ame," the fellow drawled, "I guess the' was more skunk cabbidge 'n pie plant 'n usual 'n that last lot o' cigars o' your'n, wa'n't the'?" to which insinuation "Ame" was spared the necessity of a ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... He abandoned her like a skunk, and his people threw the blame on her for tempting him. Tempting him! He had a motor smash soon after, and I tried my utmost to pull him through, because he would have been a hideously disfigured cripple; but he died, and I ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... anything about the matter to the fellows; in fact, I only got on to the game about the time you dropped in. Just turn to the right a little, will you, Jack. I'm not pointing, because it would tell the skunk we knew about his being there. See that bunch of trees over yonder, do you? Pretty thick, all right, and offering a splendid asylum to any chap who might want to watch what we were doing out in the open field. He's up in ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... betraying astonishment at his appearance; but he was greeted kindly and invited to the camp. Nearing the fire through the woods, his nostrils were assailed by a horrible smell which one of the men explained by saying he had just shot a skunk. There were eighteen in the party, comfortably fixed with two good sized tents and an abundance of buffalo robes. After he had removed his suit the cook prepared an excellent meal and urged him to eat heartily which he was ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Lachine, on the St. Lawrence, ascend the Ottawa, descend the French, cross Lake Huron—the Lake Orleans of Nicollet and Hennepin—and find no rest from drench or riffle until he reached Mackinaw, or more distant Fort Dearborn (now Chicago), on the Skunk River, at the head of Lake Michigan, 1,450 miles ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... punished tree times as much as dey is; dat are a fac, Missus. A poor white man can't work, and in course he steal. Well, his time bein' no airthly use, dey gib him six month pensiontary; and niggar, who can airn a dollar or may be 100 cents a day, only one month. I spise a poor white man as I do a skunk. Dey is a cuss to de country; and it's berry hard for you and me to pay rates to support 'em: our rates last year was bominable. Let us pass dis law, Missus, and fowl stealin' is done—de ting ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... easily deferred to her. The capricious and incomprehensible early frosts of the forest region had spared her precious garden patch; cut-worm and caterpillar had gone by the other way; the pip had overlooked her early chickens; and as for the customary onslaughts of wildcat, weasel, fox, and skunk, she had met them all with such triumphant success that she began to mistake her mere good luck for the quintessence of woodcraft. In fact, nothing had happened to challenge her infallibility, nothing whatever, until she found that the bears were beginning ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... those and Blacky the Crow and Butcher the Shrike and Sammy Jay in winter, and Buster Hear and Jimmy Skunk and several of the Snake family in summer," replied Whitefoot. "It seems to me sometimes as if I need eyes and ears all over me. Night and day there is always some one hunting for poor little me. And then some folks wonder why I am so timid. If I were not as timid as I am, I wouldn't ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... they have not the courage to peep out, unless four to one, except (like a skunk) forc'd ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... got no call to treat me that away. I never tuck no hand in 'er disputes with my wife, an' ef hard things has been said about Sally, why they never come from me. Lord, I've got plenty else to think about besides gals an' women. I think I'm on track o' the skunk ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... marriage he was after, of course; but look at the difference. I never touched a cent of her ma's money. We made our own way. But here's a low-down sneak that's come in at our back door and run away with my girl for her money! Don't you see the difference? What's this skunk like?" he says ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... on. You'll git the truth—git the whole of it. Git what you ain't lookin' for. There ain't no liars up in our mountains 'cept them skunks in Gov'ment pay you fellers send up to us, and things like Hank Halliday. He's wuss nor any skunk. A skunk's a varmint that don't stink tell ye meddle with him, but Hank Halliday stinks all the time. He's one o' them fellers that goes 'round with books in their pockets with picters in 'em that no girl oughter see and no white man oughter read. He gits 'em down to Louisville. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... him because he's a coward and a skunk," explained George, lowering his voice with praiseworthy consideration. "You see, it's just this way, Simmy. He didn't do the right thing by Anne. He ought to have come back here and made her marry him. That's where he's to blame. He ought to have gone right up to the house and grabbed ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... the outer gate when Belden came clattering up and reined his horse across the path and called out: "See here, you young skunk, you're a poor, white-livered tenderfoot, and I can't bust you as I would a full-grown man, but I reckon you better not ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... make a man a maniac," Prale mused. "And that Shepley man! He was all right when we parted on the ship. Somebody said something to him about me after he landed. He treated me as if I had been a skunk." ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... jibed. "For it's the same thing—no difference whether you picked it out of Mr. Flint's pocket or found it on the floor here, and tried to keep it! Steal, eh? Hold it for some possible reward? You skunk! Lucky you haven't brains enough to make out what's in it! Thought you'd keep it, did you? But you weren't smart enough, Armstrong—no, not quite smart enough for me! After looking the whole place over, I thought I'd have a go at a few pockets—and, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... skunk!" ejaculated Watson—for this Joe found to be the miners name. "It's mean enough to rob a man, but to cheat a poor boy out of all he has is a good deal meaner. And yet ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... across some of 'em precious mean,' continued Crinkett; 'but a meaner skunk nor this estated gent, who is a justice of the peace and a squire and all that, I never did come across, and I don't suppose I never shall.' And then they stood looking at him, jeering at him. And the gardener, who was then in the ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... remarkable illustrations might be quoted; as for instance the web of the Spider, the pit of the Ant Lion, the mephitic odour of the Skunk. ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... "Extraordinary damned skunk!" roared the driver, contemptuously. "Come out of that, Miggles, and show yourself! Be a man, Miggles! Don't hide in the dark; I wouldn't if I were you, Miggles," continued Yuba Bill, now dancing about in an ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... of animals and has the least speed; it has little use for either wit or celerity of movement. It carries a death-dealing armor to protect it from its enemies, and it can climb the nearest hemlock tree and live on the bark all winter. The skunk, too, pays for its terrible weapon by dull wits. But think of the wit of the much-hunted fox, the much-hunted otter, the much-sought beaver! Even the grouse, when often fired at, learns, when it is started in the open, to fly with a corkscrew motion ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... on a Western journal of the type whose society column consists of such items as "Jim Thompson was to town yesterday with a bunch of other cheap skates. We take this opportunity of once more informing Jim that he is a liar and a skunk," and whose editor works with a pistol on his desk and another in his hip-pocket. Graduating from this, he had proceeded to a reporter's post on a daily paper in Kentucky, where there were blood feuds and other Southern devices for preventing life from becoming dull. All this was ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... looking beautiful in a bottle-green suiting, collared with skunk, but a little thin, I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... of them have no characteristic at all, except coarseness. We hope there is nothing peculiarly American in such examples as these:—"Evil actions, like crushed rotten eggs, stink in the nostrils of all"; and "Vice is a skunk that smells awfully rank when stirred up by the pole of misfortune." These have, beside, an artificial air, and are quite too long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always "takes off its coat to it," if we may use a proverbial phrase, left out by Mr. Bartlett. We confess, we looked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... and Lahoma could just live here in the cove till time was no more, reading our books, and smoking our pipes, and taking peaceful morning trips like this—to see whether we'd caught a coyote in our traps, or a bobcat, or a skunk." ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... Deer Hunt Wild Cat. Opossum. Skunk Alligator. Rattle Snake. Green Snake Pelican. Wood Stock Flying Squirrel. Roseate Spoonbill. Snowy Heron White Ibis. Tobacco Worm. Cock Roach Cat Fish. Gar Fish. Spoonbill Catfish Indian Buffalo Hunt on Foot Dance of the Natchez Indians Burial of the Stung Serpent Bringing the Pipe of Peace ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... "There's a skunk down there with a bad eye an' a gun that jumps out of its leather like it had a mind of its own. He picked me for fifty bucks by nailing a dollar I tossed up at twenty yards. Then he gets a hundred because I couldn't ride this hoss ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... Peter Greyson drawled, "he's makin' for Jim White. White ain't more'n fifteen miles back; we can cut him off, Jed, 'fore he reaches safety—the skunk!" ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... instance," dryly. "He insists that an open trial will be the best thing for Nancy. 'Murder is evil,' he said; 'evil cannot stand discussion. The more the mystery is discussed the quicker you will discover clues leading to the murderer. What kills the skunk is the publicity it gives itself. What a skunk wants to do is to keep snug under the barn—in the daytime—when men are ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... those fellows were wished on us," growled his twin. "I'd just as lief have a skunk in the place as to ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... always catching the wrong rat. The reason is that he is a great hunter, and thinks that every furry thing which moves must be game; and so he is like the fool sportsman who shoots at a sound, or a motion in the bushes, before finding out what makes it. Sometimes the rat turns out to be a skunk, or a weasel; sometimes your pet cat; and, once in a lifetime, it is your own fur cap, or even your head; and then you feel the weight and the edge of Kookooskoos' claws. But he never learns wisdom by mistakes; for, spite of ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... road, and note the tracks in the thin layer of mud. When do these creatures travel here? I have never yet chanced to meet one. Here a partridge has set its foot; there, a woodcock; here, a squirrel or mink; thee, a skunk; there, a fox. What a clear, nervous track reynard makes! how easy to distinguish it from that of a little dog,—it is so sharply cut and defined! A dog's track is coarse and clumsy beside it. There is as ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... four hundred head. The water is running still up in the range. We should have done better if that skunk Wombo hadn't bolted.' ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... before dawn as usual, and taking advantage of the grey light, stole about the village and around the house, sizing up the locality and seeing how my position stood with regard to the various machine-gun emplacements. The dawn breaking, I had to skunk back into the house again, as it was imperative to us to keep up the effect of "Deserted house in village." We had to lurk inside all day, or if we went out, creep about with enormous caution, and go off down a slight slope at the back until we got to the edge of ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... that one and only one species out of 3,000,000 should develop into man, that it certainly was not the case. All had the same start, many had similar environments. Yet witness the motly products of evolution: Man, ape, elephant, skunk, scorpion, lizard, lark, toad, lobster, louse, flea, amoeba, hookworm, and countless microscopic animals; also, the palm, lily, melon, maize, mushroom, thistle, cactus, microscopic bacilli, etc. All developed from one germ, all in some way related. Mark well the difference in size between ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... only one way of dealing with that sort of skunk," was the gruff answer. The pity in her voice implied a condemnation of his act. He resented it. He knew he had done rightly, and she knew that she had given offence by her involuntary sympathy with ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... like. (Sullenly.) If a skunk walk in my trail and leave a stink there, shall I go out of my way to deny that it is mine? No doubt the woman is both mad ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... even the Kenton City police, why, well and good! But am I? No, sir! No, sir! Not with Elijah Abbott in the Governor's chair, I'm not! You know that as well as I. Why, Broadcastle, I'd rather see McGrath himself at the capitol than that smooth-spoken skunk!" ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... skunk opossum And the stylish leopard mink Scamper as you come across 'em, Climb upon the canon's brink, Gambol with the pony musquash, Claimed not for a collar yet— Far away from London's bus-squash And advertisements of tusk-wash ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... and was stuck fast to the bones of the hand. On seeing this the hunter arose and going over to his medicine sack which hung on a pole, took down the sack and, opening it, took out some roots and mixing them with skunk oil and vermillion, said ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... few minutes to warm and then return to the same cold corner. I have sat in an old log school house with no chinking between the logs until my heels were frost-bitten and cracked open. Sometimes we had a poor white trashy skunk that would sit in the school room and call us "niggers" or "darkeys." If the little Negro got his lesson at all, he got it; if not, it was all ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... this story really began at Skunk's Misery. But Skunk's Misery was the last thing in my head, though I had just come ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... called out, with a harsh, scornful laugh, to those behind him. "He will teach me manners, from his hiding-place behind the petticoats.—Come out, you skunk-skin pedler, and I'll break that sword of yours ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... Partridge, and I have no doubt that it is quite successful with the natural foes of the bird; indeed it is often so with Man. A dog, as I have often seen, is certain to be misled and duped, and there is little doubt that a mink, skunk, racoon, fox, coyote, or wolf would fare no better. Imagine the effects of the bird's tactics on a prowling fox: he has scented her as she sits; he is almost upon her, but she has been watching him, and suddenly, with a loud 'whirr,' she springs up and tumbles a few yards before him. The ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... "The skunk has followed us all the way from Missouri, and after we saw the sights of New York, and gave him the slip, he must have discovered that we started for home in this train. Now he has evidently hired that locomotive to chase and capture us. I'll ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... holes. As for larger game, rabbits and the like, the crow is hardly nimble enough for them, nor are his claws well adapted for seizing; anything of this kind he will scarcely get, except as the leavings of the weasel or skunk. These he will not refuse; for though he is of a different species from the carrion crow of Europe, with whom he was formerly confounded, yet he is of similar, though perhaps less extreme, tastes as to his food. But when the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... he said, shaking his head, "I didn't think it of you—I didn't indeed. A skunk like that! a woman-shooter, and a Frenchman! You didn't use ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... importance to the species, since the bird by quitting the nest reveals its existence to the prowling, nest-seeking enemy—dog, cat, fox, stoat, rat, in England; and in the country where I first observed animals, the skunk, armadillo, opossum, snake, wild cat, and animals of the weasel family. By leaving its nest a minute or half a minute too soon the bird sacrifices the eggs or young; by staying a moment too long it is in imminent ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... got away on us—the skunk! He's down there in the brush, somewheres, waiting for somebody to go in and drag him out by the ear. I betche he's laying low, right now, waiting for a chance to pot-shot us. We better git back out uh this." He edged ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... I'm nothing of the kind," spiritedly replied the under-dog. "You all time wanting somebody to call theirselfs someping. You're a low-down Isabella skunk yourself." ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... Grandmother," said Scattergood, and she stood just before his chair, her head coming very little higher than his own as he sat there, big and ominous. "So the skunk took your money, too. I hain't carin' a whoop for them others. They got what was comin' to 'em, and I didn't calculate to do nothin'. But you! By crimminy!... Wa-al, Grandmother, you go off home and knit. I'll look into things. It's on your account, and not on theirs." ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... and Bock began to bark. Even in my anxiety I almost laughed. "It sounds like an insane asylum," I thought, and reflected that probably the disturbance was only caused by some small animal. Perhaps a rabbit or a skunk which Bock had winded and wanted to chase. I patted him, and crawled into my bunk ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... of a sea-cook, you double-dyed, concentrated essence of a skunk," and at that moment young William pushed him and the two-nosed gentleman lurched forward, and bending his head to avoid contact with the clerk's face, it rested against the latter's bosom for a moment. Departing immediately, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... of the stately calla lily proclaims spring in the very teeth of winter, being the first bold adventurer above ground. When the lovely hepatica, the first flower worthy the name to appear, is still wrapped in her fuzzy furs, the skunk cabbage's dark, incurved horn shelters within its hollow, tiny, malodorous florets. Why is the entire plant so foetid that one flees the neighborhood, pervaded as it is with an odor that combines a suspicion of skunk, putrid ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... and graceful courtship becomes a licentious intrigue of the lowest and least sentimental kind, between an impudent London rake and the idiot wife of a country squire. We will not go into details. In truth, Wycherley's indecency is protected against the critics as a skunk is protected against the hunters. It is safe, because it is too filthy to handle and too ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... him early this evening a'hangin' around these here premises and I ups and chases him twicet, but the skunk outrun me," the newcomer gurgled, as he excitedly swung a policeman's billy the ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... up his hand impatiently. "You see I had to find an answer. I couldn't think of being a skunk—running away—and I couldn't stay. I wasn't intended to stay. Some men are intended to work and take care of children and serve women perhaps but others have to keep trying for a vague something all ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... to the sullen bear, in cautious silence passed him by and shunned the fetid breath of monster lizards and venom stings of centipedes and scorpions; but woman-like she feared the hydrophobia-skunk more for its scent than for its ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... The canoe is among all Indians, even in Central America, exactly what the umbrella is in civilized society. With all his immense originality Glooskap had a number of "old Joes," of which he never seems to have tired. One was the inexhaustible dish, and another the giant skunk set upon end to salute his visitors, and this of the canoe was probably the commonest of all. He is a true Indian divinity, shining like the lightning and striking only when there is a storm, but appearing like the Aurora Borealis, or ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... went on eating his supper for some minutes without comment; but just as we finished, he said, "Boys, where did we put our skunk fence ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... that chair over there, you gangrene-livered skunk. Jump! By God! or I'll make you leak till folks'll think your father was a water hydrant and your mother a sprinkling-cart. You-all move your chair alongside, Guggenhammer; and you-all Dowsett, sit right ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... truth already, you skunk! You knew what would happen before it happened—or you thought you did. I guess I disappointed ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... Fetor. — N. fetor[obs3]; bad &c. adj. smell, bad odor; stench, stink; foul odor, malodor; empyreuma[obs3]; mustiness &c. adj.; rancidity; foulness &c. (uncleanness) 653. stoat, polecat, skunk; assafoetida[obs3]; fungus, garlic; stinkpot; fitchet[obs3], fitchew[obs3], fourmart[obs3], peccary. acridity &c. 401a. V. have a bad smell &c. n.; smell; stink, stink in the nostrils, stink like a polecat; smell strong &c. adj., smell offensively. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... this, but not tipping dice. Smythe is a skunk. He's no Twenty-fifth, or he wouldn't have any need to go crooked. He saw a chance to make a killing. He suggested it to Rose, who fell for it and went along. Rose decided to steal Simonetti's half of the business from his partner with Smythe's help. ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... yet. Hey, you Joke! Who sent you—Burns or Pinkerton? No, by God, you're such a bonehead I'll bet you're in the Secret Service! Well, you dirty spy, you rotten agent provocator, you can go back and tell whatever skunk is paying you blood-money for betraying your brothers that he's wasting his coin. You couldn't catch a cold. And tell him that all he'll ever get on us, or ever has got, is just his own sneaking plots that he's framed up to put us in jail. We are what our manifesto ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... ejaculated, after I had related to him in detail the incidents connected with the seizure of the Zenobia by her crew, under the leadership of Bainbridge; "if that don't beat everything! And you say that the skunk means to set up in business as a pirate? But is this here barque of yourn armed? Do she mount any guns? Because, if she don't, how do that crowd of toughs reckon they're goin' to hold ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... round in the Reign aspilin' his trowsis and makin' wet goods of himself. E fany thin's foolisher and moor dicklus than militerry gloary it is milishy gloary.—H. B] This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver (Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Saltriver). The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater, I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good bluenose tater; The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so charmin' Throughout is swarmin' with ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... all are dead! Max fights with Shep, he scorns to follow me! Some fresh disaster momently I dread; Is that a skunk ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... and started for the old stone wall to look for him. Another went in search of Danny Meadow Mouse. A third headed for the dear Old Briar-patch after Peter Rabbit. A fourth remembered Jimmy Skunk and how he had once set Blacky the Crow free from a snare. A fifth remembered what sharp teeth Happy Jack Squirrel has and hurried over to the Green Forest to look for him. A sixth started straight for the Smiling ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... adopting a homoeopathic pharmacopoeia which still makes use of the foulest matter—the extract of wood-lice, the venom of snakes, the poison of the cockchafer, the secretions of the skunk and the matter from pustules, all disguised in sugar of milk to conceal their taste and appearance; the world of letters, in the same way, triturates the most disgusting things to get them swallowed without raising your gorge. There is an incessant manipulation ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... What's the use of fighting a skunk like that? We have our dog back and Daly must acknowledge that he has been beaten. That is about all I want. He won't try anything more for I have a whiplash over him as he is well aware. Any time I can prosecute ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... of them—seal, sea-otter, beaver, skunk, marten, and a few bear, the sight of all raising up in our hearts endless ideas of sport and adventure possibly never ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... aided by his dog, has pulled one out of the stone wall by the tail, much against the 'chuck's will. If Thoreau's friends were to claim that he could carry Mephitis mephitica by the tail with impunity, I can say I have done the same thing, and had my photograph taken in the act. The skunk is no respecter of persons, and here again the trouble is to get hold of the tail at the right moment—and, I may add, to let go of it at ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... Jim himself!" He laughed. "He just made a joke of it. But he is a mean skunk! I've found out since that he wanted to buy Preston out for the part Preston had taken in another affair. There's a pretty case coming on directly, with Jim for hero. You have ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... name! Wait a bit, I'll tell you! [He takes a step towards her—she crouches in terror against the wall.] You shall hear what your name is! Just now I'm dealing with him. [He swings round to WALTER.] You there, you skunk and thief! You, you lying hound! I was your best friend. So you've taken my wife, have you? And now mean to go off and marry this girl. That's it? Oh, it's so simple! Here—come here—sit down. Sit down, I tell you. Here, in ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... said dryly, "what the Duke is planning to get in on is an hour of tender dalliance. Before the Camelot arrives, necessarily. The cold-blooded little skunk!" She hesitated a moment; when she spoke again, her voice had turned harsh and nasal, wicked amusement sounding through it. "Sort of busy at the moment, sweetheart, but we might find time for a drink or two later on in the ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... fools believe it, and proselyte the other fools, and when there are enough of them, their faith begins to work on the liar's own unbelief, till he takes his lie for the truth. Was that the way, you miserable skunk?" ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... to light, but apparently the lady had, in a fit of high-minded inadvertence, had gone through the ceremony of marriage with, one quotes the unpublished discourse of Mr. Butteridge—"a white-livered skunk," and this zoological aberration did in some legal and vexatious manner mar her social happiness. He wanted to talk about the business, to show the splendour of her nature in the light of its complications. It was really ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... "The skunk I called my daddy," Jim went on thoughtfully, "took me to New York. He said that my mother deserted me when I was a kid. I believed him at first. But when he beat me and kicked me into the streets, I knew he was a liar. When I got grown I began to think and wonder ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... "Dog-fennel and skunk-cabbage! I don't believe there's water enough in the Ohio River to take out the wicked smell of that ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... my younker, that ere Lone Wolf that they call such a great chief (and I may as well own up and say that he is), is heavy on ransoms and he ain't the only chief that's in that line. That skunk runs off with men, women and boys, and his rule is not to give 'em up ag'in till he gits a good round price. He calculated on making a good thing off you, and I ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... with a convulsive gasp. "I shan't ever see it again. The mean skunk's cheated me out of it. Consarn his picter! It took me most six months to save it up. I was workin' for Deacon Pinkham in our place. Oh, I wish I'd never come to New York! The deacon, he told me he'd keep it for me; but ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... his wife, was his continual victim. She was disgustingly ugly, virtuous, and foolish, a little humpbacked, and stunk like a skunk, even from a distance. All these things did not hinder M. le Prince from being jealous of her even to fury up to the very last. The piety, the indefatigable attention of Madame la Princesse, her sweetness, her novice-like submission, could not guarantee her from frequent injuries, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... wasn't gone by, I shouldn't wonder if some of them hadn't got me in tow. But, I ain't going to give it up yet. I don't forget the old chap's knocking me down in the dark behind my back, as though I'd been no better than a woodchuck or a skunk." ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... these, an' more," went on Bill, scowling. "He's a low-down skunk, he's a pestilence, he's a murderer. You're goin' to hunt him back ther' to his own shack in the foothills with his gang of toughs around him, an' you're goin' to make him hand back your wife. Say, you're sure crazy. He'll kill you. He'll blow your ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... afore me, Ned. That's the skunk I war a-thinkin' 'bout, an' hev been all the day. I've seed other sign beside this—the which escaped the eyes o' the others. An' I'm gled it did: for I didn't want Dick Darke to be about when I war follerin' it up. For that reezun I drawed the rest aside—so ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... painter, yur old acquaintance—then thur wur four deer, a buck an' three does. Then kim a catamount; an' arter him a black bar, a'most as big as a buffalo. Then thur wur a 'coon an' a 'possum, an' a kupple o' grey wolves, an' a swamp rabbit, an', darn the thing! a stinkin' skunk. Perhaps the last wan't the most dangerous varmint on the groun', but it sartintly wur the most disagreeableest o' the hul lot, for it smelt only as a cussed ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... 'I'm NOT frightened—no, I'm not. The Phoenix has never been a skunk yet, and I'm certain it'll see us through somehow. I believe in ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... Amos Green, "was a merchant, the owner of a thousand skunk-skins, and his son knows a fool ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a popular saying in Mazowsze: "As the skunk smells, so the Krzyzak lies." The prince waved his hand to such thanks, and after they went out he said that by the intervention of the Knights of the Cross, one would go to heaven as swiftly as ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... feet like a flash, a gun in each hand, saying, 'Stand up, you measly skunk, so I can see you.' Half a dozen men rose in different parts of the house and cut loose at him, and as they did so the lights went out and the room filled with smoke. Masterson was blazing away with two guns, which so lighted up the rostrum that we could see the professor crouching under ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... and I have always got along all right. You know I've tried to do the right thing by your daughter. I'm ready to now. She's too decent a girl to have done this thing on her own. This is the work of that rotten skunk of a lawyer—I apologize to the other skunks and the real lawyers. She has done a frightful injustice to the best woman on earth. She can never undo it, but surely she doesn't want to do any more. She's through with me, I suppose, ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... owl has already appropriated a last year's hawk's nest and deposited therein her two white eggs. At the foot of the sunny hill where the spring has freely flowed all winter long, we tramp around the swamp in the vain hope of finding the purplish monk's-hood of the skunk's cabbage; but look up to see, instead, the many "mouse ears," shining like bits of silvery fur, along the slender stems of the pussy willow. Or we tramp through a hazel thicket, where the squirrels have been festive among the nuts all winter, ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... on that skunk," he had said, the malodorous epithet being his designation for Louis Laplante, "If you lay hands on that skunk, don't be a simpleton. Skin him, Sir, by the Lord, skin him! Let him play the ostrich ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... faces. Prairie chickens and quail, startled and confused by the double line of flame, whirred above their heads, uncertain how to seek safety. A terrified jack rabbit leaped up almost at Sherm's feet. Rabbits, ground squirrels, one lone skunk, and even an occasional coyote, darted past them. Back at the road where they had begun, the head fire was already meeting their line of back fire and dying down in sullen smoke. Still, that hundred yards of blue stem ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... us deeply and painfully was the skunk. They were fearless little beasts and in the evening would come quite boldly about the house, and if seen and attacked by a dog, they would defend themselves with the awful-smelling liquid they discharge at an adversary. ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... address her mother as "You nasty, mean, old crosspatch;" and the latter, who in other respects seemed a very sensible and intelligent woman, yielded to the storm, and had no words of rebuke. I am afraid it was a little boy who in the same way called his father a "black-eyed old skunk;" but it might just as well have ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... delicate-minded we can't interfere and that was what my friend, President Wilson, meant when he opined that America was too proud to fight. So we're nootrals. But likewise we're benevolent nootrals. As I follow events, there's a skunk been let loose in the world, and the odour of it is going to make life none too sweet till it is cleared away. It wasn't us that stirred up that skunk, but we've got to take a hand in disinfecting the planet. See? We can't fight, but, by God! some of us are going to sweat blood to sweep ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... lonely store in the woods. All through the summer there was a procession of birchbark canoes, filled with red men and white, coming down the river to the bay, laden with skins of wolf, fox, beaver, wolverine, squirrel, and skunk, the harvest of the winter's trapping. Then in winter the cove and the river were often crowded with boats, driven to anchorage there by the ice, and to escape the fearful storms sweeping over the bay. ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... skunk—by the living hokey!" he panted, pointing to the faint haze that was again slowly rising above the invisible road. "They backed down as soon as they saw our hand, and got a hole through their new sheriff's hat. But what are you lookin' ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... your father I'll renew that note, but he's got to pay the interest and ten per cent. of the principal, every year till he's paid it up. Here, I'll write it down. And tell him that I'm not doing it for him or for that skunk of a Levine, but I'm doing it for you. Here, I'll write that ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... fix of the skunk that stood on the track and humped up his back at the lightning express—there was nothing left of him except a deficit and the stink he'd kicked up. And a fellow can't dictate terms with those assets. In the end he left the room with ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... called a skunk, and a cur, and a coward, and by most other names that are bad and contemptuous. But the dingo at bay is as brave as a weasel; and no lion in all Africa is braver than a weasel at bay. Finn had brought himself to a standstill with an effort, a towering figure of blazing wrath. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... "Thought you could sell us out and git away with it. Here's where you learn different. Jack Beaudry was a man, anyhow, and we got him. You're nothing but a pink-ear, a whey-faced baby without guts to stand the gaff. Well, you've come to the end of yore trail. Beg, you skunk!" ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... skunk!" he cried, "you've sold us out after promisin' not to, that's what you've done! But I'll get back at you if it costs me ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... is the skunk, and is about the size of a cat. It possesses short round ears, black cheeks, and a white stripe extending from the nose to the back. The upper part of the neck and the whole back are white, divided by a black line. Below, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... Don contemptuously. "Let me tell you now that I'd rather be fired a dozen times than make any bargains with a common skunk like you!" ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... he could get no milk there. And he was feeling quite downcast when he chanced to meet Henry Skunk, to whom he told ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... muttered the scout. "Did you ever see a skunk-trap? Oughts is for mush-rats, and number ones is mostly used for 'coons and 'possums, and I guess they'd do for a skunk. But you and we'll call this here trap a number two, Duster, for the skunk I'm after is a big one. All you've to do ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... lie low, dad, for a day or two more, and let me do a little prowlin'," said the girl, with sympathetic indignation in her dark eyes. "Ef it's that skunk, I'll spot him soon enough and let you know ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... over to relieve that old skunk," Reid announced, "not without orders from Sullivan. If he gets off you'll have to relieve him yourself. I don't want that Hall guy to get it into his nut that I'm ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden |
