"Snapping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two poor Woodcutters were making their way home through a great pine-forest. It was winter, and a night of bitter cold. The snow lay thick upon the ground, and upon the branches of the trees: the frost kept snapping the little twigs on either side of them, as they passed: and when they came to the Mountain- Torrent she was hanging motionless in air, for the ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... happiness for that good girl!" and Madame Talon, forgetful of the loss of her jupon, smiled a wrinkled smile till her nose nearly touched her chin, and her eyes receding into well worn little puckers, became two snapping black points. ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... but he is a cowardly wretch, he cares for nobody, and will not help those who call upon him in trouble. Carambo, that for you!" exclaimed the captain, looking at the small shrine of the saint at the bittacle, and snapping his fingers at the image; "that for you, you useless wretch, who never help us in our trouble. The pope must canonise some better saints for us, for all we have now are worn out. They could do something formerly, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... loading and firing among the wolverines until they had slain over a dozen. But instead of diminishing, the number continued to increase till there must have been nearly two-score growling, snapping ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... had put on my silk hat and taken up my valise, and was standing before the glass (a la Francais) taking a final view of my toilette, and snapping off some imaginary dust and lint, as the two detectives stepped in, and after looking me well over went out, and I saw them no more. That proved to be the last ordeal through which I passed in Ireland. After ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... yard, the gate was suddenly snatched open, and Uncle Richard appeared, when the lout turned sharply and ran off along the lane, followed by his dog, the fellow shouting "Yah! yah! yah!" his companion's snapping bark ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... The Jefferson quarter was snapping out the signals; his voice cut the medley of shouts that echoed back and forth across the field like the shrill voice of a dog barking in a tempest. Suddenly the ball moved and the first scrimmage was on. The Jefferson right half-back had the ball and the play was aimed at center; big ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... when he snapped out, "It ain't" Mrs. Cricky in passing by chirped pleasantly, and Glummie glowered so out of his great, fierce red-brown eyes at her that she hurried on, in terror of her life. There was only one thing snappier than he on the grass by the lake shore that morning, and that was the Snapping Turtle. Presently a Locust came along and turned on his buzzing hum right in Glummie's ear. Then Glummie was furious, raised his head and struck at the Locust. Now the Locust was a tease, and this pleased him immensely. So he cracked his wings right in the very face of Glummie and ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... holds no place in our memory; but, rampant on one eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal animosity towards us, who triumphs over Time. The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiating way he had of snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning of his moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and flourish. From an otherwise unaccountable association of him with a fiddle, we conclude that he ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... hands up for the likes of you!" she retorted, her eyes snapping, as she deliberately ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... the night that followed Sam Thayor slept soundly on his spring bed of fragrant balsam, oblivious to the Clown's snoring or the snapping logs burning briskly in the stove, his head pillowed on his boots wound in his blanket. Beneath the canopy of stars the torrent roared and the great trees whined and creaked, their shaggy tops whistling in the stiff breeze. ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... squinting across a desert under a desert sun. There was nothing particularly worth noting about her face, except that it had an exceptionally healthy appearance. But her eyes fascinated Cassidy. They were an uncompromising, snapping black. They seemed brimming over with vitality. They were eyes that showed a strength of will behind them only woefully expressible in her woman's voice. They had a compelling quality in their straightforward honesty that forced Cassidy at once to forego the rest of her features. If he ventured ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... again, live as if they were staying in somebody else's house—but what you want to induce men and women to do is to realise the sort of thing that life really is, and to attempt to put it in some kind of proportion. The mischief done by men like Fitzherbert, who was fond of snapping at people who produced ideas for inspection, is that ordinary people get to confuse wisdom with knowledge; and that won't do! And so the man who sets to work like Fitzherbert loses his alertness and his observation, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of this woman, her beauty fouled and bloody, who sought out my destruction where I lay powerless to resist her will. Low she bent above me, her dusky hair a cloud that choked me, and through this cloud the glitter of her eyes, red lips that curled back from snapping teeth, fingers clawed to rend and tear; then as I gazed, in horror, these eyes grew soft and languorous, these vivid lips trembled to wistful smile, these cruel hands clasped, soft-clinging, and drew ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... ordnance, some demi- some whole culverin, throwing shot of 10-18 lbs. weight for a distance of a mile. It did not take long to dismount these guns, and spike them, by beating soft metal nails into the touch-holes, and snapping them off flush with the orifice. But though the men worked quickly the gunner was quicker yet. He ran through the narrow streets, shouting the alarm, and the town woke up like one man, expecting that the Cimmeroons were on them from the woods. Someone ran to the church, and set the great bell ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... heard them and was ready. Where was Fat, anyway? How strange he felt, now he was almost afraid, for he was sure something was watching him. He shaded his eyes and peered into the gloom, but could see nothing. Far away in the timber it seemed to him he heard brush snapping—still he knew there was nothing bigger than a skunk or a rabbit in the whole valley. Still—and his breath came shorter; had not a mountain lion been killed on Black Mountain just day before yesterday? His imagination suggested hungry kittens searching for a lost mother, and a tremor ran over ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... draperies. On each stall post was a massive floral horseshoe. The orders of dancing, besides the usual gold-embossed monogram, bore an engraving of a tandem cart with high-stepping horses and driver snapping his long whip. Attached to each was a sterling silver pencil representing the foreleg of a horse in action, the shoe being of gold. Supper was served in the dining-room from a table decorated in keeping with the event, the center-piece being a model in sugar of the tandem design ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... exclaimed, snapping his fingers in a kind of wild triumph, "what are you lying there for? Bounce to your feet like a two-year ould. O, holy Moses, and Melchisedek the divine, ay, and Solomon, the son of St. Pettier, in all his ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... weariness, and seeing dimly the hollow-eyed face of the man who stopped above the blaze. Now it grew quickly, and increased to a sharp-pointed pyramid of red flame. The bright sparks showered up, crackling and snapping, and when she followed their flight she saw the darkly nodding tops of the evergreens above her. With the fire well under way, he took the coffeepot to get water from the river, and left her to fry the bacon. The fumes of the frying meat wakened her at once, and brushed even the thought ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... wind had fallen, and absolute silence reigned under the great trees. The snapping of the smallest twig, a footstep on the dry leaves, the gliding of a body amongst the grass, would have been heard without difficulty. All was quiet. Besides, Top, lying on the grass, his head stretched out on his paws, gave no signs of uneasiness. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... be strong for herself and for the man, too, even though she break down afterward. The necessity of coming to an understanding with him, once for all, impelled her to the economy of her forces, while the nervous snapping of his fortitude had given her an opportunity she could not afford ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... his lonely beat, with the tender-eyed stars for company. And as the silent hours pass by, slowly he turns the leaves of memory's record, lingering over its cherished pictures, the home-scenes, the fond father and mother, the dear sister, and the dearer some-one-else's sister. The snapping of a twig startles him, and hastily brushing away a tear—fond memory's tribute—he instantly closes the book, and stands, with every sense on the alert, unflinching, though he knows that each moment may be his last, only remembering that it is his duty to be faithful, watch well, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... it under rigidly controlled conditions. To speed up the process would mean a total disregard of those controls. Snapping a party of men and women back into their racial past and holding them there for too long a period...." Ashe ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... we lie, Pick'd and pluck'd, And put in a pie. My first is snapping, snarling, growling, My second's industrious, romping, and prowling. Higgledy piggledy Here we lie, Pick'd and pluck'd, And put in ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... pursuing in order to avoid an encounter with him. His long legs carried him speedily to the outlet and there he posted himself. He could hear her coming through the brush, although her figure was still obscured by the tangle of wildwood; the snapping of dead twigs under her feet; the scuffling of last year's leaves on the path, now wet and plastered with mud and the slime of winter; the swish of branches as ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... have it taken from me for my enemy's ironic enjoyment. I had a quite definite consciousness of my enemy. I had as a boy thought, you remember, of my uncle—and now, as I moved through the wood, I could hear the old man's chuckle just as he had chuckled in the old days, snapping his fingers ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... beneath a foreign stone. But there were some who said It moved its lips; And when they went away, the earth stirred And they heard it moan. Now it comes leaping down the tunnel roads Where the moss hangs like stalactites, Screaming out curses, snapping at the toads; Negroes who pass there on the moonless nights Behind them hear a sound that stops their breath. The keen wind whistles through its teeth, And the white skull goes ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... lightly like a wagtail into her room, and locked herself in, leaving the cardinal to storm that he was obliged to go. When the fair Imperia found herself alone, seated before the fire, and without her little priest, she exclaimed, snapping angrily the gold links of her chain, "By the double triple horn on the devil, if the little one has made me have this row with the Cardinal, and exposed me to the danger of being poisoned tomorrow, unless I pay him over to my heart's content, I will not die till I have seen him burned alive ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... her gentle face that was like as two peas to her husband's wide kindly grin, but there was no smile on her face this morning as she greeted her two friends, and dropped into a chair by the door of Christie's immaculate kitchen, and her soft brown eyes were snapping: She had an air of ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... bank, the whole party gathering round in breathless expectation. Having reached its slender, swaying top, he threw himself out on the land side. The tree bent at once to the ground with his weight, but without snapping, showing that it was tough and fibrous. Holding firmly to the top, he gave a strong spring, which, with the spring of the bent sapling, sent him well over the gorge on ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... it might have been an attempt to smile. "Absolution for me? Where is Brother Jacques? That would be droll. . . . Those eyes! Absolution? That for your heaven," snapping his fingers, "and that for your hell. I know. It is all silence. There is nothing. I wonder. . . ." His knees suddenly refused to support the weight of his body. He raised himself upon his hands. The trees were merging together; the lake was red and blurred. "Gabrielle, Gabrielle, I loved ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... followed by a regular medley of dull booms. The men were in their saddles and gone in less time than it takes to tell it. The firing had ceased save for a few sharp reports from the revolvers, like a coyote's spiteful snapping. The pounding of the horse's hoofs grew fainter, and soon all was still. I kept my ears strained for the slightest sound. The cook and the boss, the only men up, hurried back to bed. Watson had risen so hurriedly that he had not been careful about ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... in his large hand, the stable and sure intelligence beside me calmly chirruped, and then as calmly switched his long whip at the distant rebel brute. How the switching and snapping galled his proud neck! How his black back curved, and his small head tossed! Still, he would not pull an ounce, but just pawed like a fairy horse, or as if he were born to tread on clouds alone, or to herald ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... it from your voice. You have snapping black eyes and dark curly hair, and the reddest of ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... adjusted his camera, and looked down to see that he had the proper focus before snapping the shutter. The light was good up there, and he believed he must have the greatest success with such a picture as that. Besides, it had the genuine article of life in it, which he always sought in ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... was his reply in his pose's tone for affection. But I could imagine him posing there in his night shirt, the anger against me snapping in his eyes. ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... well-aimed stones flew from practised hands; though of course in the frantic rushes of the dog to escape, not half of them took effect. She darted first at one and then at another, snapping wildly, and meeting with many a kick ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... of the best matches I've ever found. Well, it has to happen. Statistical average and all. Still, it sometimes gives you a creepy feeling to find a rabbit or a snapping turtle on some strange world. It makes you wonder if this exploration business isn't all some big joke, and somebody has been everywhere ...
— The Planet with No Nightmare • Jim Harmon
... rode to the corral at an early hour, in order to learn the result of poison, a light kill of wolves lay in sight around the open water. While they were attempting to make a rough count of the dead from horseback, a wolf, supposed to be poisoned, sprang fully six feet into the air, snapping left and right before falling to the ground. Nothing but the agility of Rowdy saved himself or rider, who was nearly unhorsed, from being maimed or killed from ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... brilliant light, a crisp, snapping light—a glint of the sun's rays, for instance, on the break of the surf, or on the round of a glossy leaf, reflecting like a mirror the opaque sky—ever be achieved by careful working around the edges of an unwashed speck of paper—the transparent man's only means ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... offered pinch of snuff; clapped him on the back, and swore he was the honestest fellow in the world—the most glorious relic of the Grand Army that I had ever met with. "Go on!" cried my military friend, snapping his fingers in ecstasy—"Go on, and win! Break the bank—Mille tonnerres! my gallant English ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... battle of Gettysburg, informed me that during the last day of the battle, he and his men frequently heard, above their heads, amid the whistling of the minnie balls from the Confederate side, sharp, explosive sounds like the snapping of musket caps. He mentioned the matter to an ordnance officer at the time. The officer replied that what he heard was explosive rifle balls, which the Confederates had captured from the Union troops, who had lately received them from ...
— A Refutation of the Charges Made against the Confederate States of America of Having Authorized the Use of Explosive and Poisoned Musket and Rifle Balls during the Late Civil War of 1861-65 • Horace Edwin Hayden
... is a freshwater turtle is plainly indicated by the parasitic leeches that are noted fastened by their round sucking-discs to the sides of its body. The long neck, pointed snout, and apparent limitation of the dorsal spinous scutes to the central area of the back may indicate the snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) or possibly a species of the genus Cinosternum (probably C. leucostomum). It is hardly likely that it is one of the true soft-shelled turtles (Trionyx), as the range of that genus is not known to include Mexico. The turtle from Nuttall ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... turtle, his wet, green shield of shell three feet from edge to edge, the gaff firmly transfixed in his body, just under the fore-flipper. From under his shell protruded his snake-like head and neck, withered like that of an old man. He was waving his head from side to side, the jaws snapping like a snapped silk handkerchief. Kitchell thrust him away with a paddle. The turtle craned his neck, and catching the bit of wood in his jaw, bit it in two in ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... of a block of iron, B, Fig. 10, moved between poles, N and S, and having a hole through it, into and through which a conductor is carried. The path through the iron is so good that we can scarcely consider that any lines cross the hole from N to S; yet as B moves forward there is a continual snapping transfer of lines from the right forward side of the hole to the left or backward side, cutting the conductor as they fly across, and developing an electromotive force in it. I have described this action more in detail because we have in it whatever distinction in the manner ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... is! And egad, if he behaves too badly, he shall pay hush-money, or the governor shall know! When we've taken him, lads, who—think you—dare complain?" And he laughed again; but at a bend in the river he turned suddenly with his eyes snapping—"Who a' deuce could that have been playing pranks in the woods the other night? Mark my words, Stanhope, whoever 'twas will prove the brains and the mainspring and the driving-wheel and the rudder of this ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... buildings were shattered. Next in violence was the shock of 1872, which cracked the walls of some of the public buildings and caused a panic. There was no great loss of life. In April, 1898, just before midnight, there was a lively shakeup which caused the tall buildings to shake like the snapping of a whip and drove the tourists out of the hotels into the streets in their nightclothes. Three or four old houses fell, and the Benicia Navy Yard, which is on made ground across the bay, was damaged to the extent of about $100,000. The last severe shock was in January, 1900, when the St. Nicholas ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... of the blackness, the ends of a white nubia and a little shoulder cape snapping in the wind, her breath coming short in a sound that was a ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... parson," he cried, snapping his fingers, "I don't care a damn for you in either capacity. You keep the child here at your peril! I'll go to the first lawyer in Rubbleford, and bring an action against you. I'll show you a little legal law! You ruin me indeed! I can prove that I only thrashed the little toad, ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... of his beamer and fired at a fence post. The tough plastic burst into splinters with a sudden explosion. A snapping wire whipped to within inches of Nelson's face but he didn't have to think about it. He was running up the hillside a short while later—he had lost track of time as such—hoping that Glynnis would use her gun if any ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... Sir Otho Markleham, the red blood dyeing his large face crimson, and his eyes fairly snapping ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... been!" and much of this loneliness came into his sighs and into his thoughts as he felt himself nearing the grave. As he sat at his desk in the little study, his feet wrapped in an old coat, an open fire snapping in the fireplace, his pen turned more and more to the great question. Even in 1901 he wrote from Roxbury, at the time of the death of ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... we're bound to have the rebels whipped. I reckon they're whipped already in spite of Lee. I've heard of a turtle that an old nigger man decapitated. Next day he was amusing himself poking sticks at it and the turtle was snapping back. His master comes along and says to him, 'Why, Pomp, I thought that turtle was dead.' 'Well, he am dead, massa,' says Pompey, 'but the critter don't know enough ter be sensible ob it.' I reckon the Confederacy's dead, but Jeff ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... that he had called up Mrs. Rankin by telephone and she had brought up the delayed certificate at once. Kirby lost no time among the records. He walked to the Rankin house and introduced himself to an old lady sunning herself on the porch. She was a plump, brisk little person with snapping eyes younger than ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... the land; and a certain horny Fish another, who runs its horn into the Whal's belly) it may have been kill'd by the latter of these two; which kind of Fish is known, sometimes to run its horn into Ships (perhaps taking them for Whales) and there snapping it asunder; as hapned not long since to an English Vessel in the West-Indian Seas; the broken piece of that Horn being by the Master of that ship presented to the King, and now kept in His Majesties Repository: the like whereof befel a French Vessel, sailing towards the East-Indies, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... severe punishment. But in this they are mistaken. There are people, some of them possessing considerable powers of mind and body, who can no more restrain the fury into which a trifling mishap throws them than a dog can restrain himself from snapping if he is suddenly and painfully pinched. People fling knives and lighted paraffin lamps at one another in a dispute over a dinner-table. Men who have suffered several long sentences of penal servitude for murderous assaults will, the very day after they are released, seize their ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... much more than he had told him, and sooner than him, and that perhaps Pyotr Stepanovitch was the chief instigator of all these criminal designs—he flew into a frenzy. "Senseless but malignant woman," he cried, snapping his bonds at one blow, "let me tell you, I shall arrest your worthless lover at once, I shall put him in fetters and send him to the fortress, or—I shall jump out of window ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... hardly crawled ten yards, however, before the gentle snapping of F.'s fingers recalled me ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... He should have known that she had been for two months wholly dedicated to the small physical wants of their baby, and that if his nerves were fraying with watching that incessant servitude, her own must be close to the snapping point; had snapped, when dusk did not ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... that lines the river. Our first forest trees gave us almost as much pleasure as our first flowers. Animal life abounded, all in the especially interesting condition of rearing half-grown young. Squirrels from their nests scolded at our intrusion most vehemently; an owl flew up with such a noisy snapping and chattering that our attention was drawn to the point from which she rose, and there, perched upon a couple of rotten stumps a few feet apart, were two half-fledged owlets, passive, immovable, which allowed themselves to ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... dressing-table, and a gleam of something strangely like fear shone out of the cold grey eyes. Cornelia had no difficulty in understanding that look. Aunt Soph was afraid she had pulled the rope just a trifle too tight, and that it was snapping before her eyes; she was picturing a flight back to America, and envisaging her brother's disappointment and wrath. Out of the abundance of her own content the ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... turning her pretty face towards him, her black eyes snapping with fun, "that if conceit was consumption, there'd be another little green grave in the cemetery with ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... visit, very conspicuous, and our followers styled them the Raja, his wife and child. Hawks and sea-eagles are quickly attracted to the spot, but only hover on the outskirts of the revolving coil, occasionally snapping up a prize. I also noticed several hornbills, but they appeared to have been only attracted by curiosity. Mr. BAMPFYLDE informed me that, on a previous visit, he had seen a large green snake settled on an overhanging branch near which the bats passed and that occasionally he managed to secure ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... Highlander of the Isles, sat upon a barrel-head sawing at a fiddle, and the shrill scream of it filled the barn. Tone he did not aspire to, but he played with Caledonian verve and swing, and kept the snapping time. It was mad, harsh music of the kind that sets the blood tingling and the feet to move in rhythm, though the exhilarating effect of it was rather spoiled by the efforts of the little French Canadian who had another ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... with eagerness. She lay back in the firelight, her beautiful brow and eyes softly illuminated. He felt within him a sudden snapping of restraints. Why—why refuse what was so clearly within his grasp? Love has many manners—many entrances—and ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with more active and jerky motions, the thing became possessed. It vibrated as though in doubt, then moved off in continued restlessness. Not by any means could Fisette end these vagaries. After a little, a slow light grew in his eyes, his strong face broadened into a smile and, snapping back the compass lid, he ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... snapping, like the noise of a miniature fusillade. A score of the matches had been ignited by ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... a man snapping his fingers at his Bishop. (As Henry the Eighth at the Pope,—and the modern French and English cockney at all ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... was not born to be shot in that manner. As he felt that grip on his throat, he suddenly realized his strength, and with one great wrench he tore himself free, snapping and snarling in true savage fashion, and showing his fang-like teeth in an appalling manner. He would have sprung straight at the throat of his master, but that at that moment there was a flash of fire, a terrific bang, ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... past than yesterday—thou didst bid thy mistress call at me from her balcony; thy servants by thy will did cast mud on me, and thy hounds sped snapping after me,'"—whereby we may infer they went hunting in Venice, in the fifteenth century. It must have been rather dangerous running. Nor could the Venetian nobles of that good old time have been very proper; for Leone and Ubaldo justify themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... were fishing for shrimps. The taller of the two, a curly-haired, red-cheeked girl of eighteen, was rowing. The other, short and rather chubby, now and again lifted a pocket net of wire-screening, and, shaking a score or more of slimy, snapping creatures into one corner of it, gave a dexterous twist and neatly dropped the squirming mass into a ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... crime-haunted husband, and the ignorant negroes who served him,—society varied now and then by one or two men revolting enough in speech and aspect to drive Hitty to her own room, where, in a creaking chair, she rocked monotonously back and forth, watching the snapping fire, and dreaming dreams of a past that seemed now but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... the Swiss, the man pursues, stamping with energy, marking the time by exulting flings, or snapping of the fingers, in delighted confidence of succeeding at last; but the maiden coyly, demurely, foots it round, yet never gets out of the way, intending to ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the shovel, forgot the human whom he had been fearfully trying to propitiate, forgot everything except the dreadful objects which clung to him and pulled his hair. He rolled from beneath the table, a shrieking, kicking, snapping cyclone. And that kitchen was ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... his eyes snapping with the very thought of what might happen—"Master, there's a lad here with five barley cakes and two small fishes—" and (oh, the tragedy of it!) then he must have caught Philip's hard-boiled eye. He must have thought, "Now, Philip is saying I'm a fool for suggesting such ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... would serve my turn well enough. I am little used to sword or harness that I have not wrought myself, because I do not well know what blows the one will bear out without being cracked or the other lay on without snapping." ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... New York captain stood looking on. The New York man had tilted himself against a post and stood there holding one arm around it, supporting himself. He waved the other hand foolishly in time to the music, now and then snapping his ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... saw that circumstances had organized a pool to corner me and my Christmases, I spent a couple of days sending up rain-making language. Then I settled down to work like a bronco does to harness after kicking off the dashboard and snapping ...
— Colonel Crockett's Co-operative Christmas • Rupert Hughes
... she does not wish for your championship, that in her eyes the trouble in the house is in fact caused by you. You must remember that when a woman loves a man she makes excuses for his faults of temper; his irritable moods, sharp expressions, and what you call snapping and snarling do not seem half so bad to her as they do to a third person, especially when that third person is her partisan. Instead of your adding to her happiness by renouncing your idea of going into the army, and of deciding to remain here in some position or other to take care of her, as, ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... netting was hung at the "front door" of the white canvas house, though really there was no door, just two flaps of the tent that could be tied together. But the netting kept out the bugs. Fortunately there were no mosquitoes, though all sorts of moths, snapping bugs and other flying things came around whenever ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis
... with patches of birch-trees. NAPOLEON'S army has just arrived on the scene, and is making its bivouac for the night, some of the later regiments not having yet come up. A dropping fire of musketry from skirmishers ahead keeps snapping through the air. The Emperor's tent stands in a ravine in the foreground amid the squares of the Old Guard. Aides and other ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... stir, hands were thrown up. One struck at his face, and the fingers were stiff; one arm was cast over his shoulders, and Andy heard the intake of breath which precedes a shriek. Not a long interval—no more, say, than the space required for the lash of a snapping blacksnake to flick back on itself—but in that interim the hands of Andy were buried in the ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... the long drive. The countryman, who had grown rich in the last three days, offered to buy the thin little ass which had carried me so far and so well. He observed that he was blind of one eye, which I had never found out, and I do not believe it was true. The way he showed it was by snapping his fingers close to the eye in question. The donkey winked, and the countryman said that if the eye were good the beast would see that the noise was made by the fingers, and would not be frightened, and would ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... north-east of Porquerol. The stratagem succeeded; for before the enemy were aware of the approach of the Southampton, the ship was alongside of the French cruizer. Captain Macnamara cautioned her commander not to make a fruitless resistance; but he replied by snapping his pistol, and pouring in a broadside. In a moment, the English boarded, led on by Lieutenant Lydiard, with an impetuosity that nothing could withstand. After ten minutes' spirited resistance on the part of the French captain and a hundred of his men under arms, the 'Utile' surrendered, ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... power of Dunn's he had acquired in far-off lands, where life may easily depend on the snapping of a twig or the right interpretation of a trampled grass-blade, and he was using it now, almost unconsciously, so as to make his presence near Ella and Clive as unobtrusive as possible, when his keen eye caught sight of ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... fashion, and went through an inspection by a number of the businesslike German militariat attached to the Zollamt, or customs service. For ten minutes I stood in suspense while a fiery-looking officer, with a snapping blue eye, looked through my credentials in silence. He wrote my name in a notebook, looked through my eye as if he would read my very soul, and then, without a remark, passed me on. I filed through a narrow gate—and so into the ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... trade. Though the detective in real life is as little as may be like the Inspector Buckets and the Javerts of fiction, certain characteristics persist. Broffin thought he knew the worth of boldness; where it was a mere matter of snapping the handcuffs upon some desperate criminal, the boldness was not wanting. But now, when he found himself face to face with the straightforward expedient, the craft limitations bound him. Instantly he thought of a dozen good reasons why he should make haste slowly; and he recognized ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... included Heloise and Mimi—the two parties forgot the gory chasm that divided them. When they dropped suddenly at a chance word to the present that gripped even these glittering snow fields with its red insatiable fingers, Kate, as ever, was equal to the formidable moment and cried out, snapping her fingers at the blue ether so tranquilly ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... first and foremost. Angelika Nagel used in conversation modern Christiania slang which is the latest development of the language. In the choice of expressions, words such as hideous were applied to what was the very opposite of hideous, such as "hideously amusing," "hideously handsome." "Snapping" to anything that was liquid, as "snapping good punch." One did not say "PRETTY" but "quite too pretty" or "hugely pretty." On the other hand, one did not say "bad" for anything serious, but with comical moderation "baddish." Anything that ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... it was a great string of fish to be caught on a Saturday afternoon, when all that the Crofield sportsmen around the mill-pond could show was six bullheads, a dozen small perch, a lot of "pumpkin-seeds" not much larger than dollars, five small eels, and a very vicious snapping-turtle. ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... Guert drew each bridle from its animal, and gave a smart crack of his whip. The liberated horses started back with affright—snorted, reared, and, turning away, they went down the river, free as air, and almost as swift; the incessant and loud snapping of heir master's whip, in no degree tending to diminish their speed. I ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... sweet grassy taste. Thin wisps fell across his face, and between them he looked up into the blue sky, lazy and contented. Perfect stillness reigned around him; only as from time to time he turned his head the dry grass crackled and rustled, sounding in his ears like the snapping of twigs ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... visible as he went before him into the church was as distractingly irritating as Ralph's contempt; the buzz in the voice of a cantor who seemed always to sing on great days was as distressing as his own dog's perversity at Overfield, or the snapping of a bow-string. ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... reply was of a nature known to Mrs. Kingdom and her circle as "snapping one's head off." He drew his chair to the table as Bella brought in the tray and, accepting a cup of tea, began to discuss with his daughter the events which had ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... the stockings, into which Lizzie put the candy and oranges, Amos sat long staring at the base burner. Without, the moon sailed high. Wood snapping in the intense cold was the only sound on the wonder of the night. Something of the urgent joy and beauty of the Eve touched Amos, for he finally rose ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... getting at them. They are nasty, greedy, cruel creatures, these foxes and mammy says, I cannot be too watchful to preserve my chickens from them; for they are very cunning, and are always ready to seize the first opportunity of snapping up any thing that is left in their way." John agreed, that all Tom said was quite true; for he remembered, he had suffered himself from the depredations; having had a whole brood of young ducks devoured in one night, when he lived near Langholm. ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... raging, leaving in front of us a growing area of black ashes. We were now between two fires; the great conflagration from which we were trying to protect ourselves came on from the west like a roaring tornado, its ashes falling all about us, its hot breath beginning to scorch us, its snapping and crackling now reaching the ear along with its roar; while on the east was the fire of my own kindling, growing in speed, racing off away from us, leaving behind it our haven of refuge, a tract swept clean of food for the flames, but hot ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... here and there. Dust arising in clouds, settling into a hazy mist, only to be shattered again, as some rushing rider rode recklessly through it. Yells, shouts, the snapping of whips, the barking of heavy calibred revolvers, now and then the ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... encampment. Up she went into the air in a moment, and then turned right around and came head on at the cart. I gave her the double thong across her face to send her back again, and Satan, seizing the opportunity, rushed against the bank, dragging her with him, and snapping the shaft." ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... illusions,—he whose feats in battle, filling Dhananjaya with fear, had made the latter for such a long period avoid a single combat with him,—alas, how could that hero be slain in battle? How could he be slain by foes unless one of these had happened to him viz., the destruction of his car, the snapping of his bow, and the exhaustion of his weapons? Who could vanquish that tiger among men, like a real tiger, endued with great impetuosity, Karna, while shaking his formidable bow and shooting therefrom his terrible ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... path, crossed and recrossed by rustic bridges, ran a small rivulet. The gurgling of its miniature falls, like the sound of water coming from the neck of a jug, the occasional cawing of a crow, and the snapping of twigs beneath his feet were the only interruptions to the silence. Here was a sudden hushed restfulness, as grateful as the draught of water he had drunk ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... last, Mads Nilssen seized his oars and pulled till they seemed on the point of snapping; ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... and she had neat hands. Thus her time was spent in such work as she deemed useful in the circumstances, or such as occupied her mind healthily. She made a handsome fur cap for herself against the biting wind, which now came snapping off the icy highlands of the coast, and she sketched, and designed, and photographed. Above all, she was cheerful and self-reliant. There was not much in common between the brother and the sister save perhaps their aloofness from strangers. I questioned much ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... shan't break my heart; I'm a good loser. And I'm a good fighter, too; perhaps I shan't lose." And snapping off a sprig of geranium, she pressed it to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in the library of his Washington home, before a snapping log fire, reading a letter. Mr. Atkins had, as he would have expressed it, "served his people" in Congress for so many years that he had long since passed the hotel stage of living at the Capital. He rented a furnished house on an eminently respectable street, and the polished doorplate ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... snapping twigs and rustling leaves marked his going, however; and Patsy leaped the brook and settled herself, tailor fashion, in the midst of the sunshine and the lady's-slippers. She unpinned the rakish beaver and ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... from the front could be made only by the lake, save for short distances on either side. Across these spaces Flores had sprinkled dry twigs and so sensitive had his hearing become by his constant watchfulness that he would awake instantly upon the snapping of one of these. As a further precaution he placed his sheep at night within this enclosure, knowing that no one could approach without ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... or string, and connect them to lamp-sockets screwed into attachments under the gas-burners—elaborated later into what was known as the "combination fixture." As a result it was no uncommon thing to see bright sparks snapping between the chandelier and the lighting wires during a sharp thunder-storm. A startling manifestation of this kind happened at Sunbury, when the vivid display drove nervous guests of the hotel out into the street, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... The dust rose in clouds from the sanded floor; he leaped straight up amongst the deal tables, struck his heels together, squatted on one heel in front of old Preble, shooting out the other leg, uttered wild and exulting cries, jumped up to whirl on one foot, snapping his fingers above his head—and a strange carter who was having a drink in there began to swear, and cleared out with his half-pint in his hand into the bar. But when suddenly he sprang upon a table and continued to dance among the glasses, the landlord interfered. ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... and calm enough for Capetown—yet plainly feeling was strained tight to snapping. A member rose to put a question, and prefaced it with a brief invective against all Boers and their friends. He would go on for about ten minutes, when suddenly angry cries of "Order!" in English and Dutch would rise. The questioner commented with acidity on the manners ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... on our way, when a man, whose face I could not see, recognised Lescaut. He had no doubt been watching for him near his home, with the horrible intention which he now unhappily executed. 'It IS Lescaut!' said he, snapping a pistol at his head; 'he shall sup tonight with the angels!' He then instantly disappeared. Lescaut fell, without the least sign of life. I pressed Manon to fly, for we could be of no use to a dead man, and I feared being arrested by the police, who ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... river, with a piece of meat in his mouth, when he saw his own shadow reflected in the stream below. Thinking that it was another dog, with a piece of meat, he resolved to make himself master of that also; but in snapping at the supposed treasure he dropped the bit he was carrying, ...
— Rock A Bye Library: A Book of Fables - Amusement for Good Little Children • Unknown
... floor; changing skirts meant nothing to her. Like all women of the old regime in New York, she wore her hair dressed very high and it was surmounted by a small black hat covered with feathers, ruthlessly exposing her large square face with its small snapping black eyes and prominent nose. A high-boned collar of net supported what was left of her throat. She wore no jewels, as she clung to the rigorous law of her youth which had tabued the vulgar display of ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... creep along, but silently, For, oh, the dawn is coming; I creep along, for I have heard A flint-tipped arrow, humming; And I have heard a snapping twig, Above the wind's low laughter; And I have known—and thrilled to know, That ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... of Caddam, flinging Gavin and the doctor at each other as a wheel rose on some beech-root or sank for a moment in a pool. I suppose the wood was a pretty sight that day, the pines only white where they had met the snow, as if the numbed painter had left his work unfinished, the brittle twigs snapping overhead, the water as black as tar. But it matters little what the wood was like. Within a squirrel's leap of it an old woman was standing at the door of a mud house listening for the approach of the trap that was to take her to the ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... day that I tell of he galloped away from his home scattering largesse of gold, as I have said, and passed through many kingdoms, the dragon snapping at maidens as he went, but being unable to eat them because of the bit in his mouth, and earning no gentler reward than a spurthrust where he was softest. And so they came to the swart arboreal precipice of the unpassable forest. The dragon rose at it with a rattle of wings. ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... unfavourable, packed her trunks. She managed to get away just in time, as a warrant for her arrest was actually being made out. But if she did not leave Berlin with all the honours of war, it is at any rate recorded that "she left this city of pigs with a high head and a snapping of her fan." ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... the engine room, and turned on more speed. He was about to go back to the pilot house, to set the automatic steering apparatus to coincide with the course mapped out, when there was a crash of metal, an ominous snapping and buzzing sound, followed by a ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... first he could not be considered first class, but he was much interested in the subject, and allowed me to hypnotize him repeatedly. After a few evenings he became very easily influenced and one of the best subjects I had ever had. I could put him to sleep in a moment, simply snapping my fingers and telling him I wished him to sleep; of course this can only be done with sensitives ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... with their old sheets. Huh! I had made sure to carry Tige, my bulldog, hid under my coat, and I just let him loose. It makes me sick with laughing even now when I remember how those sillies tore off, with that pup snapping at their legs." ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... the artist, she heard a quick, snapping sound, and saw the beautiful Bohemian glass paper-cutter her guardian had been using lying shivered to atoms on the rug. The fluted handle was crushed in his fingers, and drops of blood oozed over the left hand. Ere she could allude to it, he thrust his hand ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... convulsions, the nervous contortions of the limbs, the snapping of the tendons had ceased; but her neck and her breast, which was uncovered where her dress was unbuttoned, moved up and down as if waves were rising and falling under the skin, and the rustling of the skirts showed that the movement extended to her feet. ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... of the Bushman has not one pleasing feature; it seems to consist of a collection of snapping, hissing, grunting, sounds; all more or less nasal. Of their religious creed it is difficult to obtain any information; as far as I have been able to learn, they have a name for the Supreme Being; and the Kaffre word ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... performers themselves to further exertions. Getting gradually, however, too much into the spirit of the thing to be content with being merely an onlooker, Donald all at once capered into the middle of the floor, snapping his fingers and thumbs, and calling out to the musicians to strike up "Caber Feigh;" and, without waiting to hear whether his call was obeyed, he commenced a vigorous exhibition of the highland fling, to the great amazement of the bystanders, who, instantly abandoning their ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... in silence alter these explanations. The sound of the snapping wings of the grasshoppers came through thewindows, and a locust high in a poplar sent down ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... after that, like a flitting will-o'-the-wisp, watched his flashlight moving about amongst the trees. Then presently the cheery blaze of a fire from where he was at work sprang up, and she heard the crackle of resinous pine knots—then a great crashing about, the snapping of branches as he broke them from larger limbs—and a rapid fire of small talk ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... mingled with the booming thunder from above he leaped toward the panther, who could only claw futilely with one huge paw while he clung to the branch with the other; but the ape-man did not come within that parabola of destruction. Instead he leaped above menacing claws and snapping fangs, turning in mid-air and alighting upon Sheeta's back, and at the instant of impact his knife struck deep into the tawny side. Then Sheeta, impelled by pain and hate and rage and the first law of Nature, went mad. Screaming and clawing he attempted to turn upon ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... further, but called from the open door, "Sukey, Sukey! Suk, Suk, Suk!" A plaintive lowing responded; then the snapping sound of a cow's eager hoofs; the hoarse drumming of the milk in the bucket followed, subduing itself to the soft final murmur of the strippings in the foam. Jane carried the milk to the spring house before she reappeared in the cabin with a cup ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... curiously at Thom's listless hand, cocked ears challengingly at Chugungatte, and hunched down upon his haunches before Tantlatch. The spear rattled to the ground, and the dog, with a frightened yell, sprang sideways, snapping in mid-air, and on the second leap cleared ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... crickets, and the katydids, the scampering mice, and the big-eyed owls, and the little stars, snapping their tiny fingers of light up in the ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... snapping sparks, and the matter might have waxed even warmer had not Rachel reentered the room for a pencil she had dropped. The head prefect pricked up her ears at the sound of the disturbance, whereupon Mabel and Bertha, who ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... and, exerting all his strength, he slowly pulled his body up, until he fell forward into the driver's seat. Swift as he had been, the action was not quickly enough conceived to avert disaster. He had the reins in his grip when the swinging pole struck the steep side of the bluff, snapping off with a sharp crack, and flinging down the frightened animals, the wheels, crashing against them, as the coach came to a sudden halt. Hamlin hung on grimly, flung forward to the footrail by the force of the shock, his body bruised and aching. One horse lay ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... likewise, be enabled to distinguish between rabies and distemper. When a person, unacquainted with dogs, sees a dog struggling in a fit, or running along unconscious of every surrounding object, or snapping at everything in his way, whether it be a human being or a stone, he raises the cry of "mad dog," and the poor brute is often sacrificed. The very existence of a fit is proof positive that the dog is not mad. No epilepsy accompanies rabies in any ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... first vein. When Matthews looked up, the slant of the shaft had cut off the sky. Brydges didn't bother clambering out of the bucket. He was silent and kept hold of the dependent cable. Suddenly, there was a rumble as of the hoist flying backward, then the whip lash of a taut rope snapping, and the cable whirled down in a ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... made an unsuccessful attempt to engage Philippa in conversation. This failing—for Philippa was watching Mowbray disappearing toward Williamsburg—the melancholy Jacques made friends with the lap-dog, who at first was propitious, but ended by snapping at his fingers. ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... broke in the open air, by snapping off a little of the small stem with my fingers, others by crushing it with a small pair of Plyers; which I had no sooner done, then the whole bulk of the drop flew violently, with a very brisk noise, into multitudes of small pieces, some of which were as small ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... what people say," returned the young fellow, snapping his fingers. "Is it not a pity you are saying all this to me just when I am going away and am not likely to see any of them for the next six months? You are very hard on me to-night, father; and I can't think what it ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... escapes, more especially from the fore-sheet blocks; but he succeeded in cutting everything adrift, and in leaving nothing attached to the spar, but the bolt-rope of the head of the sail. It is true, little effected this object, when the knife could be applied, the threads of the stout canvass snapping ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... (I tremble while I pen it), Winehelsea's Earl hath cut the British Senate— Hath said to England's Peers, in accent gruff, "That for ye all"[snapping his fingers] and ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... evidence of a constant joy in life and of a placid conviction that Providence or some other philanthropist who had always taken care of them always would. Teeth were not so universally splendid as on the plateau, but the luminous, snapping black eyes more than made up for this ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... sat down on a chair, a rifle over his knee, and amused himself with snapping the lock; but I could see that his ebullition of light spirits (the only one I ever knew him to display) had already come to an end, and was succeeded by ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seemed to strike an invisible target in the centre of the room, and thereupon ensued a new and worse confusion. Sounds as of huge planks lifted at one end and then allowed to fall, slamming upon the floor, hard, wooden claps, crashes, and noises of splitting and snapping, filled the shanty. The rough boards of the floor jarred and trembled, and the table and chairs were jolted off their feet. Instinctively, I jerked away my legs, whenever the invisible planks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... all looking for. Well, for one thing you can't put me on a vigilance committee with folks suspecting me. It isn't fair either way, to me or them. Then, in the second place, I've got a say. I tell you, Doc, straight up and down, as man to man, I don't hunt with hounds that are snapping at my shoulders in the run. I'm either a rustler or I'm not. I choose to say I'm not. That being so I guess I'm the most interested in running these gophers, who are, to their holes. Well, that's what I'm going to do. But I'm going ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... to the music by snapping the second finger and thumb, and holding the three remaining fingers upright. Their voices were very sweet and mellow, and they sung in parts. When they had gone, they were relieved by others, who sung the same tune, and at last ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... himself through day after day of fever, waiting for MacVeigh. At first he had been filled with hope. That first glimpse of the sun they had seen through the little window on the morning that Billy left for Fort Churchill had come just in time to keep reason from snapping in his head. For three days after that he looked through the window at the same hour and prayed moaningly for another glimpse of that paradise in the southern sky. But the storm through which Isobel had struggled ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... stopped snapping her fingers at Germania and looked at her daughter. "There isn't much about this house that you let me have as I want it. You took me away from my old friends and brought me up here where it's so stylish I don't know a soul. I wonder I haven't lost my voice, I've ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... care not that for it!' said he, snapping his fingers. 'Let the United States look to herself if she refuses to help us! As for you, Senor,' he continued in milder tones, but with a threatening note, 'if, as you tell me, you are no longer our friend, as a gentleman you ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... of electrical excitement; among domestic animals the cat furnishes a remarkable instance. When dry and warm, the back of almost any full-grown cat (the darker its color the better) can be excited by rubbing it with the hand in the direction of the hair, a process which is accompanied with a slight snapping noise, and in the dark by flashes of pale blue light. When a piece of glass is rubbed with silk, or a stick of red sealing-wax with woollen cloth, each substance acquires the property of attracting and repelling feathers, straws, threads of cotton, and other light substances; the substances just ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... spared yourself and not spoiled the pie," thought Stannard as he looked about him over the scene of desolation. The men were snapping their tin mugs and the refilled canteens to the saddle rings. The captain rode over to 'Tonio, a kindly light in his blue-gray eyes. He whipped off the right gauntlet and held ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... after, as Susan was snapping out her dish-towels, she spied her neighbor meandering back and forth among the clover blossoms. Later she observed her standing—ruminative and ruminating, so to speak—at the fence. There was always a potent ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... the following morning, enjoying the sweet, crisp breeze with its odor of dew-laden meadows. After sniffing delightedly for a few moments, she skipped up and down the long veranda, calling to the birds and snapping her fingers at some curious squirrels. Sally heard the joyous child and came out to ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... backed away from him, frightened at this stranger who had appeared from nowhere. He followed, trying in a whisper to soothe the animal. It backed into a small pinon, snapping ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... I care for that!" said John, snapping his fingers. "He's welcome to his rubbishing books; they don't amount to much, anyway. I don't believe they cost more than two dollars at the most. If you'd like to see what I got for my essay, ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... gave him and with characteristic indifference to danger stooped over the dog, whose spirit he admired, and tried to swathe his head in its heavy folds. But, torn, blinded, baffled, the Dane was undefeated. He wrenched his jaws out of their mufflings and rolled his head from side to side, snapping right and left. "Oh Billy," cried Isabel, "you know me, lie down, dear old man!" A pure-bred dog when sight and hearing are gone will recognize a familiar scent. In an agony of pity Isabel flung her arm over the ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... fell to silence, after the last words, a stillness came upon the lamp-lit room, a hush broken only by the snapping of the pine-root fire on the hearth and by the busy ticking of the clock upon the chimneypiece. Then, after a minute's pause, Craig reached over and took Gabriel ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... by an appropriate tune; and men sometimes danced with great spirit, bounding from the ground, more in the manner of Europeans than of Eastern people. On these occasions the music was not always composed of many instruments, and here we find only the cylindrical maces and a woman snapping her fingers in the time, in ...
— The Dance (by An Antiquary) - Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. • Anonymous
... over the copper bridge into a broad valley. By the roadside there was a high crossbar from which depended heavy cuts of meat—lamb and pork and veal. Two large bitch dogs were jumping at the meat and then snarling and snapping at each other. ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... the tangle of State and private intrigues that enmeshed her, the fire burned low and the snapping of an occasional spark checked and soothed until her mind slipped into more peaceful channels. She looked about the quiet room. The firelight threw her face into relief and accentuated the faint lines of pain that had come during the last few weeks; a pensive touch ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... accord, and looked out over the great gray expanse that lay before them, and then up at the hills and the pines etched in black against the sky. Nothing competitive here, Fanny thought, and took a deep breath. She thought of to-morrow's work, with day after to-morrow's biting and snapping at its heels. ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... interposed de Retz, as the Chancellor looked up with anger in his eye; "have out your quarrels as you will—after the snapping of the trap. Remember that this which we do is a matter of life or death for all ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... to his height in the bow of his canoe, and began to speak rapidly in a low voice. Immediately the animal bobbed into sight again, his wicked little eyes snapping with intelligence. It took him some moments to determine what these motionless, bright-coloured objects might be. Then he turned toward the land, but stopped short as his awakened senses brought him the reek of the young men who had hemmed in his shoreward escape. He ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... exclamation of delight. "Come," he said, snapping his fingers at Waggie, "let us see what we can do to talk the old ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... greatness, or what seemed to him as such, wherein he saw himself wealthy and powerful, surrounded with luxury and with the ministers of every pleasure, that he was suddenly and sharply awakened by a trifling incident—the snapping of a dead twig in the copse hard by. In an instant the glittering gossamer of thought was swept aside, and the young fellow was all ear and eye. The wind had dropped for some time, and the silence was intense; that solemn hush seemed to pervade ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Scott, or Major Andrew Henry. He is our corporal. He is sixteen years old, and has snapping black eyes, and ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... up with fans—all the Snow Man's family had a lovely floating gait—and the scholars took them with feeble curtesies, and began fanning. A stiff north wind blew in at the windows. The forest was all creaking and snapping with the cold. The poor children, fanning themselves, on an ice divan, would certainly have frozen if the Snow Man's wife had not suggested that they all have a little game of "puss-in-the-corner," to while away the time before ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... for the beautiful part of it," said the happy wife, snapping her handkerchief in his face, with an air of mock resentment; "but I am thinking of home. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson |
