"Steel trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... think, and perhaps you'll pick us up. I've great confidence in you; there are ever so many things I want to talk to you about. I never congratulate any girl on marrying; I think they ought to make it somehow not quite so awful a steel trap. I suppose Pansy oughtn't to hear all this; but that's what she has come to me for—to acquire the tone of society. There's no harm in her knowing what horrors she may be in for. When first I got an idea that my brother had designs on you I thought of writing to you, to recommend ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... said Peter, with his flashing smile. "I'll be dead in an hour. The steel trap of ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... cumbersome, slow-witted, "knew women"—at least, women of their own world, like Felice—better than he. On the other hand, his intelligence was no such perfected instrument as Hicks's, as exact as logarithms, as penetrating as a scalpel, as uncoloured by emotions as a steel trap. ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... i dont see what the mater is with my hens. i havent got 1 egg this week. father said there was a rat in the koop. i got a steel trap of Sam Diar and tonite i set it in the koop. i put a peace of cheeze on it. tomorrow morning i ges mister rat wont steal ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... kidneys. It has been observed, that the eating of the flesh of some trapped animals has produced severe symptoms of poisoning. The pain and horror of having a limb bleeding and mangled in a most cruel steel trap, the struggles which only add to the misery, slowly being done to death during hours or even days of torture, has produced in their bodies virulent poisons. Leucomaine poisons have also been produced by the violent and prolonged exertions ...
— The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition • A. W. Duncan
... first financial success when it undertook the manufacture of a steel trap invented by one of its members. Later the community engaged in a number of other enterprises, both agricultural and manufacturing. In the meantime they were subjected to bitter attacks on account of the radical beliefs of its members, especially regarding marriage. Noyes, the founder, ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... keep and knows it, and is careful not to betray himself until he can do so with the most telling effect. I have known him to preserve his serenity even when caught in a steel trap, and look the very picture of injured innocence, manoeuvring carefully and deliberately to extricate his foot from the grasp of the naughty jaws. Do not by any means take pity on him, and lend ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... lad of thirteen years. His neighbours all said that Danny was "as smart as a steel trap," and immediately added that they wondered where he got his smartness from—certainly not ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... least once a week, and he spent the greater part of his time at the Free Press office on publication day. He had always sought the society of newspaper men, and, wherever he could, he had given them his. He was not long in discovering that Bartley was smart as a steel trap; and by an early and natural transition from calling the young lady compositors by their pet names, and patting them on their shoulders, he had arrived at a like affectionate ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... are years, as every trapper knows, when you cannot get a fox into a steel trap by any amount of artfulness. What the reason is, I do not know, unless some fox that has been trapped and that has escaped passes the word round among all the other foxes. There were plenty of foxes coming to the clearing; we never went up there without seeing fresh signs about ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... laughed. "She put it on me a little right there," he declared. "Yes, sir, I've got a steel trap clamped on my foot this minute. But what do you think of the situation now, Lyman; I ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... Italian shot from Standish to me, and from me to Standish. In an instant his alert mind grasped the situation. Metaphorically I had been waved aside. I was not there in any official capacity, and he saw in a moment with what an opaque intellect he had to deal. The Italian closed his mouth like a steel trap, and refused to utter a word. Shortly after he was liberated, as there was no evidence against him. When at last complete proof was in the tardy hands of the British authorities, the agile Felini was safe in the Apennine mountains, and today is serving a life sentence in Italy for the assassination ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... out this slave and that, as very likely to be the thief; with nothing against them but his insinuations, some were very severely punished, being flogged by this very Wilkins, and others, at his instigation, were sold away. One night, Mr. Carnie, unknown to his colored people, set a steel trap in the barn; some of the negroes, passing the barn before morning, saw Wilkins standing there, but were not aware he was caught. They called the master, that he might seize the thief before he could escape; he came and teased Wilkins during ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... two poachers caught in a steel trap, Ready for gaol, their place of convalescence; There was a country girl in a close cap And scarlet cloak (I hate the sight to see, since— Since—since—in youth, I had the sad mishap— But luckily I have paid few parish fees since):[795] That scarlet cloak, alas! unclosed with rigour, Presents ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... there was reproof in her eyes. But just then the wrist I held leaped from my hand, and the hand clasped like a steel trap about my wrist. I cried aloud in awful fear, a wild inarticulate cry; and I caught one glimpse of his face, malignant and triumphant, as his other hand compassed my body and I was drawn down to him in a ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... said the other. "But one day he had something the matter with him, and he went to a doctor, and the doctor told him something, I don't know what, and he shut down like a steel trap. Now he never drinks a drop, and he lives on one meal a day and a cup of coffee. But he still goes with the old crowd—I don't believe there is a politician or a sporting-man in town that Johnny Price does not know. He sits in their haunts ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... shut on their victim, that victim drowns, a prisoner. Francois used to contend shruggingly that it was an easy death. It may be easy compared with some of the other deaths imposed on his furry captives. But it's not my idea of bliss, drowning under a foot or two of ice with a steel trap mangling your ankle ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... should betray his presence, and allow his prey to escape. And Michel was as skilled a trapper as he was hunter; from the plump little musk-rat which he caught by the river brink to the valuable marten, sable, beaver, otter, skunk, &c., &c., he knew the ways and habits of each one; he would set his steel trap with as true an intuition as if he had received notice of the coming of his prey. Many a silver fox had found himself outdone in sharpness and cunning by Michel; many a lynx or wild cat had fought for dear life, and may-be, made one escape from Michel's ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... he perched, a steel trap which had been set there by the keeper flew up and caught him, with such force that his limbs were broken. With a shriek the hawk flapped his wings to fly, but this only pulled his torn and bleeding legs, and overcome with the agony, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... tergedder ez much ez ole marster did. W'en Mars Dugal' went ter de sale whar he got Dilsey en Mahaly, he bought ernudder han', by de name er Wiley. Wiley wuz one er dese yer shiny-eyed, double-headed little niggers, sha'p ez a steel trap, en sly ez de fox w'at keep out'n it. Dis yer Wiley had be'n pesterin' Dilsey 'fo' she come ter our plantation, en had nigh 'bout worried de life out'n her. She didn' keer nuffin fer 'im, but he pestered her so she ha' ter th'eaten ter tell her marster fer ter make Wiley let her 'lone. W'en he come ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... savage little beast, though probably unable to see its enemies, was showing its yellow teeth and squalling in its deadly anger, the jaws coming together with a snap like that from the sudden springing of a steel trap. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... cunning until a madhouse yawned before us. Twice in my life all my traps and poisons have utterly failed, and left me faintly asking: Are rats possessed of occult powers? Once the answer to that was furnished by an old he-one who left his tail in my steel trap, but a little later caught himself in a trap-like space in the back of the family aeolian, and ignominiously died there,—a victim of his own error in judging distances ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... honest blue eyes of palest blue; they looked out at one keenly and frankly from under shaggy gray brows. His mind showed itself disciplined and orderly, and its workings struck Daylight as having all the certitude of a steel trap. He was a man who KNEW and who never decorated his knowledge with foolish frills of sentiment or emotion. That he was accustomed to command was patent, and every word and gesture tingled with power. Combined with this was his sympathy and tact, and Daylight could note easily enough all the earmarks ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... her, Ivy recounted the story of her adventures. Mrs. Geer was thunderstruck at Ivy's temerity; Mr. Geer was lost in admiration of her pluck. Mrs. Geer termed it a wild-goose chase; Mr. Geer declared Ivy to be as smart as a steel trap. Mrs. Geer vetoed the whole plan; Mr. Geer didn't know. But when at sunset Mr. Clerron rode over, and admired Mr. Geer's orchard, and praised the points of his Durhams, and begged a root of Mrs. Geer's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... alive with the yelling pack. Wolves are cautious about attacking human beings; they usually require some little time to work themselves up to the point. Every few moments a dark object would brush past poor old Dick's legs with a snapping sound like that of a steel trap, while the yelling and crackling increased ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... drawled Timmins, confidently; and selecting a strong, steel trap-chain from a box beside the counter, he sauntered off to ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... was an alert, vigorous mind, bright and strong like a steel trap, and her brother's vagueness and growing habit ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... was the figure of the black hound, stretched at ease beside the fire, steadily eyeing its master. Every once in a while the man would break a chunk from his damper, or cut a morsel from his meat and toss it to the kangaroo-hound, who opened and closed its jaws like a steel trap, and gulped the gift with portentous solemnity, and absolutely without visible sign of any emotion whatever. The hound showed only watchfulness. Finn heard its jaws snap, and could almost hear the gulp which disposed of each morsel. The sight and the sound gave an edge to the Wolfhound's already ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... back a small rug in the middle of the floor to expose a massive steel trap door. This he unlocked by twirling the dial of a complicated mechanism. Some years before Tom had constructed beneath his laboratory an impregnable chamber to safeguard his secret plans. He called it his Chest of Secrets, ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... time when our forbears looked upon all the forces in nature as in league against them. The anger of the gods as shown in storms and winds and pestilence and defeat is a phase of the same feeling. A wild animal caught in a steel trap vents its wrath upon the bushes and sticks and trees and rocks within its reach. Something is to blame, something baffles it and gives it pain, and its teeth and claws seek every near object. Of course it is a blind manifestation ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... like a steel trap. From down the corridor came a sudden, excited exclamation in the little old lady's voice, and then her steps sounded running toward the store. In the fraction of a second Jimmie Dale was at the ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... your brains out with this," he said, hoarsely. His eyes were gleaming, and in the dim light his mouth was set like a steel trap. "I'm going to have a little chat with you first, and then down this comes on the top of your skull, and it'll smash you like a bloomin' eggshell. Your time's come, ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... female opened her lips, some as a steel trap would open sudden and kinder sharp, and sez she: "I am Miss Deacon Tutt, of Tuttville, and this is my second daughter Ardelia. Cordelia is my oldest, and I have ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley |
