"Pried" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the long iron drawers. It was unlocked, and he drew it forth. Some papers were within—blue, legal-looking papers which his daughter had never seen. "Yes," he exclaimed aloud, "just as I thought. This drawer has been opened, and my private affairs pried into. Tell me, Gabrielle, where is young ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... but all the rest, even Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, gathered around and tried to help. They hitched on a snap team, but not a trace tightened. They didn't want to unload the game in the snow. The men lifted and pried on the wheels. Still the horses ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... fixed, Ex traduce; but whether 't had free will Or no, hot philosophers Stood banding factions all so strongly propped, I staggered, knew not which was firmer part; But thought, quoted, read, observed and pried, Stuffed noting-books, and still my spaniel slept. At length he waked and yawned, and by yon sky For aught I know, he knew as ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... down the face of the Citadel until I was just above the steep snow fields. Here was a drop of six feet. If the snow was soft, all right. If it was frozen underneath, I would be very likely to toboggan off into space. I pried loose a small rock and dropped it, watching with great interest how it lit. It sunk with a dull plunk. Therefore I made my leap, and found myself ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... thereby turning to advantage the trash and trinketry, which all the old maids or magpies, who have inhabited the mansion for a century, have contrived to accumulate. With what admiration of the ingenuity of the fair artist have I sometimes pried into these miscellaneous groups of pseudo-bijouterie, and seen the great grandsire's thumb-ring couchant with the coral and bells of the first-born—and the boatswain's whistle of some old naval uncle, or his silver tobacco-box, redolent of Oroonoko, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... an Austrian emperor has taken one of the ladies of the Vienna Opera House ballet to the vaults of the Vienna Deposit and Storage Company and just to show her how much he thought of her, when she said, 'My, ain't that a gorgeous stone!' he has said, 'Do you really like it?' and pried it right out of its setting ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... over him, but Scott took no further notice of his presence. He had managed to get the muzzle in between the jaws on one side, and was trying to get it out between the jaws on the other side. This accomplished, he pried gently and carefully, loosening the jaws a bit at a time, while Matt, a bit at a time, extricated White ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... Sonnes, And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue, Wherein I had no stroke of Mischeife in it. I play'd the Cheater for thy Fathers hand, And when I had it, drew my selfe apart, And almost broke my heart with extreame laughter. I pried me through the Creuice of a Wall, When for his hand, he had his two Sonnes heads, Beheld his teares, and laught so hartily, That both mine eyes were rainie like to his: And when I told the Empresse of this sport, She sounded almost ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... very weakelinges and shrimpes; which, when he had shewed unto his souldiers, they were ashamed of themselves that ever they had bene afraied of suche wretches. So when wee shall have looked and narrowly pried into the Spanishe forces in America, wee shalbe doubtles ashamed of ourselves, that wee have all this while bene afraied of those dissemblinge ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... his mare, took up her hoofs one at a time, and examined each shoe. Yes! one was a little loose; he pushed and pried it with the spade, and got it off. Buffalo chips and kindred fuel were plentiful about the plain, so a fire was quickly made, and he soon had one arm of the horse-shoe red hot, then holding the other wrapped in his sock he ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... asking you. Rupert came over last night and sat on my gallery making very roundabout inquiries concerning Jeems. I pried out of him the details of your swamp battle. But I want to know now just what Jeems has been doing. Your ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... wall, the professor had concealed the opening that he had found. As he turned to go he picked up a bit of the rock that he had pried loose. ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... on her overshoes, and drew an old shawl over her head. She crossed the dooryard, followed the path through the orchard, and came to the lane. Below the barn she turned back and attempted to cross. The mud was deep and thick, and she lost an overshoe; but with the help of a stick she pried ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... him sit here in the middle with you? He couldn't be pried loose from that wheel now. Besides, I haven't driven this car yet, and she's too different in her steering from my old one. I shouldn't like to try with ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... danger, however, was from suffocation; to meet this Mrs. Dalton and her companion pried open the door as far as the fallen trunk would allow, and kept it in position by means of a large chip which they found in the pit. This gave them sufficient air through a chink three inches in width; and they next looked about them for means of egress. After trying ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... we've no greater things to mind. Yet if you look with care intense, These tales your toil shall recompense; Appearance is not always true, And thousands err by such a view. 'Tis a choice spirit that has pried Where clean contrivance chose to hide; That this is not at random said, I shall produce upon this head A fable of an arch device, About the Weasel and ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... beauty, fashioned by Hephaestos, and endowed with every gift and all graces by Athena, sent by Zeus to EPIMETHEUS (q. v.) to avenge the wrong done to the gods by his brother Prometheus, bearing with her a box full of all forms of evil, which Epimetheus, though cautioned by his brother, pried into when she left, to the escape of the contents all over the earth in winged flight, Hope alone remaining ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... fingers I detached it. Darkness within, yet beyond question there was a cavity there, not a solid wall; and with infinite care we removed another brick. Still the hole was too small to admit enough light from the dimly illuminated cell. With a chisel we pried at the sides of a large block of masonry, perhaps eight bricks in size. It moved, and we softly ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... learned late in the summer of his first year, became a passion with him. He climbed the elms and the maples along the road and the fruit trees in the orchard. In the barn, too, he clambered about on the scaffolds and pried into all the corners ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... hearts equally averse to Mr. Bulstrode, though Dr. Minchin had never been in open hostility with him, and never differed from him without elaborate explanation to Mrs. Bulstrode, who had found that Dr. Minchin alone understood her constitution. A layman who pried into the professional conduct of medical men, and was always obtruding his reforms,—though he was less directly embarrassing to the two physicians than to the surgeon-apothecaries who attended paupers by contract, was nevertheless ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... assailants did not run, as he had expected, so he gently pried them apart with his fingers from their captives, and, one by one, flung them into the air behind him. One who struck Lylda, he squashed upon the flagstones of the street with ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... couldn't help saying as I pried up the Pilot's index finger and started on the next. "Then why ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... He pried open his eyes with his will. He saw the blue and gold of a space guard's uniform. He sighed and ...
— Acid Bath • Vaseleos Garson
... Taggart could divvy up after you put me out of the runnin'. Goin' to reform me! I reckon if I was an angel I'd have to have a recommendation from the Lord before you'd agree that I'd reformed. You couldn't be pried loose from that coin with ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... regretted. At least I should have had a clear half, which I haven't; so you have the best of it. And—I will not be followed about, and pried after, and made ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... cabins, pieced out with tin cans and packing cases, run footpaths drawing down to the Silver Dollar saloon. When Jimville was having the time of its life the Silver Dollar had those same coins let into the bar top for a border, but the proprietor pried them out when the glory departed. There are three hundred inhabitants in Jimville and four bars, though you are not ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... long experience had taught him the wisdom of prompt observance of any suggestion that came from his wife. Dropping his napkin, and the thread of his tale, he rose to his feet. Blushing furiously, Doyle bent, and with vigorous effort pried off a circular, perforated top, revealing a dark, cylindrical space beneath, from the depths of which he lifted a dripping bucket of galvanized iron, and sped, thus laden, away to the kitchen, to the music of Mrs. Archer's merry laughter and a guffaw of joy ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... discovered it, and came into the tree to see what it meant. His suspicions were aroused. There was some design in that suspended meat, evidently. It was a trap to catch him. He surveyed it from every near branch. He peeked and pried, and was bent on penetrating the mystery. He flew to the ground, and walked about and surveyed it from all sides. Then he took a long walk down about the vineyard as if in hope of hitting upon some clew. Then he came to the tree again, and tried first one eye, then the other, upon it; then to the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... he was suffering great physical and nervous anguish as the result of his too intimate acquaintance with the poisons in question. "I will tell you precisely how is was, Professor Kennedy. When I was called in to see Miss Lytton I found her on the bed. I pried open her jaws and smelled the sweetish odor of the cyanogen gas. I knew then what she had taken, and at the moment she was dead. In the next room I heard some one moaning. The maid said that it was Mrs. Boncour, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... cobra or rattler by letting the serpent crawl its slow way over his perfectly controlled body might have withheld even a quiver of the flesh, but I am no Spartan. At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped a death-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew that lay nearby, pried loose with a quick jerk every single pede and threw the odious thing a dozen yards. A trail of red, inflamed spots rose where it had stood and remained painful and swollen ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... English composers have not been without their heart interests. We have already pried into Purcell's romance. Old John Bull, at the age of forty-four, could give up his professorship to marry "Elizabeth Walker, of the Strand, maiden, being about twenty-four, daughter of —— Walker, citizen of London, deceased, she attending upon the Right Honourable Lady Marchioness ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... till he'd got a clove-hitch onto Prince. He had to give him one or two welts over the head 'fore he could do it; the dog acted like he'd been cheated. Then I pried myself loose from that blessed limb and shinned down to solid ground. My! but I was b'iling inside. 'Taint pleasant to be made a show afore folks, but 'twas the feller's condescending what-excuse-you-got-for-living manners that riled ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Bob pried away at likely looking places, and soon had several large sheets off. These, when smoothed out, looked good ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the waxed end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk 15 Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks He plugged the knot holes and calked the cracks; 20 And a bucket of water, which one would think He had brought up into the loft to drink When he chanced to be dry, Stood ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... eyes; I went over the soil inch by inch with my eyes, but to no purpose. There was no mark on the gray and brown earth at my feet that suggested a trap-door, or any other device. I stooped low, but without avail. Then my guide stooped, and with a long needle pried up a semicircular or almost circular bit of the gray soil nearly the size of a silver quarter of a dollar, which hinged on the straight side of it, and behold—the entrance to the spider's castle! I was not prepared for anything so novel and artistic—a long silken chamber, ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... the men wrestled with the timbers and tore away brick and stone and steel, but it was only a few minutes before they pried up a section of the heavy roof and lifted Nickols from the ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... once saw it was that artist fellow, and curious to know what he was running for I moved back a little behind the fir so's he couldn't see me. He stopped right by the logs and peered down the bank. Then he looked cautiously around and, picking up a stick, he pried loose one of the logs lying on top, and which was almost ready to go anyway. As soon as he had done this, he dropped the stick and ran like a streak of lightning down the road, and that was the last I saw ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... the log beside myself. After a moment I went on again, looking again for my partridge. Again the log rocked, heavily this time, almost throwing me off. Then I noticed that the tip of the other log, which lay balanced across a great rock, was under the tip of my log and was being pried up by something on the other end. Some animal was there, and it flashed upon me suddenly that he was heavy enough to lift my weight with his stout lever. I stole along so as to look behind a great tree—and there on the other log, not twenty feet away, a big bear was standing, twisting ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... toward me and pried my crushing hands off her arms. Juli rubbed the bruises mechanically, not knowing she was doing it. Mack said, "You can't do it, Cargill. You wouldn't get as far as Daillon. You haven't been out of the zone ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... the questioner leaned forward breathlessly and then pushed into the ring. Without a word he stood near Westerfelt, unpinned the sheet that was round him, and slowly took off his mask. Then he put a long forefinger into his mouth, pried a wad of cotton out of each cheek, and threw them on ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... I think it was (rest him)—tried it one day. He pried open the top of his helmet and pouted an entire bottle of the fluid down ...
— B-12's Moon Glow • Charles A. Stearns
... thrusting his hands in the prisoner's pockets, brought forth the stones and ivy. The others looked into his other pockets, examined his hat, made him strip, shook his clothes, pried into his boots—in short, gave ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... at last pried into a cabinet that contained a decanter of brandy and strange looking Moorish goblets, and from some curtained enclosure he obtained cold water from a faucet. A sip of the potent brandy and draught of water brought the color back to the girl's cheeks ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... listen. When I have taken my solitary walks in the woods and pried into the secrets of the little wild things that live there in order to turn my mind from my own musing, I found always, always, that you were in them—I cannot tell you how, but you were, Madelon. There was a meaning of you in every bird-call and flutter ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... curls, release your store 15 Of warmth and scent, as once before The tingling hair did, lights and darks Outbreaking into fairy sparks, When under curl and curl I pried After the warmth and scent inside, 20 Through lights and darks how manifold— The dark inspired, the light controlled! As early ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... creaking boots. He privately valued the carpet at so much a yard as he walked over it. He privately valued the chair at so much the dozen as he sat down on it. He was quite at his ease: it was no matter to him whether he waited and did nothing, or whether he pried into the private character of every one in the room, as long as he was paid ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... Lord of Ma[a]t), who comest forth from the city of the two Ma[a]ti, I have not pried into matters to ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge
... once saw that the flagstones of the fireplace in the turret had been lifted," hoarsely whispered the overjoyed Dennis. "With this old boar spear I pried up the slabs. It's all down in there. A valise full of notes! Here! Help me drag this couch over the stones, and move the furniture. The German police must not see this. To-night you and I will gather up ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... pried the boat loose, jumped in as she swung clear, and pulled with all my might, headed toward the centre of the river. I was almost clear when I was drawn over a dip, bow first, and struck a glancing blow against another rock I had never seen. There ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... plates covering the bearings were removed, and the caked rust pried out from between the rollers, for the stone had been mounted on small cast-iron wheels or rollers, but the wheels had been allowed to become rusted and ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... penknife and the brick with one side pried out," went on Leslie. "It's pretty plain that the person was trying to pry up that brick with the penknife and found it hard work because the mortar or cement is solid. Then the blade of the knife broke and the attempt was probably given ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... needless to say that Billy immediately disappeared down a side street. Here he ran into a livery stable where a dog fight had been going on in the back yard. Two ferocious bull-dogs, had fought so wickedly that their jaws had had to be pried apart. ...
— Billy Whiskers - The Autobiography of a Goat • Frances Trego Montgomery
... Once having pried his mind away from the trout, Jonathan was as keen for arbutus as I could wish, and soon I heard an exclamation, and saw him kneel. "Oh, come over!" he called; "you really ought to see ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... the windows should fit properly, and be perfectly hung and balanced, so that the sash will come down at a finger's touch, stay exactly where it is put, and go up again like a feather, instead of having to be pried loose, wrested open, held in place with a stick, and shoved up, or down ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... the turf, at close quarters, with your eyes on the blades of grass? Whilst I was waiting for Babet, I pried indiscreetly into a tuft which was really a whole world. In my bunch of grass there were streets, cross roads, public squares, entire cities. At the bottom of it, I distinguished a great dark patch where the shoots of the previous spring were decaying sadly, then slender stalks were growing up, stretching ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... was the driving force of the family! Anne who had planned the great campaign, and selected the Lamson palace, and pried the family loose from the primeval rocks of Nevada! She was cold as an iceberg, tireless, pitiless to others as to herself; for seventeen years her father had wandered and dug among the mountains; and for ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... cases do not extend beyond the neck and face muscles. During the contractions the face may be drawn into frightful contortions. Food can be given only through such spaces as may exist between the teeth, as often the patient cannot open his mouth himself, nor can it be pried open by any force that would be allowable. When the muscles of the trunk are affected the abdomen may be drawn inward, become very hard and stiff, chest movements are affected, making it difficult to ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... fainted, out cold, putting a deep grove into the drywall with her pretty nose on the way down. We then had to make an unscheduled visit to a nose specialist, who calmly put a tape-wrapped spoon inside her bent-over nose and pried it back to dead center. This was not much fun for either of us; it is well worthwhile preventing ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... short minute between our hearing the shots and racing out there to have fallen asleep again, especially when he was tied up so tightly. I think you will find that I am right,—when Holmes returns with the information he has pried ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... front sidewalk, also his vines and fruit trees. His story as stated by Ambassador Sharp was most pathetic. The old man had retired from business to the little town of his childhood. When it became certain that the Germans would take the village, the man pried up a stone slab in the sidewalk and buried his money, far out of sight. A long time passed by. When the Hindenburg plans were completed, the Germans made their retreat. Among other refugees who returned was the aged Frenchman. To his unbounded amazement the ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... she called Mrs. Ash in. Even her own family was excluded from witnessing the scene. The two aged women chose to be alone in that fearful moment, shuddering at the thought that a corpse might meet their gaze instead of a living creature. However, they mustered courage and pried off the lid. A woman was discovered in the straw but no sign of life was perceptible. Their fears seemed fulfilled. "Surely she is dead," ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... visits a good deal—the home of an ancient aunt. It's a jolly old place, big grounds, with elms and maples all round, and there's a tea house with a tile floor, and there's a particular blue tile under a bench that can be pried out with a pen knife. That's our post-office, and much safer than registered mail. Of course my business correspondence is a different matter. I pick that up in countless places between here and California—reports of the boys, their hopes and ambitions and hints of schemes ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... inserted the blade of the pick under the golden spout, pried hard, bent it upward. He stamped it down again with his boot-heel, dropped the pick and grappled it with both straining hands. By main force he wrenched it up almost at right angles. He gave another pull, snapped it short off, dragged it to the parapet of the Ka'aba, and with a frantic effort ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... fit, which interested Jimmie more than young Bashforth, so he left the boy and came around and pried the doctor ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... folk should be dissatisfied with my hero matters nothing. What matters is the fact that, under different circumstances, their approval could have been taken as a foregone conclusion. That is to say, had not the author pried over-deeply into Chichikov's soul, nor stirred up in its depths what shunned and lay hidden from the light, nor disclosed those of his hero's thoughts which that hero would have not have disclosed even to his most intimate ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... carried back again. The man would then move it a little to one side, just far enough for the thickness of the board which he wished to make, and then begin to saw again. He moved the log by means of an iron bar with a sharp point, which he struck into the end of the log, and thus pried it over, one end at a time. When the log was placed in its new position, the machinery was set in motion again, and the log was sawed through in another place, from end to end, parallel to the first sawing, leaving the width of a board between. This process was ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... of the mortise where a V-shaped opening is made the full depth of the mortise that is to be. Continuing from the middle, vertical cuts are taken first toward one end and then toward the other. The chips are pried out as the cutting proceeds. In making the last cut this prying must be omitted, otherwise the edge of the mortise would be ruined. It will be necessary to stand so as to look along the opening in order ...
— Mission Furniture - How to Make It, Part I • H. H. Windsor
... he snatched out of a cleat he pried loose a tiny plug in one of the bottom boards that had been replaced so carefully ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... yellow spot on the gray rock, near enough so that I could lean forward and touch it with my fingers. A two-inch circle of the real thing—I'd seen enough gold in the raw to know it without any acid test—hammered into the coarse sandstone. I pried it up with the blade of my knife and looked it over. Originally it had been a fair-sized nugget. Hans or Rowan had pounded it into place with the back of a hatchet (the corner-marks told me that), flattening it to several times its natural diameter. I threw it down to MacRae, ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... jealousy Beth discovered that her husband pried upon her continually. He was very high and mighty on the subject of women spying upon men, but there seemed no meanness he would not compass in order to spy upon a woman. He had duplicate keys ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... bed-posts to the cord, cut off an ear, and let it drop to the floor. He then jumped down, got a good grip of the heavy ear, carried it to the top of one of the slippery, polished bed-posts, seated himself comfortably, and, holding it well balanced, deliberately pried out one kernel at a time with his long chisel teeth, ate the soft, sweet germ, and dropped the hard part of the kernel. In this masterly way, working at high speed, he demolished several ears a day, and with a good warm bed in a box made himself at home and grew fat. Then naturally, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... new woods property, which included the side of the hill away from the camp, he felled such trees as he needed, hauling them up to the summit by means of a block and falls, where he trimmed them and notched them, and rolled or pried them up into place. At times whole days would be spent on that further slope of the hillside and Uncle Jeb, busy with preparations for the first arrivals, could not see him at all, only hear the sound of his axe, and sometimes the pulleys creaking. He did not go down into camp for lunch ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to do the Professor's bidding. Tad and Ned ranged themselves on either side of the patient, while Chunky sat on the guide's feet. Almost before he was aware of their purpose the boys had pried his jaws open and into the opening thus made professor Zepplin dropped the concoction ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... departure immediately afterwards, being let out of the shop-door by Luke Tulliver, who was in a very cantankerous humour, and took no pains to disguise the state of his feelings. The lawyer Mr. Medler had pried into everything, the shopman told Percival Nowell; had declared himself empowered to do this, as the legal adviser of the deceased; and had seemed as suspicious as if he, Luke Tulliver, meant to rob his dead ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... court by-ways to have a tenderness for the handsome Noel), obtained large grants for its maintenance. Madame d'Arnaye, also, it is gratifying to record, appears to have lived in tolerable amity with Sieur Noel, and neither of them pried too closely into ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... the same position and style, Joanna and her husband, Philip of Burgundy. In the vault below were seen the four coffins containing the several bodies of the royal dead, the leaden covering to one of which had been pried off by French bayonets in search of treasures supposed to have been buried with the body. But this sacrilegious injury to the casket has been carefully repaired. Close at hand, in a corner of this vault, was seen the metallic coffin which contains the remains of Prince Miguel of Portugal,—the ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... the whole of this affair explained; I wish to know how it is that I have been so insolently trifled with as to have the sanctuary of my affection pried into. It is not you, Saint-Aignan, who ought to punish those who have acted in this manner, for it is not your honor they have ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... me. He'd pried the Majoress' mouth open, stuck a cork in to it keep it so, and then fed her the revivifier. She wasn't a handsome woman at the best, but with that cork ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... upwards again, and to left and right the woods disappeared, yielding place to vine-clad hills stretching along the pathway; while on either side stood fruit-trees in blossom, filled with the hum of the bees as they busily pried into the blossoms. A tall man wearing a brown overcoat advanced to meet the traveller. When he had almost come up to him, he waved his cap and cried ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... the "Flor de" that gifted songstress, was soon produced and pried open, and the effulgent charms of its godmother compared with the less effulgent, but no less charming figure which ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... heart gave a convulsive throb. He pried up on the pick handle. Something was giving way. Had he discovered the hole in which the gold ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... a sweet, natural voice for his care of her—quite innocently—until in the questioning, unconvinced gaze that met hers she found her own eyes softening and growing dim; and she looked away suddenly, lest he read her ere she had dared turn the first page in the book of self—ere she had studied, pried, probed among the pages of a new chapter whose familiar title, so long meaningless to her, had taken on a sudden troubling significance. And for the first time in her life she glanced uneasily at the new page in the book of self, numbered ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... highly necessary, as the behaviour of the keeper had proved; for when he came into my chamber in the morning, as he did early with his customary attendants, he searched and pried about with ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... most of the morning in the kitchen, helping Mother. As soon as Bob was off again after lunch, she began to roam about the yard, eyeing everything like a hawk. Soon Mother saw her picking up the boards Bob had pried loose from the box and scowling at the ugly nails that stuck up where little feet might so easily be stabbed by their rusty points. These she carefully bent ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... and about half an hour later the last Siwash student was pried off the last Kiowan. It was the most disgraceful riot in the history of the college. I don't think there was a whole suit of clothes on the field when it was over; and the Siwash man who didn't have two ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... of the board with the mallet, and then he got the wedge under and pried. Ruth pulled. Stephen kept hammering and prying, and Ruth held on to all he gained, until they slipped the wedge along gradually, to where the board was nailed again, to the middle joist or stringer. Then a few more vigorous strokes, and a little smart levering, and the nails ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... him, a eunuch sometimes slept or Seniha occasionally came from her small salon to play on the piano there and lingered apparently in wait. But no one seemed stirring, and Billy stole to the door on his right, opening on the encased stairs, and found it locked. Hurriedly he pried at it with a burglarious tool, and then a sudden outburst ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... through the one window. Complete silence from the rooms on either side reassured him, and in the scorching stillness he worked with a noiseless, capable speed. In one corner under the bed he pulled up the carpet and pried loose the boards. Some of the money went there, some below the pipes in the cupboard under the stationary washstand, the rest behind a piece of ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... was, of course, to be expected that they would be suspicious (especially after the lesson they had received), but these creatures evinced suspicion, not as I had been accustomed to see men show it—they stole and pried about, eaves-dropping, creeping upon and glaring at us (when they thought they could do so undetected) like cellar-bred, yellow-eyed, garbage-fed curs. Their manner gave one an impression of cold cruelty ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... other. Encouraged by Nickerson's apparent convalescence, Hardenberg decided that the concrete evidence of things done would prove effective. He led him down into the 'tween-decks. "See now," he said. "See this packing-case"—he pried up a board—"see these 'ere skins. Take one in y'r hand. Remember how we found 'em all in the cellar and hyked 'em out ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... Hiawatha helped a hair restorative and Pocahontas blessed a bitters. Dr. Fall spent twelve years with the Creeks to discover why no Indian had ever perished of consumption. Edwin Eastman found a blood syrup among the Comanches. Texas Charlie discovered a Kickapoo cure-all, and Frank Cushing pried the secret of a stomach renovator from the Zuni. (Frank, a famous ethnologist, had gone West on a Smithsonian expedition.) Besides these notable accretions to pharmacy, there were Modoc Oil, Seminole ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... of help, you'd be to any one! Well, let's see it." He knelt and inspected the tricycle, grumbling all the while and shaking his head angrily. "Who said it was broke?" he demanded presently. "Queer kind of break; looks like you'd pried the link apart ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... shells are found on San Miguel. They are pried off with a crow-bar, the shells are polished for sale, made into buttons, etc., and the meat is dried and sent to China, where it is ground and made into soup. It has been used here, and pronounced by some to be equal to terrapin, ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... haue of late time pried into, viz. in a ioynt-lease to three intended by the taker and payer, to descend successiuely and intirely, one of them passeth ouer his interest to a stranger, who by rigour of law shall hold it during the liues ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... histories he had read, looking round puzzled, to see what was happening, and in a very famous fight that he had planned very well. He saw retreats that History called routs, and routs that he had seen History calling retreats. He saw men winning victories without knowing they had won. Never had man pried before so shamelessly upon History, or found her such a liar. With his eyes on the great blue glass Rodriguez forgot the room, forgot time, forgot his host and poor excited Morano, as he watched those ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... will," said the rabbit, and with his crutch he pried open the trap, and set free the nice little second cousin to Grandfather ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... a villain in all Christendom but wished for Philip's death. Moreo followed the prince about to Antwerp, to Brussels, to Spa, whither he had gone to drink the waters for his failing health, pestered him, lectured him, pried upon him, counselled him, enraged him. Alexander told him at last that he cared not if the whole world came to an end so long as Flanders remained, which alone had been entrusted to him, and that if he was expected to conquer France it would be as well to give him the means of performing ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the strain of the encounter, but he pried with his stick under the body of the snake and hoisted the limp thing upon it. He resumed his march along the path, and the dog walked tranquilly ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... Fleda would let no hands but hers do it this morning; she was curious about the setting of tables. How she remembered or divined where everything had been stowed; how quietly and efficiently her little fingers unfastened hampers and pried into baskets, without making any noise; till all the breakfast paraphernalia of silver, china, and table-linen was found, gathered from various receptacles, and laid in most exquisite order on the table. State street never saw better. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... battery was ushered inside. It immediately fell their task to brush the cow-webs from the ceilings; gather up the fallen plaster from the floor; sweep out several years' accumulation of dirt and dust; while the old-fashioned shutters were pried open for the first time in many years and the sunshine streamed into the rooms, to drive away, to some degree, the ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... shovelfuls more laid bare a broad flat stone. This they pried up, but it required all their strength to lift and stand it on edge. Just below, they saw a flight of steps. They were slippery with wet and they looked very old, as if worn, ages ago, by many feet passing ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... did beagle pursue the chase with more steady foot than did this eager and laudable champion of the ancient fame of the State his chosen duty. He rummaged old cuddies, closets, vaults, and cocklofts, and pried into every recess of the Chancery, the Land Office, the Committee-Rooms, and the Council-Chamber, searching up-stairs and down-stairs, wherever a truant paper was supposed to lurk. Groping with lantern in hand and body bent, he made his way through narrow passages, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... instantly of all but the original five. His head was drawn suddenly, violently backward, and clamped in that position; and a metal instrument, forced into his mouth, while his lips bled in their resistance, pried jaws ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... this relation, so efficient was the service rendered, that its readers could not be pried loose from it; where women were willing and ready, when the domestic pinch came, to let go of other reading matter, they explained to their husbands or fathers that The Ladies' Home Journal was a necessity—they did not feel that they could do without it. The very quality for ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... younger Forsytes felt, very naturally, and would openly declare, that they did not want their affairs pried into; but so powerful was the invisible, magnetic current of family gossip, that for the life of them they could not help knowing all about everything. It was felt to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his men had in the meantime pried the battens from the hatch and thrown it open. The hold was about half full of cotton bales, railroad ties, oakum, resin, and the like, and they descended to them by means of a scaling ladder, clambering thence toward the forward bulkhead. One of the men had a lantern which cast a pallid glow ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... pledged to make the journey together, and to spend, together, six months in the one's Swedish home and six months in the other's Norwegian home. And for the rest of the voyage they could hardly be pried apart, so infatuated did they become ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... this dangerous condition of things. The administration of local affairs was still, at that date, intrusted to native officials. The whole internal regulation was in the hands of the famous Muhamad Reza Ehan. Hindu or Mussulman assessors pried into every barn and shrewdly estimated the probable dimensions of the crops on every field; and the courts, as well as the police, were still in native hands. "These men," says our author, "knew the country, its capabilities, its average yield, and its average requirements, ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... not much gold in the stream, but there was some. He dug and pried and washed the scanty soil until he was sure that no more was there, and then toward evening of the next day started home to the Abbey. When he reached the gate it was dark, and the porter ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Scotty had grabbed you by the waist. When I saw your face, I had a few bad moments until I could take a closer look. You were a bloody mess, to put it mildly, with more than a few splinters adding color. But I could see your manly beauty wasn't gone forever. We pried you loose from the rocket and stretched you out on the lawn. Your pulse was pretty good and you were breathing steadily, so we gave you a few whiffs of oxygen from Scotty's tank for ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... was also in a bad state. The doors have nearly all been battered down. The wooden Gothic statues in the nave have been smashed or destroyed by fire. The altars and confessionals were wantonly destroyed. The collection boxes had been pried open and emptied. We were told that the holy-water font and the vestments of the priests had been profaned and befouled. It is not a ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... him to his own country?" Hearing these her words the Queen waxed exceeding wroth and cried to her, "Fie upon thee, O ill-omened old woman! How long wilt thou false us in the matter of this strange man who hath dared to intrude himself upon us and hath lifted our veil and pried into our conditions? Say me: thinkest thou that he shall come to our land and look upon our faces and betray our honour, and after return in safety to his own country and expose our affairs to his people, wherefore our report will be bruited abroad among all the Kings of the quarters of the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... quite sane, yet he hated those men at mealtime. He was haunted by a fear that the food would not last. He inquired of the cook, the cabin-boy, the captain, concerning the food stores. They reassured him countless times; but he could not believe them, and pried cunningly about the lazarette to see with ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... the crate. It must be done at once. Discovery was too probable. Gingerly he forced the blade under one of the boards and pried. The nails screeched horribly as they were withdrawn. The task was simple enough; the crate was a flimsy affair to have withstood so difficult a journey. But after each board was removed he peered to the street from behind the closed blind, half expecting ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... He pried in every drawer and cupboard, and in the night he arose and inquired into the clothes his wife had left off; and he pushed his fingers into the holes of mice and under the floor coverings, and groped in the fireplaces; and he put ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans |
