"Tongs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... carriers in the Mediterranean. This would easily account for the name Majolica. Taltavull held that it was a genuine product of the island, though he was bound to admit that no remains of manufacturing potteries had as yet been discovered. And so they went at it hammer and tongs, deduction and counter-deduction, proof and counter-proof; and the owner of that glittering mauve-marked bowl which had started the discussion threw in a well-considered word here and there to ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... Esther" 4 rosewood chairs, steamer chair Whatnot, wall-bracket, books, basket Mahogany table, small round 3-legged Long mantel mirror, gilt frame 3 oil paintings, 3 engravings Rustic seat (filled with wood) Old-fashioned heating stove, crated Candle-lantern, 2 Japanese trays Door-scraper, woodbasket Tongs-holder, hearth brush Child's garden tools 2 sofa cushions ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... with an after-dinner cup of tea, which she had brought into the drawing-room, and in putting the second lump of sugar into his saucer she paused again, thoughtfully, holding the little cube in the tongs. She was rather elaborately dressed for so simple an occasion, and her silken train coiled itself far out over the mossy depth of the moquette carpet; the pale blue satin of the furniture, and the delicate white and gold of the ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... introduces him to a friend as "My most cherished and respectable friend, one who is better acquainted with Gypsy ways than the Chef de Bohemiens a Triana, one who is an expert whisperer and horse-sorcerer, and who, to his honour I say it, can wield hammer and tongs, and handle a horse-shoe, with the best of the smiths amongst ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... Leonora, manoeuvring her bangles, commenced the ritual of refection with Harry as acolyte. 'If he doesn't come—well, he doesn't come,' she thought of her husband, as she smiled interrogatively at Arthur Twemlow, holding a lump of sugar aloft in the tongs. ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... yes, mother, so hot that we cannot touch them with our hands, and we have to take the shovel or the tongs ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... the butt. He tore my shirt off, after I would not pull it off; he ordered me to cross my hands. I didn't do that. After I wouldn't do that he went and got his gun. and broke the breech of that over my head. He then seized up the fire-tongs and struck me over the head ever so often. The next thing he took was the parlor shovel and he beat on me with that till he broke the handle; then he took the blade and stove it at my head with all his might. ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... snap the tongs, we'll have a ball, We'll sheaeke the house, we'll lift the ruf, We'll romp an' meaeke the maidens squall, A catchen o'm at ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... cloth cloaks, old coats, under petticoats, and ragged breeches. Here may be seen the lumber of the kitchen, forming a dark and confused mass for the foreground of the picture; gridirons and frying pans, rusty shovels and broken tongs, joint stools, and the fractured remains of rush-bottomed chairs. There a closet has disgorged its bowels—riveted plates and dishes, halves of china bowls, cracked tumblers, broken wineglasses, phials of forgotten physic, papers of unknown powders, seeds and dried herbs, tops of teapots, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... things as duties to be done. For a while they were very pleasant dreams, very pleasant indeed. But suddenly they changed. A terrible monster was chasing him. It had great red eyes as big as saucers, and sparks of fire flew from its mouth. It had great claws as big as ice tongs, and it roared like a lion. In his dream Farmer Brown's boy was running with all his might. Then he tripped and fell, and somehow he couldn't get up again. The terrible monster came nearer and nearer. Farmer Brown's boy tried to ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... and Leonard having tied the packet to it, it was instantly drawn up. Notwithstanding his anxiety to ascertain the fate of Amabel, Mr. Bloundel would not touch the packet until he had guarded against the possibility of being infected by it. Seizing it with a pair of tongs, he plunged it into a pan containing a strong solution of vinegar and sulphur, which he had always in readiness in the chamber, and when thoroughly saturated, laid it in the sun to dry. On first opening the shutter to answer ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... engine-turned, and possessed of the horizontal lever-escape-movement, and all sorts of things, she would buy for me if she could afford it; and we pick out the spoons and forks, fish-slices, butter-knives, and sugar-tongs, we should both prefer if we could both afford it; and really we go away as if we had got them! Then, when we stroll into the squares, and great streets, and see a house to let, sometimes we look up at it, and say, how would THAT do, if I was made a judge? And we parcel it ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... to the unspoken challenge, "I'm not afraid! Let's," and two flowing, woolly robes glided into the warm room, with its heart of glowing coals. One bold intruder nestled in the biggest arm-chair, the other fumbled for the tongs. ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... Christian Associations, Sunday schools or some other religious or reformatory enterprise. These outside activities were no hindrances to either pulpit or pastoral work; and, like that famous English preacher who felt that he could not have too many irons in the fire, I thrust in tongs, shovel, poker and all. The contact with busy life and benevolent labors among the poor supplied material for sermons; for the pastor of a city church must touch life at a great many points. Our domestic experiences ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... great chunks of the meat of a reindeer killed that day. Meanwhile, the cave fire had been replenished with dry wood and there had been formed a wide bed of coals, upon which were cast numerous stones of moderate size, which soon attained a shining heat. A sort of tongs made of green withes served to remove the stones, one after another, from the mass of coal, and drop them in with the meat and water. Within a little time the water was fairly boiling and soon there was a monster stew giving forth rich ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... but yelled out with such horrible cries, even as it had been a Divill or some tormented soul in hell...and though he deserved ten times more, yet humane nature might inforce us to pity his distress. After this with tongs and iron pincers made extreme hot in the same furnace, the executioners pinched and seared his breasts, his arms, and thighs and other fleshy parts of his body, cutting out collops of flesh and burned them before his face; afterward into the same wounds thus ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... weapons, he was borne about the town on the shoulders of six men, visiting numerous public-houses and the blacksmiths and officers of the dockyard. Before him he had a wooden anvil, and in his hands a pair of tongs and a wooden hammer, the insignia ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... Shoe and Knee Buckles Fluke and Tongs, ruff and smooth Files, Bone Buckle Brushes, Freezing Punches, Binding Wire, Steel Top Thimbles, Cypher and Brilliant Button Stones, Cypher and Brilliant Ring Stones, Ring Sparks, Motto Ring Stones, Amethysts, Garnetts, Brilliant and Cypher Earing Stones, Amethysts Foyle, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... forge-god, too, is there, The inventive son of Zeus; Fashioner of vessels fair Skilled in clay and brass's use. 'Tis from him the art man knows Tongs and bellows how to wield; 'Neath his hammer's heavy blows ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... bellows—twenty were there—working. And the twenty bellows blew into the crucibles and made bright and hot fires. Then Hephaistos threw into the fires bronze and tin and silver and gold. He set on the anvil-stand a great anvil, and took in one hand his hammer and in the other hand his tongs.' ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... in inspecting the censers, the gold vases, the tongs, the rakes for the ashes of the altar, and all the robes of the statues down to the bronze bodkin that served to curl the hair of an old Tanith in the third aedicule near the emerald vine. At the same hours he would raise the great ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... his mind, he struck match after match and peered about the cellar. Against the opposite wall he noticed a stick with curved tongs on one end of it, manipulated by a thin metal bar running to the other end. It was one of those handy implements used to lift cans down from high shelves. It stood among other articles, a rake, an old broom, but ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... oysters," corrected Taterleg gently. "You couldn't hire a cowman to eat any other kind, you couldn't put one of them slick fresh fellers down him with a pair of tongs." ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... centre, with the help of one of the large nails, they inserted the handle, and a round button at one end of the hook, made the face of the hammer. A large pebble served for an anvil, and a pair of reindeer's horns were the tongs. Such were the tools with which they fashioned the heads for two spears, which they polished and sharpened on stones, and then tied them fast with strips of reindeer-skin to thick sticks, with which they were supplied from the branches of trees which had been ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... cleaned, Macana emptied them into a large basket half filled with water, and threw in a little acorn meal and a handful of herbs. Then, using two green sticks for tongs, she drew out from among the coals some smooth gray stones which had become very hot. Brushing these off with a bunch of tules, she lifted them by means of a green stick having a loop in the end which fitted round the stones, flinging them one ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... had taken only the cufflinks, stick-pins, cameo brooches, silver candlesticks, souvenir spoons, and sugar-tongs, and then gone away, the raid would not have been too terrible; but the rogues, bribed by the horrid old King of the Oyster Mountains, a rejected suitor, were bent on getting possession of the Princess. On discovering that she had locked herself up in ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... up in the white-house kitchen, where were also the reek of scorched hair and the laughing expostulations of the Little Doctor and the boyish titter of Pink and Irish, who were curling laboriously the chaps of Miguel with the curling tongs of the Little Doctor and those of ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... with the heat of the moment, and what with the push, the marquis, being feeble, fell into an arm-chair which happened to be by. Wroth at his fall, he raises his stick and brings it down with all his might, hammer and tongs, about the cardinal's ears, calling him a little rascal, a little hound, who deserved nothing short of the stirrup-leathers. When he did at last go out, the queen had looked on from her seat at this adventure ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... fought most brutally, scratching away savagely on each other's hard shells, without doing a great deal of damage, however. But one of them had lost one eye in the fight, and so we seized him and made off, leaving the other to snap his tongs together in anger because he had nobody to pinch. It must be a dreadful thing to want to hurt somebody ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... quickly rose to a sitting posture. She opened two eyes, clear as those of a cat, and all present eyed her in astonishment. She saw the log advance, and before any one could check an unexpected movement which seemed prompted by a kind of delirium, she bounded from her bed, seized the tongs and threw the coal back into the fireplace. The nurse, the doctor, the relations rushed to her assistance; they took the dying woman in their arms. They put her back in bed; she laid her head upon her pillow and after a few minutes died, keeping her eyes fixed even ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... case of fire, though I had a plan in mind which I thought was good. Worst of all, I left the Winchesters about here and there without any particular attempt at hiding them. But I kept at the tunnel hammer and tongs. ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... squealing, their ferocity, their attempts to escape, and the bounds they gave from side to side struck the whole parsonage house community with a panic. The women screamed; the rector foamed; the squire hallooed; and the men seized bellows, poker, tongs, and every other weapon or missile that was at hand. The uproar was universal, and the Squire never before or after felt himself so great a hero! The death of the fox itself was unequal ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... fish, Elton collected a number of clean rounded stones from the beach and placed them in the midst of it. He then half-filled the calabash with water, into which, by means of a cleft stick which served the purpose of tongs, he put the red hot stones, and quickly made the water boil. By the time this was done the men returned with a very respectable sized turtle, which they had caught in a pool, into which he had been unwittingly washed. Some strips were immediately cut off him and put into the boiling pot. ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... ears alone. It is very common with teamsters and others, when they want to harness mules, to catch them by the ears, put twitches on their ears. Even blacksmiths, who certainly ought to know better, are in the habit of putting tongs and twitches in their ears when they shoe them. Now, against all these barbarous and inhuman practices, I here, in the name of humanity, enter my protest. The animal becomes almost worthless by the injuries caused by such practices. There are extreme cases in which the twitch ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... votes in New Ireland last year. I don't just remember how many—I have mislaid the figures; but I wish to tell you frankly—frankly, I say—that we did not poll many. What they need there, I think, is a determined man like yourself to pile into them hammer and tongs. That would be the way, I think. And you show me, Mr. Riley, a fair Republican increase in New Ireland—fifty out of five hundred, say—and you can lay out your own itinerary for the rest of the campaign. Now isn't ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... girls in forty states Were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates; They warbled, slightly off the air, Romantic German songs, And each of them upon her hair Employed the curling tongs, And each with ardor most intense Her buxom figure laced, Until her wilful want of sense Procured a woeful waist: For bound to marry titled mates Were Gwendolyn ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... sit near my poker and tongs, And I dream in the firelight's glow, And sometimes I quaver forgotten old songs That I listened to long ago. Then out of the cinders there cometh a chirp Like an echoing, answering cry,— Little we care for the outside world, My friend ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... companies before the enemy's earthworks—what was the good of all this heroic courage in the face of Marshal Nogi's relentless calculations? He was overjoyed to see regiment after regiment storm towards him, while from his tent he gave directions for the sharp tongs of the Japanese flanks to close in the rear ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... on an anvil, using it as a lunch table. Near Canal Street two men are loading ice into a yellow refrigerator car, and their practiced motions are pleasant to watch. One stands in the wagon and swings the big blocks upward with his tongs. The other, on the wagon roof, seizes the piece deftly and drops it through a trap on top of the car. The blocks of ice flash and shimmer as they pass through the sunshine. In Jim O'Dea's blacksmith ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... paire de tongs—et—curly moi un pew" Mr. Foker said, in an easy manner; and the valet wondering whether his master was in love or was going masquerading, went in search of the articles—first from the old butler who waited upon Mr. ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... be it more or less, forget not to utter it in a low soft tone of voice. Silence, and whatever approaches it, weaves dreams of midnight secrecy into the brain: For this cause, if thou canst help it, never throw down the tongs ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... inch long, bearing on its end two horrible things which were not exactly claws, nor fingers, nor teeth, but which partook of the nature of all three, and which came together on the infant's soft, helpless little body like a pair of tongs or the jaws of a steel trap, and drew him in to where the real jaws were waiting to make mince-meat of him. Our friend fled so precipitately that he did not see the end of the tragedy, but neither did he ever see that baby again. Before the summer had passed, the ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... sandbags, and halted under the Moree bastion under as heavy a fire of round shot, grape, and canister, as I have ever in my life been peppered with. Our artillery dashed to the front, unlimbered, and opened upon the enemy, and at it they went, hammer and tongs. We had no infantry with us; all the infantry were fighting in the city. The enemy came out against us with large bodies of infantry and cavalry, and then began the fire of musketry. It was tremendous. ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... with a laugh, and presently were at it, hammer and tongs. I may say that we were all fairly intimate friends, and thus had the advantage of entire liberty of speech. I looked daggers at the husband; he looked daggers at me, and occasionally looking at his wife, gave her a glance which was like the opening of Bluebeard's ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... on the hearth give out a dull glow which leaves the room in semi-darkness, yet lights up several objects by the hearthstone— namely, a heap of pine cones, some dried spice-wood bushes, a rude corn-popper, a snow-shovel, and a neatly-mended tongs. ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... relief at the sound of the friendly voice, and the talkative tongue once loosened could not resist the temptation to enlarge on the reply. "We have the book at home. Did ye ever see it, Mademoiselle? It's got lovely pictures! There's one man lying down and they are pinching him with hot tongs, and another being stoned, and another being boiled in oil. They were so brave that they never screeched out, but only sang hymns, and prayed beautiful prayers. I used to long to be a martyr too, but ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... told by the sweet soul herself," responded Nancy. "She wrote me a letter which would have put another girl in such a rage that she would never have touched any one of you again with a pair of tongs. But that's not Nancy King. For when Nancy loves a person, she loves that person through thick and thin, through weal and woe. I came to-day to try to find one of you dear girls. I have found you. What is the matter with you, Paulie? ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... mind. I should like to be always with mamma," says Kelly. He laughs a little, and kisses the child again, and places her gently upon the ground, and then he glances at Hermia. But her face is impassive as usual. No faintest tinge deepens the ordinary pallor of her cheeks. She has the sugar tongs poised in the air, and is apparently ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... and, after being cleansed from the adhering sand, is put into cooking baskets, thinned down with hot water to the desired condition, and cooked by means of hot stones which are held in it with two sticks for tongs. The mush, while cooking, is stirred with a peculiar stirring stick, made of a tough oak sprout, doubled so as to form a round, open loop at one end, which is used in lifting out any loose stones. When the dough is well cooked, it is either left ...
— Indians of the Yosemite Valley and Vicinity - Their History, Customs and Traditions • Galen Clark
... bags full this morning. Bead bags. Do you mind putting some coal on the fire? If there aren't any tongs, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... for THAT!" said Edmund Burgess, who had just come in to ask for a pair of tongs. "What wouldst say to the big hammer that none ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... cadets were at it "hammer and tongs." As they circled around, Codfish put out his foot, trying to trip Fred up. He failed in this, but a moment later Slugger Brown tried the trick with success, and the youngest Rover came down heavily and an instant later Nappy Martell landed on top ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... dad—that's what I'll do," ejaculated the bully, at length, and he started immediately across the field, his long legs working like a pair of tongs in his haste to get ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... knowing whether to cry or to cheer. The fight did not last long. Bob was the taller, but Frank the stouter of the two. Bob, like most bullies, was a coward, but Frank was as plucky as he was strong. Burning with righteous wrath, Frank went at his opponent hammer and tongs, and after a few minutes' ineffective parrying and dodging, the latter actually ran out of the ring, thoroughly beaten, leaving Frank in possession of the field, to receive the applause of his companions, and particularly of Bert, who gave ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... to the fireplace. The shovel and tongs were just laughing at him; and though they composed their countenances immediately, he had caught the expression, and was excessively annoyed. Philosophy at length came to his aid, especially as the poker expressed only profound deference, preserving a martial ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... Arian Heresy! We had had four lessons on this interesting topic at Chittenden's five years earlier (surely rather an advanced subject for little boys of twelve!), and some of the details still stuck in my head. A brilliant idea! Soon we were at it hammer and tongs; discussing Arius, Alexander, and Athanasius; the Council of Nicaea, Hosius of Cordova, homo-ousion and homoi-ousion; Eusebius of Nicomedia, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... turning up his mustache with the little curling tongs, he observed with self-pity his increasing haggardness. He observed it also with dismay. Looks were as important to him as to an actress. His role being youth, high spirits, and the devil-may-care, the least trace of the wearing out would do for him. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... them clean, Polly found a long-handled warming-pan; a set of fire-irons—the tongs, shovel, and andirons of the famous "acorn-top" design; and a funny old foot-warmer. A pair of ancient bellows was the last article found in the box, but the leather was so dry and old that pieces fell out when Polly tried to make the ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... red tape; and finally, a tall mantel-piece, on which stood a half-emptied ink bottle—which mantel-piece rose over a wide fire-place, surrounded with a low iron fender, on which a dislocated pair of tongs were exposed in grim resignation to the ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... are to be taken to pickle a Tadpole as a specimen for the school museum. The following is a recipe for this. Take the ugliest, dirtiest, noisiest, and most ignorant specimen that can be found. Lift it carefully with a pair of tongs into a bath full of vinegar. Close the lid and let it remain there to soak for a week. At the end of that time lift it out and scrape it well all over with a sharp substance, to get off the first coating of grime. Soak again for another week and scrape again, and so on till the ninth or tenth ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... Ellen," Dora said, presently; "they wouldn't come in here till they were dressed, and they've had their hair screwed up in hair-pins all night to make it wave, and now it's a wet day their hair won't wave after all, and their maid's going to pinch it with the fire-irons—the tongs, I suppose." ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... grave Norman is drawn in. He agrees with Mary that bubbles used to fly over the wall, and that one once went into Mrs. Richardson's garret window, when her housemaid tried to catch it with a pair of tongs, and then ran downstairs screaming that there was a ghost in her room; but that was in Harry's time, the heroic age of the ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... hillside. Stalky was brownin' 'em at a great rate, and very naturally they turned half right and began to blaze at their faithless allies, the Khye-Kheens—regular volley firin'. In less than ten minutes after Stalky opened the diversion they were going it hammer and tongs, both sides the valley. When we could see, the valley was rather a mixed-up affair. The Khye-Kheens had streamed out of their sungars above the gorge to chastise the Malo'ts, and Stalky—I was watching him through my glasses—had slipped in ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... brazen altar, whose length was twenty cubits, and its breadth the same, and its height ten, for the burnt-offerings. He also made all its vessels of brass, the pots, and the shovels, and the basons; and besides these, the snuffers and the tongs, and all its other vessels, he made of brass, and such brass as was in splendor and beauty like gold. The king also dedicated a great number of tables, but one that was large and made of gold, upon which they set the loaves of God; and he made ten thousand more ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... centre, and fell, scattering a shower of golden embers over the hearth. Rising quickly, with one of her sprightly movements, Mrs. Fowler reached for a pair of small brass tongs and pushed the broken log back on the andirons. Then she threw some fresh wood on the flames, and resumed her seat with an animated gesture as if the incident had ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... responsibility of preaching a pure gospel to a dying empire. "Such men think of nothing but their dress; they use perfumes freely, and see that there are no creases in their leather shoes. Their curling hair shows traces of the tongs; their fingers glisten with rings; they walk on tiptoe across a damp road, not to splash their feet. When you see men acting that way, think of them rather as bridegrooms than as clergymen. If he sees a pillow that takes his fancy, or an elegant table-cover, or, indeed, ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... weather wills." Bouchard bent toward the fire and with the aid of a pair of tongs drew forth the end of a broken spit, white with heat. This he plunged into a tankard of spiced port; and at once there arose a fragrant steam. He dropped the smoking metal to the floor, and drank deeply from the tankard. "Zachary, we shall see spring all glorious at Quebec, which is the most ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... or they gently blow; In hissing flames huge silver bars are roll'd, And stubborn brass, and tin, and solid gold; Before, deep fix'd, the eternal anvils stand; The ponderous hammer loads his better hand, His left with tongs turns the vex'd metal round, And thick, strong strokes, the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... Mr. Dodge resumed, I stepped into the coffee-room of the 'Shovel and Tongs,' public-house, to read the morning paper, and, taking a seat by the side of a gentleman who was reading the 'Times,' and drawing to me the leaves of the journal, so that it would be more convenient to peruse, the man insolently ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... vicinage of boys and girls, old men, and old women, all the furrows and wrinkles of the latter filled up with malice for the time; the old men armed with prongs, pitch-forks, clubs, and catsticks; the old women with mops, brooms, fire-shovels, tongs, and pokers; and the younger fry with dirt, stones, and brickbats, gathering as they ran like a snowball, in pursuit of the wind-outstripping prowler; all the mongrel curs of the circumjacencies yelp, yelp, yelp, at their ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the small wood fire with a pair of unnecessarily elaborate gilt tongs, and she nodded, for she remembered how Lord Creedmore had mentioned the child that afternoon. He had hesitated a little, and had then gone on speaking rather hurriedly. She watched the sparks fly upward each time she touched the ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... red coals with the tongs inside his lantern, and he started back to the castle. He had gone only a few steps, though, when he saw that the coals had turned cold and gray, so he had to throw them beside ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... represent one Hephaestus as a god, and him lame, holding hammer and fire-tongs, and working as a coppersmith for hire. So it appeareth that he is needy. But it is impossible for one who is lame and wanteth men's aid to be ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... the sugar-tongs, the massive silver sugar-tongs?" asked she. "Maren, dost thou allow him to take the sugar with ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... in my ear, and I nod assent. Now the hot stones are removed with bamboo tongs, and the great flat object, wrapped in banana leaves, is taken out. Mrs. Agelan throws back the leaves and uncovers the beautifully cooked golden lap-lap. Her lord looks at it critically, and returns to his corner silent, but evidently ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... But, alas, no one could remember where they were. Every one had forgotten that the tongs had last been used to fish up the doll's teapot from the bottom of the water-butt, where the Lamb had dropped it. So the nursery tongs were resting between the water-butt and the dustbin, and cook refused to lend the ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... now will you come to a poor bachelor's assistance, and pour out tea, Mrs. Sylvester? And I'm very sorry, but I haven't got any sugar-tongs. I generally borrow Copal's, but the beggar's gone out and locked his door. You ladies will have to imagine ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... furnace, electric resistance heat. [steel-making furnace] open-hearth furnace. fireplace, gas fireplace; coal fire, wood fire; fire-dog, fire- irons; grate, range, kitchener; caboose, camboose^; poker, tongs, shovel, ashpan, hob, trivet; andiron, gridiron; ashdrop; frying-pan, stew-pan, backlog. [area near a fireplace] hearth, inglenook. [residential heating methods] oil burner, gas burner, Franklin stove, pot-bellied stove; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... bloodthirsty, fire-eating woman's rights advocates up North, and she's actually taken to distributing their indecent pamphlets. She had the face to leave one on my desk this morning. I'd just taken it in the tongs before you came in and put it into the fire. There are the ashes of it," he added sardonically, waving his silver goblet in the direction of some grey shreds ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... whispering in the sick one's hearing be avoided. Speak quietly but distinctly, so that the patient may not think you are hiding anything from him. Wrap the coals in pieces of paper, so that they can be put on the fire by hand, avoiding the noise of shovel or tongs. ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... his honourableness that David Rossi and my wife are like brother and sister, and anybody who makes evil of that isn't stuff to take with a pair of tongs." ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... and the spade, dropped the red apples and the gingerbread into his pocket, and stole softly downstairs. The little feet made no noise as they passed over the thick carpets. Marianne, who was lighting the kitchen fire and clattering the tongs, heard nothing. He reached the front door, and, stretching up, pulled hard at the bolt. It was stiff, ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... across his workbench and hung up his hammer and tongs. The varied notes of two or three remote steam-whistles told him that the hour, of the day after ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... the King reply, As another glance he throws: "'Gainst the shield I ill shall fight Which the tongs and hammer shows. ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... triumphal. Preceded by a drummer and accompanied by a jeering rabble, among whom the urchins and all the tag-rag and bobtail of the town mustered in great force, the figure was carried about by the flickering light of torches to the discordant din of shovels and tongs, pots and pans, horns and kettles, mingled with hootings, groans, and hisses. From time to time the procession halted, and a champion of morality accused the broken-down old sinner of all the excesses he had committed and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... There was no trace of annoyance on his face. In fact, much to Trotter's vague disappointment, he was smiling, smiling easily and broadly. He wore a workman's jumper, stained with oil and iron rust, and in his hand he carried a large pair of pipe tongs. But these did not interest Trotter. What caught his eye was the fact that the man's boots were ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... color, this continual shunting him into obscure and filthy ways, gradually gave Peter a loathly sensation. It increased the unwashed feeling that followed his lack of a morning bath. The impression grew upon him that he was being handled with tongs, along back-alley routes; that he and his race were something to be kept out of sight as much as possible, as careful ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... MacAlister Ban, whose grandson told the tale, had more experience of the bocan's reality. "Something seized his two big toes, and he could not get free any more than if he had been caught by the smith's tongs. It was the bocan, but he did nothing more to him." Some of the clergy, too, as well as laymen of every rank, were witnesses to the pranks which the spirit carried on, but not even Donald himself ever saw him ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... absent-minded, he is. He's the talk of Oxford sometimes is the Principal. What do you think he went and did only last term. Why, he was having some of the senior men to tea and was going to put some coal on the fire with the tongs and some sugar in his cup. Bothered if he didn't put the sugar in the fire and a lump of coal in his cup. It didn't so much matter him putting sugar in the fire. That's all according, as they say. But fancy—well, I tell you we had a good laugh over it ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... what you saved me from. They've been at it hammer and tongs all the evening. Every man in town has ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... possessed by the see of Canterbury before the Norman conquest, and at its palace Sir Thomas Gresham lived in sumptuous style, and probably entertained Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses; among the curiosities here the anvil, hammer, and tongs, which are traditionally said to have belonged to the noted St. Dunstan, "and, who is also said to have used the last instrument most ungallantly, and even brutishly, in twinging the nose of Old Nick, who tempted the immaculate prelate in the form of a fine ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... soon met the hard rock. Faint and weary we turned to the camp. We found a fire blazing, and Jacotot with several men standing round it: two were working a rough pair of bellows, others hammers and tongs. All were employed under his directions, while he was engaged in riveting a pipe into ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... through, suddenly broke apart between the andirons, and falling into a bed of glowing coals beneath, sent a puff of ashes out on to the hearth. Mary leaned forward to reach for the turkey-wing hanging beside the tongs. There had always been a turkey-wing beside her Grandmother Ware's fireplace. That is why Mary insisted on using one now instead of a modern hearth-broom. It suggested so pleasantly the housewifely thrift and ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... beginning, and again at the end of the term. If he is a Cambridge man, he will cut the tassel of his academical cap short; at Oxford he will leave it long; but at both he will discover that sugar-tongs are never used, and that the race of Dons exists merely to plague him and his fellows with lectures, to which he pays small attention, with enforced chapels, which he sometimes dares to cut, and, with general disciplinary regulations, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... comes along, you can be all honey to them, and make yourself out too good for common folks, and go and tell great tales how you are used at home, I suppose. I am sick of it!" said Miss Fortune, setting up the hand-irons and throwing the tongs and shovel into the corner in a way that made the iron ring again. "One might as good be a step-mother at once, and done with it! Come, mother, it's time for you to go ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a cup of tea. 'You don't object?' she queried, as she put sugar in his cup with her fingers ... though sugar-tongs were ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... who is the savage now!" said Richard. "Hold!" to the servant who was bringing the red-hot irons in a pair of tongs. ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scrambled head first down this gentleman's macadamised road this morning, but if you want a tooth out I can use the tongs." ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... bound together by solemn obligations, and are the instruments used by other Chinamen to avenge their real or fancied wrongs. The Highbinders are organized into lodges or tongs, which are engaged in constant feuds with each other. They wage open warfare, and so deadly is their mutual hatred, that the war ceases only when the last individual who has come under the ban of ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... Pirlaps; and Sara had never before heard him speak angrily. "The messy little rascal! I can't even kick him to wake him up—I'd never get my foot out! Where are the tongs? Here, Sara, you take the poker, and ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... Priest, 'if you are an angel from heaven, do let me out, and let me return again to earth, for it is worse here than in hell. The little fiends keep on pinching me with tongs.' ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... James Sherring and Thomas Hillary were there, James Sherring sat down in the chimney to fill a pipe of tobacco. He used the tongs to lift a coal to light his pipe, and by-and-by the tongs were drawn up the stairs and were cast upon the bed. The same night one of the maids left her shoes by the fire, and they were carried up into the chamber, and the old man's brought down ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that in order to mark the indignation of those present, the copy of the paper containing the offensive leader should be ignominiously burnt. This, too, was carried; whereupon the iron-dealer took up the doomed newspaper with a pair of tongs, placed it on the sheets of iron, and, taking a "spill" between the claws of the tongs, lighted it at the fire of the room, and ignited the ill-fated paper, which, amid the groans and hisses of the assembled patriots, burned to ashes. This ceremony being solemnly concluded, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... Batteries, Racks for New Batteries, Racks for Rental Batteries, Racks for Batteries in Dry Storage, Racks for Batteries in "Wet" Storage. Working Drawings of Stock Bins. Working Drawings for Battery Steamer Bench. Description of Battery Steamer. Plate Burning Rack. Battery Terminal Tongs. Lead Burning Collars. Post Builders. Moulds for Casting Lead Parts. Link Combination Mould. Cell Connector Mould. Production Type Strap Mould. Screw Mould. Battery Turntable. Separator Cutter. Plate Press. Battery Carrier. Battery Truck. Cadmium ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... Wind snatches the sparks, Tongs and poker jangle together Like the iron bones Of a man ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... straight line through the middle a row of edibles. She was going to have waffles, she said, and shortcake; they were all ready to bake, and she wished to the Lord they would come and have it over with. With the silver sugar-tongs I slyly nipped lumps of sugar for my private eating, and surveyed my features in the distorting mirror of the pot-bellied silver teapot, ordinarily laid up in flannel. When the company had arrived, Temperance advised me to go ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... was haunted by none but superannuated physicians; the baker, the butcher, the waiters at the caffe were all professionally, and, as purveyors to her family, out of the question; the sacristan, who sometimes appeared at the perruquier's to get a coal from under the curling-tongs to kindle his censer, had but one eye, which he kept single to the service of the Church, and his perquisite of candle-drippings; and I hazard little in saying that the Paronsina might have danced a polka ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... agreeable people were cooking herrings, sausages, and other delicacies on little gridirons or pans that they unrolled from the strange bundles that were their luggage. One man who had no gridiron cooked a piece of steak on the kitchen tongs. Dickie thought him very clever. A very fat woman asked Dickie to toast a herring for her on a bit of wood; and when he had done it she gave him two ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... moment Fanny did not speak. The scarlet glow on her cheek, the steady glow that was always there, died away suddenly and left her pale as ashes. Mechanically she opened and shut the silver sugar-tongs that lay on the table under her hand, and her eyes were fixed on me with a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... a board on the backstairs that squeaks, and I heard it plain, while you was still at me, hammer and tongs," Lydia answered. "He was in the house not more'n two minutes, all told, and when I figured he was safely out, I went upstairs with you to show you the presents I'd give Nita after she burnt me, to prove ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... the kick-off, and then, when Columbia had the ball, and had lined up, she went at her opponents with such smash-bang tactics, such hammer-and-tongs work, that she tore big gaps in the wall of defense, and shoved player after player through. Frank was sent over for a seven-yard gain, then came a fine run on the part of Ralph, netting eighteen yards, while the crowd ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... a tray of long home-made cigars. 'Candela!' Mine host invokes fire, and a little mulatto girl, upon whom it devolves to provide it, presents each smoker with a lump of red-hot charcoal in the clutches of a lengthy pair of tongs. Daylight is appearing, and warns us that we must ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... its mouth. It has the power of prolongating both its jaws to nearly the extent of half-an-inch from their natural position. This is done by a most beautiful bit of mechanism, somewhat on the principle of what are called 'lazy tongs.' The cat-fish possesses a like feature, but on a much larger scale, the front part of the mouth being capable of being protruded between two and ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... one day making a chalice (or, as another version of the legend says, a horseshoe) when the Devil appeared before him. Instantly recognising his enemy, and being aware that with such a foe prompt measures alone are useful, St. Dunstan at once pulled his nose with the tongs, which chanced happily to be red hot. Wrenching himself free, the Devil leaped at one bound from Mayfield to Tunbridge Wells, where, plunging his nose into the spring at the foot of the Pantiles, he "imparted to the water ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... elaborate type of furnishings, that began to flow into the colony, after the middle of the century. The houses were heated as customary in the seventeenth century by fireplaces, for numerous andirons, either brass or iron, are listed together with tongs and fire-shovels. Numerous candlesticks, some of brass, some of wire and others of silver, illuminated the rooms in the evening. Chairs, rare in the early part of the century, were not scarce by 1686, for they are ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... lightning; by means of cracking a whip and the close imitation of the neighing of horses, he announced the approaching stage-coach; he lighted the moon in "Der Freischutz;" and with a kettle and pair of tongs gave forewarning of the witches' hour. When I opened my heart to Lipp and confided to him that I wanted to go on the stage, he reached out his broad hand to me with emotion and said, "And so do I." Hereupon we swore eternal ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... miles an hour to meet a girl who will be properly surprised to meet him, you naturally approve of that young man, and wish him Staff appointments, and take an interest in his welfare, and, as the proper time comes, give them sugar-tongs or side-saddles according to your means ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... sympathetic, so kind, so full of love, that it clutched my breast like red-hot tongs and I began to ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... the former was there, they instantly seized each other; and then, Byron, myself, Frank, and all the waiters that could be found, were vigorously engaged in parting them,—which was in general only effected by thrusting poker and tongs into the mouths of each. But, one day, Nelson unfortunately escaped out of the room without his muzzle, and going into the stable-yard fastened upon the throat of a horse from which he could not be disengaged. The stable-boys ran in alarm to find Frank, who taking one of his ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... l8.—This afternoon Ellen and I decided to try our hand at craw-fishing, as the contents of our larder were rather low. She got some meat from Mrs. Glass, and we set forth furnished with a pair of tongs in place of a landing-net. As we neared the rocks we saw two figures silhouetted against the rays of the setting sun which proved to be those of Mrs. Glass and her daughter Mrs. Lavarello. We did ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... nowise disconcerted, crumpled up the letter, took it with the tongs, and held it ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... is in the country right in with them, but by that time Elijah'd got his breath, an' he just shook his head an' asked me if I remembered what a lot of fuss the first billion dollar congress made an' if I'd observed how calm they was took now? I told him I had an' then we went at it hammer an' tongs, Elijah for the Democrats an' me against 'em, although I must say I wished he'd give me the other side, for in spite of their actin' so silly I must say I always have a feelin' as the most of the Democrats is tryin' to be honest which is somethin' as ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... with a ricochet, which did great execution, but was countered heavily when he attempted to repeat the trick, the Dullard all but knocking him off his legs with a fifty-pound salmon. After some slight exchanges they began a hammer-and-tongs game, in which Proser scored heavily. Dullard, however, pulled himself together for a final rush. They met in the middle of the ring, and both fell heavily. As neither was able to rise, the fight was drawn. Both men were heavily damaged, and were carried ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 3, 1892 • Various
... That's what I call living! I never have to look for a single thing, not even my slippers. Always a good fire, always a good dinner. Once the bellows annoyed me, the nozzle was choked up; but I only mentioned it once, and the next day Mademoiselle gave me a very pretty pair, also those nice tongs you see me ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... and guardians who had seduced their wards. Some of the papers dating two or three centuries back, in which the style and the manners illustrated gave me considerable entertainment. Among the pieces of furniture on the floor I saw a warming-pan, a kettle, a fire-shovel, a pair of tongs, some old candle-sticks, some earthenware pots, and even a syringe. From this I concluded that some prisoner of distinction had been allowed to make use of these articles. But what interested me most was a straight iron bar as thick ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... whatever I have sold, and for whatever price, I never meant you—you of all people—to spoil my bargain. I feel pretty safe though. Even father, even Captain Lingard, would not touch you now with a pair of tongs; not with a ten-foot pole. . ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... gale. But so has the cook. That don't make a man a sailor. You ask him how to send down a to'-gallant yard or gammon a bowsprit, or even mark a lead line, and he'll stare at ye like Old Nick, when the angel caught him with the red-hot tongs, and questioned him out of the Church Catechism. Ask Sam there if ye don't believe me. Sam, what do you think of this ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... was without any beauty, even without the beauty of ugliness. He was ugly, that was all; nothing more nor less; in short, he was uglily ugly. He was not humpbacked, nor knock-kneed, nor pot-bellied; his legs were not like a pair of tongs, and his arms were neither too long nor too short, and yet, there was an utter lack of uniformity about him, not only in painters' eyes, but also in everybody's, for nobody could meet him in the street without ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... and pleasant-looking; still I knew he couldn't see me plainly, and I waited a minute, and lingered round, pretending I was doing something, which I wasn't; I hated to break the old way of things; and then I took the tongs and blew a coal and lighted the dip and held it up, as if I was looking for something. Pretty soon I found it; it was a skein of linen thread I was going to wind for Lurindy. Then I got the swifts and came and sat down ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... very considerable, but if he kills them, nothing is added to his usual pay; yet such is the fury of their desperation, that three out of four are of necessity destroyed in the attempt to secure them, though the officers are provided with instruments like large tongs, or pincers, to lay hold of them without coming within the reach of their weapon. Those who happen to be taken alive are generally wounded, but they are always broken alive upon the wheel, and if the physician who is appointed to examine their wounds ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... stepped forth and such a vision! She had curled her red hair on a pair of old-fashioned tongs. The curling irons were but a quarter of an inch in diameter and they were heated by thrusting them into the living embers of the kitchen fire. When Sary drew the comb through her scanty tresses they took on the appearance of carrot- ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... we were alarmed with strange noises approaching us, and looking out we saw a number of people with frying pans, warming pans, tongs and pokers, beating, ringing, and making all possible din. We soon discovered them to be our neighbours of the next farm in pursuit of a swarm of bees which was hovering in the air over their heads. The bees at length alighted on the tall pear tree in our orchard, ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... strange old woman," said Hazel, one of the farmers, as he took down one of the oatcakes hanging overhead; and breaking off a piece, held it with the tongs before the fire to toast, and then put ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... the fire was kindled in the forge, and on working the bellows a strong flame was produced. All our tools were composed of coral; two long pieces served as tongs, and another as a hammer. Having heated the iron, Dick knocked it out into a long thin bar, and then placing it on the mass of coral which served as an anvil, cut it with successive sharp blows of his knife into small pieces. Each of these had to be re-heated, and taken up and dropped into ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... begin to wonder at what time during the day it commenced to unbend, and if you have had that melancholy, damp appearance many hours. Perhaps it is as well that you did not know before, for it could not have been rectified; you cannot bring a pair of tongs and a spirit-lamp out of your pocket and begin operations in public! Still it is exceedingly aggravating if you think you have been making an impression, and you return home to confront such a dejected-looking spectacle as you find ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... the relics, the spinning-wheel, the flax-hackle, and the bunch of dusty tow that nobody knows how to spin in these degenerate days; the old flint-lock rifle, and the powder-horn; the tinder-box, and the blue plate, "more'n a hundred years old;" the dog-irons, tongs, poker, and turkey-wing of an ancient fireplace—around back of the Old Settlers' Cabin all the early part of the day a bunch of dirty canvas has been dangling from a rope stretched between two trees. It was fenced off from the ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... the shafts, Creidne the Brazier had the rivets made to rivet them; and if there were bettering those rivets, it would not be by any known workmanship. When Goibniu had made a spear-head, he took it in his tongs, and hurled it at the lintel of the door so that it stuck fast there, the socket outward. When Luchtine had made a spear-haft, he hurled it out at the spear-head in the lintel; and it was good hurling, not to be complained of: the end of the haft stuck in the socket, and stuck firm. And as fast ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... close: One stirs the fire, and one the bellows blows. The hissing steel is in the smithy drown'd; The grot with beaten anvils groans around. By turns their arms advance, in equal time; By turns their hands descend, and hammers chime. They turn the glowing mass with crooked tongs; The fiery work ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... smith. Indeed a fine, big fellow he was, with great shoulders, and a mighty chest, and arms whose bulging muscles showed to advantage in the red glow of the fire. In his left hand he grasped a pair of tongs wherein was set a glowing iron scroll, upon which he beat with the hammer in his right. I stood watching until, having beaten out the glow from the iron, he plunged the scroll back into the fire, and fell to blowing with the bellows. But now, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... Virginian pronounced President Adams "a traitor," Daniel Webster "a vile slanderer," John Holmes "a dangerous fool," and Edward Livingston "the most contemptible and degraded of beings, whom no man ought to touch, unless with a pair of tongs." One day, while he was speaking with great freedom of abuse of Mr. Webster, then a member of the House, a Senator informed him in an undertone that Mrs. Webster was in the gallery. He had not the delicacy to desist, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... greaves, hards or hurds, hemorrhoids, ides, matins, nippers, nones, obsequies, orgies,[145] piles, pincers or pinchers, pliers, reins, scissors, shears, skittles, snuffers, spectacles, teens, tongs, trowsers, tweezers, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... her nose—that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling-tongs. Good morning, Watson." ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... image any one more bewitching than this Montenegrin prince. Slender, fine, with crisp hair curled by the tongs, shaved "a week under" and pumice-stoned on that, bestarred with out-of-the-way decorations, he had the wily eye, the fondling gestures, and vaguely the accent of an Italian, which gave him an air of Cardinal Mazarin without his chin-tuft and moustaches. He was deeply versed in the Latin ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... more wrinkles in it than there are in a fake mermaid's tail. Do you know what kind of a game they've gone to work and rigged up on your friend, the human curling-tongs? The widder has got him to doin' chores again. It seems that she was always strong on keepin' him doin' chores. He's peckin' away at that pile of wood that's fitted and lays at the corner of the barn. He's luggin' it into the woodshed, and three sticks at a time make his legs bend like corset ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... for Vulcan was celebrated principally by the Egyptians, and was a King according to Homer, and Reigned in Lemnos; and Cinyras was an inventor of arts, [298] and found out copper in Cyprus, and the smiths hammer, and anvil, and tongs, and laver; and imployed workmen in making armour, and other things of brass and iron, and was the only King celebrated in history for working in metals, and was King of Lemnos, and the husband of Venus; all which are the characters of Vulcan: and ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... and struck at him with the tongs, the children ran races with each other trying to catch him, and laughed and screamed likewise. It was well for him that the door stood open. He jumped out among the bushes into the new-fallen snow, and there he lay as in ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... lion. Why, my friends, in that place they trimmed their candles with snuffers of gold, and they cut their fruits with knives of gold, and they washed their faces in basins of gold, and they scooped out the ashes with shovels of gold, and they stirred the altar fires with tongs of gold. Gold reflected in the water! Gold flashing from the apparel! Gold blazing in ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... two youngest Kenway girls trooped into the kitchen, Popocatepetl was chasing a stray feather about the floor and in diving behind the big range for it, she knocked down the shovel, tongs and poker, which were ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... in the middle of our circle. There is no fireplace. This stove is shaped like a flower-pot, made of thick metal, and is filled with fine white ashes. The young woman builds the ashes up into a cone like the summit of Fujiyama and lays fresh glowing charcoal against it. Instead of tongs she uses a pair ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... one holding a pulley, one upholding the column upon his hands, alternate with two Disciples, for whom their extended wings create a background. One of these is complemented by hammer and anvil, the other by furnace and tongs. Both share the column's weight on powerful arms. The imaginary figures show potential strength in repose, the human figures potent strength in action. The frieze in low relief is ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... on which she had soon arranged a china tea-equipage, whose pattern, shape, and size, denoted a remote antiquity; a little, old-fashioned silver spoon was deposited in each saucer; and a pair of silver tongs, equally old-fashioned, were laid on the sugar-basin; from the cupboard, too, was produced a tidy silver cream-ewer, not larger then an egg-shell. While making these preparations, she chanced to look up, and, reading curiosity in my eyes, she smiled ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... intermission they went at it once more, "hammer-and-tongs." Thus far no one had been injured seriously enough to more than delay the game a few minutes, and, before the fatal seven had expired, the fellow who had been hurt was able to take his place in the line; so no substitutes were called on. Hugh was glad of ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... malignant witness to her loving aunt, Eliza Judd, laughed irrepressibly: she had more sense of humor than her sister. It was she who, though she had assisted in polishing the old copper kettle subsequently utilized as a holder for the tongs and shovel, had refused to consider the yet older wash-boiler in the light of a possible coal-scuttle, greatly to the relief of her aunt, who blushed persistently at ...
— Julia The Apostate • Josephine Daskam
... of these is carefully arranged. A pan of live coals is brought, and strewn with juniper-berries and wormwood: the aforesaid papers are held over it and well smoked, then taken by the inspector with a pair of tongs, read from as great a distance as possible, and afterward returned. Nothing wrong, apparently, with ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... bed, the actual passage of time, as he stood frozen to the door-handle, was but the duration of a few brief seconds, and then making a tremendous call on his courage he felt his way to his fireplace, and picked up the poker. The tongs and shovel rattled treacherously, and he hoped that had not been heard, for the essence of his plan (though he had yet no idea what that plan was) must be silence till some awful surprise broke upon them. If only he could summon the police, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... preparing those balls. Tobacco was then, as now, adulterated in various ways. The nice retailer kept it in what were called lily-pots; that is, white jars. It was cut on a maple block; juniper-wood, which retains fire well, was used for lighting pipes, and among the rich, silver tongs were employed for taking up a coal of it. Tobacco was sometimes called "the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... in welcome. It will be so filthy when he pulls it off, I shall be tempted to take the tongs and put it in the fire. I cannot imagine, Lizabeth, what you ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... hours for the tide. They surpass those in England by far in size, indeed, they are four times as large. I often cut them in two, before I could put them into my mouth. The inhabitants usually catch them on Saturday. It is not troublesome. A pair of wooden tongs is needed. Below they are wide, tipped with iron. At the time of the ebb they row to the beds and with the long tongs they reach down to the bottom. They pinch them together tightly and then pull or tear up that which has been seized. ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... the unoffending garment into the lire, and held it there with the tongs, regardless of the horrible smell which accompanied its martyrdom, till the lady-lodger on the first floor rushed down to inquire whether the house was ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... her place at the tea-tray, and was manipulating the curiously-shaped sugar-tongs rather carefully, when Malcolm looked at her a little searchingly. "Hurry up," he said severely; "how long do you suppose I am going to wait for your ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... here, Luke!"—and taking it prudently with the tongs, he pulled back the rod, till the glowing end, a foot or more of live, palpitating, flamy red, lay out upon ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... traders, and for days they met in counsel together. Their evenings were spent in the great dining room of the Fort in revelry. Songs of the voyage were sung and as the excitement grew more intense the partners would take seats on the floor of the room and each armed with a sword or poker or pair of tongs unite in the paddle song of "A la Claire Fontaine," and make merry till far on in the morning. The days were laboriously given to business and accounts. When the great MacTavish—the head of the Nor'-Westers—was there he was often opposed ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... tied them with string—of which, of course, there were always plenty of bits in Tom's pockets; I believe if he'd been in a desert island for a year he still would have found bits of string to put in his pockets—to the end of the poker and to the two ends of the tongs. They dangled away beautifully; two succeeded admirably, the third unfortunately was hopelessly burnt. We repeated the operation for another set of slices, which all succeeded, then we spread them with the scraped butter in front of the fire by means of the flat ends of our tea-spoons, ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... flotilla and the German squadron were now at it hammer and tongs. Seeing that all hope of escape had been cut off, the German commander turned to face his new foes, determined to give battle ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... brazen confusion on the red-brick hearth. When my Uncle Peter has mounted his favourite metaphysical theory, I know that nothing can make him dismount but physical violence. I apologized for the poker and the shovel and the tongs (practising a Stevensonian omission in regard to my own share in the catastrophe), arranged the offending members in their proper station on the left of the fire-place, and took the bellows to encourage the dull fire ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... sixten hundred yeare after you were dead and gone, it may trewly be sayd, that for siluer, there is more cumlie plate, in one Citie of England, than is in foure of the proudest Cities in all Italie, and take Rome for one of them. And for learnyng, beside the knowledge of all learned tongs and liberall sciences, euen your owne bookes Cicero, be as well read, and your excellent eloquence is as well liked and loued, and as trewlie folowed in England at this day, as it is now, or euer was, sence your owne tyme, in any place of Italie, either at Arpinum, where ye were borne, ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham |
