"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw at once that he had been caught in his own trap, for the music was utterly unfamiliar. The rondo was no wonderful piece of intricacy, such as a professional might choose. On the contrary, it was simple, and quite within the capabilities of a young and ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of the platforms are 3 ft. 10 in. above the top of the rail and on a level with the floors of the cars, so that passengers may enter or leave trains without using steps, as all cars which will enter the Pennsylvania Station, New York City, are to be provided with vestibules having trap-doors in the floor to give access to either high or low platforms. Details of the platforms are shown on Plates ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • E. B. Temple
... himself, it would be nothing; but he has a wife, mind you!—and if you ever find yourself face to face with that wife, you will shake in your shoes as if you were on the first step of the scaffold, your hair will stand on end. The Presidente is so vindictive that she would spend ten years over setting a trap to kill you. She sets that husband of hers spinning like a top. Through her a charming young fellow committed suicide at the Conciergerie. A count was accused of forgery—she made his character as white as snow. She all but drove a person of the highest quality from the ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... that time in possession of a considerable property, heavily mortgaged to one friend, and a wife of some attraction, on whose affections another friend held an encumbering lien. One day it was found that he had secretly dug, or caused to be dug, a deep trap before the front-door of his dwelling, into which a few friends, in the course of the evening, casually and familiarly dropped. This circumstance, slight in itself, seemed to point to the existence of a ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... was done Hanssen and I set out to explore. We were roped, and therefore safe enough. It required some study to find a way out of the trap we had run ourselves into. Towards the group of mountains last described — which now lay to the east of us — it had cleared sufficiently to give us a fairly good view of the appearance of the glacier in that direction. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... small strips, the selvage way of the material, about an inch wide; strip this thread by thread on each side, leaving the four centre threads; this gives about six-and-thirty pieces, fringed on each side, which are tied together at one end, and fastened to the trap of the register, while the threads, unravelled, are spread gracefully about the grate, the lower part of which is filled with paper shavings. This makes a very elegant and very cheap ornament, which is much stronger, besides, than those ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... An advantage of scouting is, that, when it comes to a standing camp, with its attendant evils of dirt, smells, and sickness, your business carries you away, in front, or out along the flanks, where you play at hide-and-seek with the enemy, trap and are trapped, chase and are chased, and where you bivouac healthily and pleasantly, if not in such full security, at some old Dutch farm, where probably fowls are to be bought, or milk and butter; or under groups of mimosa trees among stoney deserted kopjes, ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... ten or twelve feet long by four or five deep, with the loose earth banked up a few inches high on the exposed sides. All the pits bore names, more or less felicitous, by which they were known to their transient tenants. One was called "The Pepper-Box," another "Uncle Sam's Well," another "The Reb-Trap," and another, I am constrained to say, was named after a not-to-be-mentioned tropical locality. Though this rude sort of nomenclature predominated, there was no lack of softer titles, such as "Fortress ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Marriage was a trap, masking its steel jaws and its chain under flowers. What changelings brides were! A man never led away from the altar the woman he led thither. Before marriage, so interested in a man's serious talk and the business of his life! After marriage, unwilling to listen to any news of import, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... envelope laying there on that desk with its lease waiting to be signed to-morrow, I—I could squeeze my eyes shut so tight and wish I didn't never have to open them again on this—this house and this drudgery. If you marry wrong, baby, I'm caught. Caught in this house like a rat in a trap." ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... must have information of all this sent to Miss Lorton's bankers in London, and her solicitors, so as to prevent Gualtier from accomplishing his fourth step, and also in order to secure their co-operation in laying a trap for him which will certainly insure ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... eleven, and Mr. Crips was trudging contentedly along, the road, swinging his bag and singing his tender lay, at peace with the world, and buoyed with great hopes, when a trap drove up and a voice out of the ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... plumes won't kill 'em, an' I don't think it hurts 'em much," said the captain, thoughtfully. "Maybe we can rig up some sort of trap that will do the work without killin' 'em. It's time for bed, now, lads, but think it over and, perhaps, we can hit on some scheme. Had we better take turns ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... game than cricket, and can be traced to the beginning of the fourteenth century. The modern game differs little from that which the old pictures describe, except in the shape of the trap which holds the ball. But the most ancient of all games of this nature is golf, or goff (as it used to be spelt), which was played with a crooked club or staff, sometimes called a bandy. Scotsmen are very fond of this game, ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... principles on which he withstood the movement in France, and second, to his attitude upon the subject of parliamentary reform. The contradiction is in fact only superficial. Burke was not the man to fall unawares into a trap of this kind. His defence of Catholic relief—and it had been the conviction of a lifetime—was very properly founded on propositions which were true of Ireland, and were true neither of France nor of the quality of parliamentary representation in England. Yet Burke threw such breadth ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the hammer, mother said I may, so Helen lied; the maid said it was time to go to bed, but it is only five minutes to seven, so the maid lied. And he would delight especially in asking the baby brother leading questions, to trap him into saying lies. This experience did not result in making Herbert any more scrupulous in his own speech, for his imagination created interesting and dramatic situations, which he described with zeal and enthusiasm, for a long time after he had ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... anything in her mad idea; she must say nothing till she knew for certain. There could be no immediate peril, unless, of course.... The needle again! Those injections, of anti-toxin they kept talking about ... if only she knew, could be sure! Fresh terror assailed her, she felt herself caught in a trap.... ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... again that dark figure rise in my path, and look into the face beneath the sou'wester. I shall not say precisely that this endeavour shook my confidence, but it certainly made me realise that I should have to set to work very warily to trap the man, for the harder I tried to see in my mind's eye that face distinctly, the less distinct it grew. I could certainly swear to a moustache, and I felt pretty sure there was a beard as well, but not absolutely certain. He was of middle height, say between 5 feet 6, and 5 feet 10; but that was ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... should never expect an adult clergyman to fall into so patent a trap; but in the Middle Ages even learned men were credulous to an extent which we can scarcely imagine. Priests were in the habit of receiving friendly visits from pretended saints, and meeting apparitions of so-called demons, apparently without the faintest suspicion that ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... no single word; but his wall-eyes flashed white firelight and his long jaws snapped like a spring trap as Jan rebounded from the bump against his buttress of a shoulder. When those same steel jaws parted again, as they did a moment later, an appreciable piece of Jan's left ear fell from them to the ground. Jan let out a cry, an exclamation of mingled ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... wooing on those lines. Yet he had certainly developed a sinister habit of popping out at the theatre. On several occasions he had startled her by appearing at her side as if he had come up out of a trap. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... with the bride's train, and the two bridesmaids have a deuce of a time fixing it. Meanwhile the bride's father, in tight pantaloons and tighter gloves, fidgets and fumes in the vestibule, the six ushers crowd about him inanely, and the sexton rushes to and fro like a rat in a trap. Finally, all being ready, with the ushers formed two abreast, the sexton pushes a button, a small buzzer sounds in the organ loft, and the organist, as has been said, plunges magnificently into the fanfare of the "Lohengrin" march. Simultaneously ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... whar." A moment's pause and he added: "Is ye a-goin' ter stand thar all day, Cynthy Hollis, a-lookin' up an' around, and a-turnin' yer neck fust this way and then t'other, an' a-lookin' fur all the worl' like a wild turkey in a trap, or one o' them thar skeery young deer, or sech senseless critters? What ails ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... it right with Rosanna," Mr. Franklin said to me, when we were alone. "I seem to be fated to say or do something awkward, before that unlucky girl. You must have seen yourself that Sergeant Cuff laid a trap for both of us. If he could confuse ME, or irritate HER into breaking out, either she or I might have said something which would answer his purpose. On the spur of the moment, I saw no better way out of it than the way I took. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... glass. As I stood glaring at this inspiring picture, Fielding joined me and said, as he, too, feasted his eyes on the scene: "A villainous day! we shall be lucky if we get home by midnight. A lovely way to spend Christmas shut in like rats in a trap! If we only had our cook to do up the little food we have, it would not be so hard ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... forgetful, as he always bore in mind the loss of his mummy, and constantly thought of schemes whereby he could trap the assassin of his late secretary. Not that he cared for the dead in any way, save from a strictly business point of view, but the capture of the criminal meant the restitution of the mummy, and—as Braddock told everyone with whom he came ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... for in the morning all I had to do was to pay out the steel cable and the silver would descend to the dining-room, and the maid could have the table all set by the time breakfast was ready. Not once did Sarah have a suspicion that all this was not merely a household economy, but my burglar trap. ...
— The Water Goats and Other Troubles • Ellis Parker Butler
... by Tadminster, which was barely a mile out of our way, and pay a visit to Cynthia in her dispensary. Mrs. Inglethorp replied that this was an excellent idea, but as she had several letters to write she would drop us there, and we could come back with Cynthia in the pony-trap. ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... a trap for Chia Jui, under pretence that his affection is reciprocated. Chia T'ien-hsiang gazes at the face of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... gruff voice, and yet there was something feminine about it. CHARLEY had never feared to meet a woman yet, and he did not now shrink from the encounter. However his training had made him cautious. It might be a trap of the bloodthirsty Indians—those Children of Nature who were known to indulge in any cruel subterfuge to secure the white men as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... palisade with their legs. For the screen was only a screen, and not a net, and the fish could dash through it if they tried. Hence the need for legs that ever agitated the screen, and for hands that splashed and throats that yelled. Pandemonium reigned as the trap tightened. ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... necessary to make my work sufficiently stable and to support the weight. Enormous iron supports were fixed into the plaster by bolts and pillars of wood and iron wherever necessary. The skeleton of a large piece of sculpture looks like a giant trap put up to catch rats and ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... uncle's retirement was much more in his company than had been possible when I was a schoolboy and he was Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister. Pembroke Lodge became to me a second home; and I have no happier memory than of hours spent there by the side of one who had played bat, trap and ball with Charles Fox; had been the travelling companion of Lord Holland; had corresponded with Tom Moore, debated with Francis Jeffrey, and dined with Dr. Parr; had visited Melrose Abbey in the company of Sir Walter Scott, and criticized the acting of Mrs. Siddons; had ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... aviary, on a point of principle, merely because it had kept a few other birds in captivity, as the mob besieged and captured the almost empty Bastille, merely because it was the fortress of a historic tyranny. And rats have never been known to die by thousands merely in order to visit a particular trap in which a particular rat had perished, as the poor peasants of the First Crusade died in thousands for a far-off sight of the Sepulchre or a fragment of the true cross. In this sense indeed the Crusade was not rationalistic, ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... caught the mouse, which was no sooner in the trap than it began to sing. The man whistled to it, and ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 19, March 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... picturesque—reminded me of Praddy's drawin's. And an old woman comes up and says in French, 'Madame est Anglaise?' In those days I couldn't hardly speak a word o' French, but I said 'Oui.' Then she wants me to come upstairs but I thought it was some trap. However as far as I could make out there was a young Irishman there, she said, lying very sick of a fever and seemingly had ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... from the railroad yards, was coming a rush of railroad police and Pinkertons, firing as they ran. While down Pine street, gongs clanging, horses at a gallop, came three patrol wagons packed with police. The strikers were in a trap. The only way out was between the houses and over the back yard fences. The jam in the narrow alley prevented them all from escaping. A dozen were cornered in the angle between the front of her house and the steps. And as they had done, so ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... are your friends. Do not let one person monopolize you, or you her; do not have friends given to secrets, and do not let any one trap you into a promise not to tell. If her secret is all right, she cannot object to your telling your mother, and if it is silly you had better be clear of it. And do not forget that nice people do not deal in secrets, they keep their family affairs to themselves. It is the Rosa Matildas ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... which occupied the French stage till the middle of the seventeenth century, was the comedy of intrigue, borrowed from Spain, and turning on disguises, dark lanterns, and trap-doors to help or hinder the design of personages who were types, not of individual character, but of classes, as doctors, lawyers, lovers, and confidants. It was reserved for Moliere (1622-1673) to demolish all this childishness, and enthrone the true Thalia on the French stage. Like Shakspeare, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... if yer puts it dat way, I can't refuse yer. I did kinder reckon you'd stan' by me when I was hauled up, an' I t'ought your influence might fix t'ings; but, if it's der way you say, I'll take me medicine, an' never open me trap. Is dat satisfactory?" ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... Kirk, nobody had heard an oath upon his lips, save perhaps thrice or so at the sheep-washing, since the chase of his father's murderers. The figure he had shown on that eventful night disappeared as if swallowed by a trap. He who had ecstatically dipped his hand in the red blood, he who had ridden down Dickieson, became, from that moment on, a stiff and rather graceless model of the rustic proprieties; cannily profiting by the high war prices, and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Phrygians with fair curly hair and delicate hands skilled in the limner's art; the Numidians with skins of ebony and keen black eyes that shone like dusky rubies; they were agile at the chase, could capture a lion or trap the wild beasts that are so useful in gladiatorial games. There were Greeks here, pale of face and gentle of manner who could strike the chords of a lyre and sing to its accompaniment, and there were swarthy Spaniards who fashioned breast-plates of steel and fine chain mail to resist the assassin's ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... liberty or bring to public trial. The depth of the pit was about forty-five feet. Gazing intently down, I saw a faint gleam of light at the bottom, apparently coming from some other aperture than the trap-door over which we were bending, so that it must have been contemplated to supply it with light and air in such degree as to support human life. U—— declared she saw a skeleton at the bottom; Miss S——— thought she saw a hand, but I saw only ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lattice opened a single gate, on each side of which were stationed a couple of sentinels armed to the teeth; and this arrangement was repeated three times, so rigorous was the vigilance employed. At the second of the gates, where the bearer of a forged ticket would have found himself in a sort of trap, with absolutely no possibility of escape, every individual of each successive party presented his card of admission, and, fortunately for the convenience of the company, in consequence of the particular precaution used, one moment's inspection sufficed. The cards had ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of the Channel Fleet had been captured or destroyed on its way northward from Spanish waters. German strategy had drawn the Fleet southward, in the first place, by means of an international "incident" in the Mediterranean, which was clearly the bait of what rumour called a death-trap. Once trapped, it was said, German seamanship and surprise tactics ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... evidence of wrongdoing accumulated by the new Secretary of the Treasury was laid before the President he was dumfounded by its wickedness and extent, but showed himself resolute and vigorous in supporting his able and resourceful Secretary. The trap was sprung in May, 1875. Indictments were found against 150 private citizens and 86 government officers, among the latter the chief clerk in the Treasury Department, and the President's private secretary, General O. E. ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... he be beguiled," and counterfeited other letters, and the letters specified that the Pope desired Sir Tristram to come himself to make war upon the Saracens. But Tristram began to suspect the King of Cornwall of treachery, and at last Mark was obliged to walk into the trap which he had set for his enemy, and to take an oath "that he would go himself unto the Pope of Rome for to war ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... others who suffer from the same evil, I write for them, although I am not sure that they will pay any attention to it; in case my warning is unheeded, I shall still have derived this benefit from my words in having cured myself, and, like the fox caught in a trap, I shall have devoured my ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... they are a little older they avoid the green, it is too public then. It is to the green that elevens come from far and near to play their matches. All the summer through the green is a fete of cricket. It is to the green the brass bands come on Saturday. On the green, bat and trap is played till the ball disappears in shadow. The green is common; horses and cows are turned out there. All profit by the green. It is on the edge of the green the housewives come to talk in the limpid moonlight. It is on the green the fathers smoke when the little ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... very lofty and bold round tower, rising high enough above the sides of the valley to serve as a lookout beyond them. The habitable part was reached from the main gate by a steep stair, at one of the landings was a trap door opening upon a profoundly deep shaft; tradition said that this was a trap for personal enemies, who, on pretence of reconciliation were invited to the castle; on passing over the trap it opened, and they were precipitated to the bottom. It was the common tradition of the peasantry ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... a.m. resumed our march on a bearing 68 degrees, through well-wooded country till 9.35, when we ascended a fine grassy hill of trap-rock. From this hill several of a similar character were visible to the southward, while to the north numerous large dry salt lakes or marshes occupied the valley along the south-eastern declivity of which we had travelled for the last two ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... was angry with himself for walking into such a trap. It was not fear, but a deep dislike of the man who was the head and front of the trouble at the mills. He was the spokesman and leader of the strikers, and he was the real cause of the stoppage of the works. Harvey looked upon him ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... sad. Suddenly he noticed that near the feather lay a trap door. He raised it, found a stairway, and went down. Then he came before another door, knocked and listened, while inside a ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... his condemnation. He had hoped to secure at least their neutrality; they seem to have been preparing to join his enemies. The request for full exposition of a prisoner's belief has often been but a trap to ensure his martyrdom. But we have to 'be ready to give to every man a reason for the hope that is in us,' even when the motive for asking it may be anything but ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... Antalo are generally horizontal, but are in places much disturbed when interstratified with trap rocks. The fossils are all characteristic Oolite forms and include species of Hemicidaris, Pholadomya, Ceromya, Trigonia and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the young actress, Chauvelin's sudden appearance, all, all had been concocted and arranged, not here, not in England at all, but out there in Paris, in some dark gathering of blood-thirsty ruffians, who had invented a final trap for the destruction of the bold adventurer, who went by the name ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... before me. I would have it understood, however, that I am not writing a novel, and have nothing of intricate plot, or marvellous adventure, to promise the reader. The Hall of which I treat, has, for aught I know, neither trap-door, nor sliding-panel, nor donjon-keep; and indeed appears to have no mystery about it. The family is a worthy, well-meaning family, that, in all probability, will eat and drink, and go to bed, and get up regularly, from one end of my work to ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... course of this conspiracy, and, in case of failure, intending to revenge himself upon the Guises, determined to go to Blois, where the court then was in great danger of being carried off. Knowing this, the gentleman came first to the town of Blois, and there arranged a master-trap, into which the Sieur Avenelles should fall, in spite of his cunning, and not come out until steeped in a crimson cuckoldom. The said Italian, intoxicated with love, called together all his pages and vassals, and posted them in such a manner that on the arrival of the advocate, his wife, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... up at his man in the box, "take this trap round to the stable; I shall not need the horses ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... nephew Mana-ese and his wife have come here to trap pigeons. For three days we have been here. Our little hut is close by. Wilt come and ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... on the night before his five-o'clock tryst at the Manhattan, when Clayton suddenly sprang from his chair. "By God! I have it!" he cried. "Old Wade has failed to trap me. Ferris, the smug scoundrel, will glide back here and try to steal into my intimacy. He can post his slyly posted spies. I cannot then keep him off. And he will reiterate Worthington's plans, cling to me, and run me to earth. He will take ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... is, it does not seem long to me," stammered Dorothy still afraid that she would be caught in some new trap. "I love the water." ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... Cheegud, with his wife and two children, arrived from Lake Superior, and reported that since leaving the Taquimenon he had killed nothing. While inland, he had broken his axe and trap. This young chief is son-in-law of Shingauba W'ossin, principal chief of the Chippewas. He is one of the home band, has been intimate at the agency from its establishment, and is very much attached to the government. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... you were ordinary, Johnny, it would be the girl's look-out. But you're not, and I'm not going to have you in the trap she'll set for you. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "I think he is entitled to heavy damages. It was criminal carelessness in Sarsfield & Company to leave their cellar grating in that unsafe condition for weeks, to the great peril of the passers-by. It was a regular trap for lives and limbs. And this poor laborer, passing over it, has fallen and lamed himself for life! And he has a large family depending upon him for support. I have laid the damages at five ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... 186—-went in swiming today. 3 times. The 3 cornered flise are auful and bit like time. i squashed lots of them and they wont fli about in the warm sun enny more. I dont cair. me and Pewt are going to set a trap for the cat. Pewt can make bully box traps. if he ketches the cat i am going to give him my collexion of birds egs. it is werth it. i aint got menny ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... of which she knew nothing, leaving her wholly out of the conversation. The matters seemed to be very important, and the conversation was animated: it was about so-and-so who was expected, or was or was not engaged, or the last evening at the Casino, or the new trap on the Avenue—the delightful little chit-chat by means of which those who are in society exchange good understandings, but which excludes one not in the circle. The young gentleman next to Irene threw in an explanation now and then, but she was becoming thoroughly uncomfortable. She could ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... frightful risk? You are going to the slaughter. You will be seized before the first verse is out of your lips, and once in their clutches, you will never breathe free air again. It's madness!—ah, forgive me!—yes, madness! For you shut your eyes; you rush into the trap blindfolded. And that is how you serve our Italy! She sees you an instant, and you are caught away;—and you who might serve her, if you would, do you think you can move ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... theatre, when least expected by the reader. But that is not our intention; we consider that the interest of this our narration of by-gone events is quite sufficient, without condescending to what is called clap-trap; and there are so many people in our narrative continually labouring under deception of one kind or another, that we need not add to it by attempting to mystify our readers; who, on the contrary, we shall take with ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... created a more terrible trap for themselves. The name, the crater, was well deserved. It was a seething pit of death filled with smoke, and from which came shouts and cries as the rim of it blazed with the fire of those who were pouring in such a stream of ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... which it seemed exceedingly probable to me that I should be the first victim. As for Ustane, she untwined her arms and covered her eyes with her hands, while Leo, not knowing the full terror of the position, merely covered up, and looked as foolish as a man caught in such a trap would naturally do. ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... wrong, and how to fix things so that they'll happen right. It just makes me tingle all over when I can get hold of a case, and read up all about it, and I can talk it over with, mother. She's smarter'n a steel-trap, and might have been a lawyer herself. But I can't show off to father at all. He shuts right down on me so—almost makes me think I don't know anything, after all. He's a real good father, though, and ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... o'clock arrived, and it was time to go, The carriage was announced, but decent SARAH answered "No! Upon my word, I'd rather sleep my everlasting nap, Than go and ride alone with MR. PETER in a trap." ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... with less obstinacy than usual; and Cortez, with his usual keen-sightedness, at once apprehended that the feebleness of the resistance indicated some device, and that the Aztecs were allowing them to advance, only to lead them into a trap. ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... that the duke did not undervalue himself; but he had after all no intention of falling into the trap set for him. "He has made these promises (as above given) in writing," said the Duke of Savoy's envoy to his master, "but he will never keep them. The Duchess of Mayenne could not help telling me that her husband will ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and perhaps kill, an ox, notwithstanding the vigilance of guards and the light of the camp-fires. He always approaches stealthily, like the cat, except when wounded; but anything having the appearance of a trap will induce him to refrain from making the last fatal spring. This is a peculiarity of the whole feline species. It has been found in India that when a hunter pickets a goat on a plain as a bait, a tiger has whipped it off so quickly by a stroke of his paw that it was impossible ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... officer exchanged glances at the poor fellow aloft having fallen into the trap laid for him, and the temptation must have been great to have inquired whether it were not "like a weasel"; but this might have been stretching the jest too far; so the lieutenant merely called to the signal midshipman, and desired him to skull ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... taught that there was an ocean of fresh water on the outside of this metal hemisphere, which covered the earth like a great sugar-kettle, bottom upward, and was supported on pillars; and at the bottom of the ocean were trap-doors, to let the rain through; which trap-doors in the metal firmament are to be understood, when the Bible speaks of the windows of heaven. Now, the bottom of an ocean is an odd place for windows, and a trap-door is rather a strange ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... I knew that Eli was thoroughly trustworthy, and so I lifted the boards, which proved to be a trap-door, and then, putting one foot through, I realised that I stood on ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... pioneer. An English traveller of note who happened to encounter him about this time has left an interesting account of the meeting. It was on the Ohio, and Boone was in a canoe, alone with his dog and gun, setting forth on a solitary trip into the wilderness to trap beaver. He would not even join himself to the other travellers for a night, preferring to plunge at once into the wild, lonely life he so loved. His strong character and keen mind struck the Englishman, who yet saw that the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... her youngest child (a daughter about five years of age), after much search she found it drowned in a well in her cellar; which was very observable, as by a special hand of God, that the child should go out of that room into another in the dark, and then fall down at a trap-door, or go down the stairs, and so into the well in the farther end of the cellar, the top of the well and the water being even with the ground. But the father, freely in the open congregation, did acknowledge it the righteous ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... trap. I turned, and between the moving crowd caught Alain's eye and his evil smile. He had found a partner: no less a personage than Lady Frazer of the lilac sarsnet ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... between the king and his ministers, he opened the way to arraign the latter for their "wickedness" in sending an "impudent mandate" to one assembly to rescind the lawful resolution of another. The too eager Hutchinson fell into the trap, and pointed out that it was the king, rather than the ministry, who must be charged with impudence. But this was not to disprove the impudence; it was simply to make the king instead of the ministry obnoxious to the charge, and to enlighten the people as to who their real enemy ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... that! He had put himself out of court now—could never tell her what he had seen, after setting, as it were, that trap for her; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... bluntly. "If there were any possible way of getting you back to Villa Mon Reve to-night, I'd move heaven and earth to do it. But there isn't. We've no more chance of getting away from here than rats in a trap." ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... wide, hinged trap-door at the top, lying open, and we stepped through it out upon the roof. Here had been built a platform about eight feet square, with a low railing around it. I saw Godfrey's torch playing rapidly over the boards of the platform, then he marshalled ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... our fellow-boarders,—for there was not one, I believe, who did not send something. The landlady would insist on making an elegant bride-cake, with her own hands; to which Master Benjamin Franklin wished to add certain embellishments out of his private funds,—namely, a Cupid in a mouse-trap, done in white sugar, and two miniature flags with the stars and stripes, which had a very pleasing effect, I assure you. The landlady's daughter sent a richly bound copy of Tupper's Poems. On a blank leaf was the following, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the stable and examined it very carefully. They found the door unfastened; but on further consideration, discovered that the staple, which was rusty, had been broken off, so that, though the key had been turned, it could be opened as easily as if it had had no lock. They went up through the trap-door, but found nothing to assist them, till, just as they were descending, Hamilton picked up part of a Greek exercise. It was very small, not more than two inches square; a more careless observer might not have noticed it, but Hamilton seized it as a treasure, and, with the doctor's advice, set ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... old-fashioned wardrobe. When left alone they examined this article of furniture, and perceived an unpleasant odour issuing from it. By some means or other they succeeded in forcing open the door, when they perceived that at the bottom of the wardrobe was a trap-door. This they raised, and to their dismay discovered a well or vault, out of which the unpleasant odour issued. They now set fire to some newspaper, and threw it down the hole, and to their unspeakable horror saw by the ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... chalk-pile down. "I'll tell you what— It's looking for another door to try. The uncommonly deep snow has made him think Of his old song, The Wild Colonial Boy, He always used to sing along the tote-road. He's after an open door to get out-doors. Let's trap him with an open door up attic." Toffile agreed to that, and sure enough, Almost the moment he was given an opening, The steps began to climb the attic stairs. I heard them. Toffile didn't seem to hear them. "Quick!" I slammed to the door and held ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... the contagion, and smiled pleasant greetings to him when he visited at Mr. Rayne's house; there was only Honor who evaded the cunning trap, but even she was blinded a good deal. Although the eternal fitness of things made it impossible that such antithetical natures should ever blend in a harmony of any sort, he was still fortunate enough not to produce the discord that would seem to arise very naturally from such ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... After trying to trap this key-hole in every way he could, he sat down on a stone and looked at it a minute, and then said very slowly: "Well, I never! That beats me all holler! What a funny thing ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... this. Her cheeks burned, her eyes shone, and she kept saying there were a million lions and tigers in the bed; and where was the rat-trap? ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... any idea of the trap you're running into. There's more belonging to our gang than that fool detective fancies, and the minute we show up ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... of his lips drew harder together as he looked at her; but she was not prepared for the storm that broke. She did not comprehend the tempest that raged within him until he had her by the shoulders, his fingers crushing into her soft flesh like the jaws of a trap, shaking her as a terrier might shake a rat, till the heavy coils of hair cascaded over her shoulders, and for a second fear tugged at her heart. For she thought ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... up. They leave us our pipes, tobacco and matches; presently, one knocks with his pipe on the iron trap of the door and asks for water, which is brought in a tin pint-pot. Then follow intervals of smoking, incoherent mutterings that pass for conversation, borrowings of matches, knockings with the pannikin on the cell door wicket or trap for more water, matches, and bail; false ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... Tom hesitated. Was this a trap? If he and his friends entered this narrow and dark opening might not the Indian woman roll down some rock back of them, cutting off forever ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... is it deemed enough To slip the hand within the "cuff," To trap road-hogs and motor-bikes, Or merely to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... "A trap! A trap!" yelled someone far to the right, and the cry was echoed on the instant by a sound in the rear of the Diehards—a sound yet more terrible—the pounding ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fashion nowadays to ascribe hatred to non-co-operationism. And I regret to find that even Col. Wedgewood has fallen into the trap. I make bold to say that the only way to remove hatred is to give it disciplined vent. No man can—I cannot—perform the impossible task of removing hatred so long as contempt and despise for the feelings ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... Europe, demoralizing and degrading the lovely shores of the Mediterranean, by their vulgar and hateful presence. Thousands of invalids and others of all nations yearly visit the beautiful little towns along the Riviera, and this fatal trap at Monte Carlo, whereby so many are helplessly ruined, and so many suicides result, should at least have the moral voice of the world against it—in fact, an international protest, for it is a gross scandal and disgrace to the whole of Europe. All who know anything of this gambling Hades—what ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... guess I do. Everybody that has any thing to do with boats in Burlington knows all about him. He is a little wild, but he is as smart as a steel trap," replied Captain Vesey, as he was called ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... reason refused. I was much astonished to find in her only a false resemblance to M.M. I remarked as much to the ambassador, who agreed with me, but made me confess that most men, prepossessed with the idea that they were going to see M. M., would have fallen into the same trap. In fact, the longing to possess one's self of a nun who has renounced all the pleasures of the world, and especially that of cohabitation with the other sex, is the very apple of Eve, and is more delightful from the very difficulty of penetrating ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... playing a more active role in determining economic policy, are further complicating the economic climate. The Indian Government will also have to watch closely rising government expenditures and higher debt servicing which could create a debt trap by the turn of the century. Nevertheless, India should achieve economic growth of 5.5%-6.5% annually through the next several years. Even if a weak coalition government comes to power in 1996 and is ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... statute in my head; For my own proper smell, sight, fancy, feeling, With autocratic hand at once repealing Five Acts of Parliament 'gainst private stealing! 55 But yet from Chisholm who despairs of grace? There's no spring-gun or man-trap in that face! Let Moses then look black, and Aaron blue, That look as if they had little else to do: For Chisholm speaks, 'Poor youth! he's but a waif! 60 The spoons all right? the hen and chickens safe? Well, well, he shall not forfeit our regards— ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... my sire to shield me from the ills That still beset my path, not trying me With snares beyond my wisdom or my strength, He knowing I shall use them to my harm, And find a tenfold misery in the sense That in my childlike folly I have sprung The trap upon myself as vermin use Drawn by the cunning bait to certain doom. Who wrought the wondrous charm that leads us on To sweet perdition, but the self-same power That set the fearful engine to destroy His wretched offspring (as the Rabbis tell), ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and through, without a trace that could identify the murderers. Only, in the course of subsequent investigations, Il Mancino (on the 24th of February 1582) made the following statements:—That Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, had planned the trap; that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca of Bracciano, two of the Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcello himself, it seems, had come from Bracciano to conduct the whole affair. Suspicion fell immediately upon Vittoria and her kindred, together with the Duke ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... bearing perennial fruits and flowers. And he beheld mountain streams with waters glistening like the lapis lazuli and with ten thousand snow-white ducks and swans and with forests of deodar trees forming (as it were) a trap for the clouds; and with tugna and kalikaya forests, interspersed with yellow sandal trees. And he of mighty strength, in the pursuit of the chase, roamed in the level and desert tracts of the mountain, piercing his game with unpoisoned arrows. In that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... for a few seconds striving to collect himself. He could not return the way he had come. He would be caught like a rat in the trap with the arrival of dawn, if not before. Perhaps his pursuers were on his trail already. The thought spurred his numbed body to action, and lifting his head he glanced along the flat roof. Toward the center of it rose a box-like structure with ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the Pound; I know that death-trap. Half a Herd I lost there once through the conceit of a young Bull hardly out of the Spike Horn age. Well I know the Pound—even the old Indian of deep cunning who made it, Chief Poundmaker—that's how he came by his name, A'tim. But, as I was ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... it's not a great sight, I warn you—only a whitewashed, thatched cottage in a by-street. When we've seen that, we'll take a trap and drive to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... forward for eleven paces, which brought him right into the bow of the window. Here he bent down, and, with the torch in one hand, and a small magnifying lens that he was never without in the other, searched the floor eagerly for some join in the boards, which should denote the edge of a trap-door or an opening of ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... the Sweet Pea lesson, with ten of the hardest words for meanings. That's all right, but there's no church or Sunday-school. We left town to get a better chance to bring up the boys right, and the farm is fine only for what I'm tellin' ye. Every Sunday the other children trap gophers and the people sleep or visit. I do be hearin' them tellin' about it at school, and last Sunday, mind ye, wee Patsey and Bugsey wanted to make a kite, and of course ma wouldn't let them, but Jimmy up and says—he was in it, too, do you mind—he ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... saw their danger, and called upon them to fall in and retreat, but the entrance was so narrow that it was clear at a glance that ere one company could pass through it the French would be upon them, and the regiment caught like rats in a trap. ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... this trial on the morrow—the excitement of it all, the trap laid for Deroulede, the pleasure of seeing him take the first step towards his own downfall. Everyone there was eager and enthusiastic for the fray. Lenoir, having spoken at such length, had now become silent, but everyone else talked, and drank brandy, and hugged his ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... trafficked. Once he found families living in a house built of stone and mud bricks, in the crevice of a cliff, getting water from a little brook at the base of it, and raising corn and vegetables along the waterside. Their houses had no real doors. They had trap-doors in the roof, reached by a notched tree-trunk inside and one outside. The corn that grew in the little farm at the foot of the cliff was of different colors, red, yellow, blue and white. Each kind was put in a separate basket. Each kind of meal was made separately into ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... with them. This steadiness no one had had yet, but whosoever had it could easily mount the rock, and having once done so would be able to quicken all the others who have been turned to stone there. For the top of the rock was flat, and there was a trap-door on it, wherein the bird was sitting. Underneath the trap-door was water, the nature of which was that it would turn all the stones back to life again. The old man ended by saying, "Now he who succeeds ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... her tear-drops away. "No," she replied, with a wistful smile; "the chief thing is to have her like you. She's as smart as a steel trap—that woman is—and if she took the notion, I believe she could help get us a ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... by twenty. It was a large empty chamber, where nothing of any value was kept. He remembered last time he was here seeing a heap of tiles in one corner, with a pile of disused poles; pieces of rope, and old iron in another. The stairs led up through an ordinary trap-door into what was the ground-floor of the house. This, too, was one immense room, with four latticed windows looking on to the garden, and one with opaque glass on to the lane at the back; and a great door, generally kept locked, for rather more valuable things were kept here, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... voice! He is afraid; he crouches like the panther in the trap, trembling. His strength has gone ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... taking shape for some few minutes were turned almost to certainties by the half-contemptuous glance Hanky threw towards him as he uttered what was obviously intended as a challenge. He saw that all was over, and was starting to his feet to declare himself, and thus fall into the trap that Hanky was laying for him, when George gripped him tightly by the knee and whispered, "Don't—you are in great danger." And he ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... people we met with belonged to a totally different race. I saw Captain Sutter for a few moments, when he informed me that Mr. Bradley and his party had left a couple of days ago; and that a gentleman, accompanied by a man named Joe White, who, as the Captain said, used to trap for him before the gold fever came up, had been making inquiries at the Fort respecting Mr. Bradley that very day. I at once saw that this could be no other than Lacosse, and set off to see if I could meet with him. After ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... A fly-trap has been invented by Professor Clifton F. Hodge, of the University of Oregon, Eugene, Ore., which any one is free to construct and which, if used universally about stables early in the season, would greatly help toward banishing the ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... 'n' don't act excited!" Applehead eyed them sternly over his shoulder. "I calc'late we're just about t' walk into a trap." He bent—on the side away from the ridge—low over his horse's shoulder and spoke while he appeared to be scanning the ground. "I seen gun-shine up among them rocks, er I'm a goat. 'N' if it's Navvies, you kin bet they got guns as good as ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... butterflies, early and late. We kept the frogs in miniature ponds in boxes covered with netting, providing them with bamboo ladders to climb, and so tell us when it was going to be wet weather. We had also enclosures in which we kept banks of trap-door spiders, which used to afford us intense interest with their clever artifices. To these we added the breeding of the more beautiful butterflies and moths, and so, without knowing that we were learning, ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... "I didn't give you credit for being a genius, but you are as great in one way as Emerson. You've hit on one of his ideas all by yourself. He said, 'If a man can write a better book, preach a better sermon or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbours, though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten track to his door,' If you want company as bad as all that, you shall have a beaten track to your door. We'll build something better than the neighbours ever dreamed of, and it won't ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of view the skin is not the most valuable part of a tiger. Almost always before a hunt is made, or a trap is built, the villagers burn incense before the temple god, and an agreement is made to the effect that if the enterprise be successful the skin of the beast taken becomes the property of the gods. Thus it happens ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... I was able to think clearly now that the baleful eyes were off me. Here I was shut up for the night with the ferocious beast. My own instincts, to say nothing of the words of the plausible villain who laid this trap for me, warned me that the animal was as savage as its master. How could I stave it off until morning? The door was hopeless, and so were the narrow, barred windows. There was no shelter anywhere in the bare, stone-flagged room. ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to this. Then Queen Guinevere rose with all her attendants and went into the courtyard. Their horses were brought them and they mounted. Sir Lancelot was the last to pass out of the banquet hall. As he was going through the door he stepped upon a trap which Sir Malgrace had prepared for him. The trapdoor fell and dropped him ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... the necessary consequence of the Fall. This is a result which must have been foreseen by him who made mankind, and who, in the first place, made them not better than they are, and secondly, set a trap for them into which he must have known they would fall; for he made the whole world, and nothing is hidden from him. According to this doctrine, then, God created out of nothing a weak race prone to sin, in order to give them ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... when would this be done? Ali asked himself, and again came a flash of light, and he saw it all plainly enough. A trap had been laid for the English, and they were ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... back and reported to Felix. Felix, turning it over in his own mind, wondered and debated. Was this true, or a trap ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... no idea how to set about it, but I'll try on one condition. There's one thing we haven't tried against them. Set up an atom-bomb booby-trap, and I'll sit on it. If they try to contact me, you can either listen in or try to blow them up, and ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins |
