"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... banteringly. "Only there's one drawback, boy. You are caught in a trap there, and when you are found there will ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... down again as soon as she could, and took the opportunity to engage his attention on the stairs, by asking him a question on some political subject that really interested him; and he, like a straightforward man, falling into the trap, began to give her ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... that Edith would weep and rave upon discovering the trap into which she had been lured; but he had not expected that the revelation would smite her with such terrible force, laying her like one dead at his feet, as it had done, and he was ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... though he showed some hesitation in his letter to Vettori about the propriety of presenting the essay to the Medici, this was only grounded on the fear lest a rival should get the credit of his labors. Again, he uttered no syllable about its being intended for a trap to catch the Medici, and commit them to unpardonable crimes. We may therefore conclude that this explanation of the purpose of the Principe (which, strange to say, has approved itself to even recent critics) was promulgated either by himself or by his friends, as an after-thought, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... blowpipe. It becomes electrical by rubbing, and retains its electricity for several hours; but does not become electrical by heating. It occurs in alluvial soil, in the vicinity of rocks belonging to the secondary or floetz-trap formation, and imbedded in gneiss. It is found at Rodsedlitz and Treblitz in Bohemia, and Hohenstein in Saxony; Expailly in France; and particularly beautiful in the Capelau mountains, twelve days from Sirian, a city ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 560, August 4, 1832 • Various
... it's darned good luck for us. The boys ran across a valley full of wild horses over here about twenty miles. Dad, I believe I can trap several ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... has had a heart trap ready for you ever since you were born, in case she sighted you in the open. It's baited with a silver rattle, doll babies, sugar plums, the ashes of twenty years' roses, the fragrance of every violet she has seen, and lately an aggregation ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... trousers sprinkled with mud. "No wonder that people can buy houses and speculate in real estate. Yes, Schimmelweis, I call such things sharp practice, and I don't give a damn for your contract. Everybody knows by this time what kind of business is done here—more like a man-trap—and that these here instalments are just a scheme to squeeze the workingman dry. First you talk to him about education, and then you ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... rage, for he saw that he had fallen into a trap; but his promise lay upon him, and he went out without ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley
... blood? The name of Flaccus fell on his heart like a stone; for the great banker never went back when he had taken a stand, and was rich enough to corrupt the most lax and merciful jury. Ahenobarbus felt a trap snap upon him, and yet he had no ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... not. He saw it all in a minute, and understood that now Jane Sands was in the plot against him, and she had devised this way of putting the child in his path because she was afraid to come to him openly and say what she wanted. Perhaps even now she was watching, expecting to see him fall into the trap they had set for him; but they should find they were very ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... Dindyma, are a cheat; he takes good care to be on the safe side by giving ambiguous answers that no one can understand, and makes money out of it, for there are plenty of fools who like being imposed upon,—but sensible people know well enough that most of it is clap-trap. The prophet did not know that he was to kill his favourite with a quoit; he never foresaw that Daphne would run away from him, so handsome as he is, too, such beautiful hair! I am not sure, after all, that there is much to choose between your ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... lad of eleven were great chums; they chased wild bees together, putting honey on the stone wall, getting a line on the bees; shelled beechnuts and cracked butternuts for the chipmunks; caught skunks in a trap, just to demonstrate that a skunk can be carried by the tail with impunity, if you only do it right (and, though succeeding one day, got the worst of the bargain the next); and waged war early and late on the flabby woodchucks which one could see almost any hour in the day ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... vehemence by Protestant Irish members, and as vehemently denounced by the Roman Catholic; and it was justly considered that no further union between the parties would be possible after such a battle. The innocent Irish fell into the trap as they always do, and whiskey and poplins became a drug ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... the hotel and drove over to Flint House in the afternoon. The impression of that visit remained. Flint House, rising from the basalt summit of the headland like a granite vault, its windows coldly glistening down on the frothy green gloom of the Atlantic far beneath, the country trap and lean black horse at the flapping gate, the undertaker's man (dissolute parasite of austere Death) slinking out of the house, and Thalassa waiting at the open door for him to approach—all these things were engraved on Mr. Brimsdown's mind, never to be ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... saying!" triumphed Bellingham. "If a man has anything to do, he can get on. That's the way with the firemen. It's the rat-in-a-trap idea that paralyses. Do you remember your sensations at all, when you were coming through the fire? Those things are very curious ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... the conclusion of my story, and not till you are satisfied that many things can be contained in one, will I require your solution. And as for traps, it is always the solver of riddles who lays his own trap, by looking all round the question and never straight at it. Put on your thinking-cap, I beg, while I go ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... open the trap, turning with a triumphant smile as she did so, and I saw at once that the death of anyone shut up inside would be a lot more lingering than I had imagined, for the place seemed full of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... house drains is oftentimes exceedingly offensive, but may be completely prevented by pouring down them a mixture of lime water, and the ley of wood ashes, or suds that have been used in washing. An article known by the name of a sink trap may be had at the ironmongers, which is a cheap and simple apparatus, for carrying off the waste water and other offensive matter from sinks and drains. But as the diffusion of any collection of filth tends to produce disease and mortality, it should not be suffered to ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... light 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 ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... protecting the boys and young men from the blighting influence of the saloon, there is something most discordant in the way in which these places parade their false attractiveness; for many there are who do not realize that they are a trap which, to enter, may prove fatal to life ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... having committed a murder, unintentionally, constantly presented itself to my mind. I also could not conceal from myself that the glitter of the gold had captivated my feelings, otherwise I should not have fallen blindly into the trap. Two hours after my arrest I was led out of my cell. I descended several steps until at last I reached a great hall. Around a long table draped in black were seated twelve men, mostly old men. There were benches along the sides of the hall, filled with the most ...
— The Severed Hand - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Wilhelm Hauff
... they fear a trap," replied Hal. "They are afraid we are trying to ambush them with a larger force. We must keep up the delusion if we expect ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... be reddened and rent—I spring the trap that is set—As I loose the snare you may glimpse me there—For surely you shall forget! Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows each ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... then released for want of proof; but the minister of war cut short his half-pay by putting him on the active list,—a step which might be called a form of discipline. France was no longer safe; Philippe was liable to fall into some trap laid for him by spies,—provocative agents, as they were called, being much talked of in ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... proper lay a number of large and small outbuildings —the calves' stable, the pigsties, the tool-shed, the cart-shed and a smithy that was no longer used. They were all like so many mysteries, with trap-doors that led down to pitch-dark, underground beet and potato cellars, from which, of course, you could get by secret passages to the strangest places underground, and other trap-doors that led up to dark lofts, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... to have been a shrewd fellow; had picked up much practical knowledge of the law, especially of notarial business, and drove a smart trade giving private advice on points of law to people of his caste. From many a trap had he saved his poor clients of an hour. Out of many a danger of their own making had he safely drawn them, all unseen by, though not unknown to, the legitimate guild of judges, lawyers, and notaries out of whose professional garbage barrel ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... a crack in the small trap-door, which was level with the ground, they were able to see all that went on in the garden; and the steps afforded them a place to sit down upon, without touching the great blocks of ice that looked white and ghostly as the thin streak of ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... crooked and long; Our ancestors, bless them, were fond of variety— 'Tis naughty to say that they ever were wrong! Tho' strangers may grumble, and thro' the streets and stumble, Take care they don't tumble through crevices small, For trap-doors we've plenty, on sidewalk and entry, And no one stands sentry to ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... long windowless passage connecting two wings of the house, and in this he was feeling his way, fearful of falling down some stair or trap. He came at last to a door—low-browed like almost all in the house. Opening it—was it a thinner darkness or the faintest gleam of light he saw? And was that again the sound he had followed, fainter and farther off than before—a downy wind-wafted plume ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... me ye see no more; The happy hunting-grounds await me, green With change of spring and summer through the year: But, for remembrance, after I am gone, Be kind to little Sheemah for my sake: Weakling he is and young, and knows not yet To set the trap, or draw the seasoned bow; 10 Therefore of both your loves he hath more need, And he, who needeth love, to love hath right; It is not like our furs and stores of corn, Whereto we claim sole title by our toil, But the Great Spirit plants it in our hearts, And waters it, and gives it sun, to be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... 1650, all Paris was electrified at the news of the arrest of the three Princes—Conde, Conti, and Longueville. That bold coup d'etat was effected very easily and unceremoniously. The Princes went voluntarily, as it were, into the mouse-trap, by attending a great council at the Palais Royal. Anne had obtained from Conde an order for the seizure and detention of three or four persons whose names were left in blank; and on the authority of his own signature, the hero of Rocroy and the other two ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... dinner I went to the public gardens, and into a theatre which is in them; there is no roof to it, and the acting is all by daylight, and in the open air. I only arrived at the end, just in time to see the deliverance of a Christian heroine and a very truculent-looking Turk crammed down a trap-door, but I could not understand the dialogue. Nothing certainly can be more extraordinary or more beautiful than Venice with her adjacent islands, and nothing more luxurious than throwing oneself into a gondola and smoothly gliding about the whole ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Seward much underestimated the acuteness of Russell and Thouvenel, and expected them "to walk into a trap." Nor could his claim "that there was no difference between a nation entirely at peace and one in circumstances like those of the United States at this time" be taken seriously. "He was furnishing ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... speaking with a slight snarl, "hast thou such a powerful medicine that can surely trap the soul of Zalu Zako when ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... impossibilities as destroy every illusion as to the life import of a play, they would still be entitled to our gratitude and the gratitude of posterity. But they have done more. Out of the confusion of trap doors, secret passages, folding screens, they have led us into the light of day, of undisguised events, with their simple distinct outlines. In this light, the man of the heap gains in life force, importance and ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... was, as in many villages, without a turret, and the only way to the top was by going up to the singers' gallery, and thence ascending by a ladder to a square trap-door in the floor of the bell-loft, above which a permanent ladder was fixed, passing through the bells to a hole in the roof. When Lizzy and Stockdale reached the gallery and looked up, nothing but the trap-door ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... have become associated with them, and will give them a majority sufficient to keep them in place, and to enable them to eject the heterogeneous friends by whose aid they get again into power. I cannot believe any portion of real republicans will enter into this trap; and if they do, I do not believe they can carry with them the mass of their States, advancing so steadily as we see them, to an union of principle with their brethren. It will be found in this, as in all other similar cases, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... not answer. She was afraid to commit herself to anything. Every answer was a trap. Verrinder went on: "Twenty thousand pounds is a ten-per-centum commission on two hundred thousand pounds. That was rather a largish transaction to be carried on through secret letters, eh? Nicky Easton was not a millionaire, was he? Now I ask you, should you think ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... nettled at losing two pieces in succession; he thought he could, by taking a piece from Baldwin, get some amends for his loss; but Baldwin, seeing him fall into a trap which he had set for him, could not help a slight laugh, as he said, "Check-mate." Chariot rose in a fury, seized the rich and heavy chess-board, and dashed it with all his strength on the head of Baldwin, who fell, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... is so all along! We cannot recognise the dark tower, to which in the story Childe Roland came, by any description. We must go there ourselves; and not till we feel the teeth of the trap biting into us, do we see that it was exactly in such a place that we had been warned that ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... closed, a man being stationed to lift up the trap the moment the order to fire should be given. For a minute or more perfect silence reigned through the house; every one stood eagerly waiting for my father's orders. At length his voice was heard. "Fire!" he shouted; and at the same moment, as if his command had been addressed to the enemy, ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... epiglottis, the first landmark in direct laryngoscopy, is a leaf-like projection springing from the anterointernal surface of the larynx and having for its function the directing of the bolus of food into the pyriform sinuses. It does not close the larynx in the trap-door manner formerly taught; a fact easily demonstrated by the simple insertion of the direct laryngoscope and further demonstrated by the absence of dysphagia when the epiglottis is surgically removed, or is destroyed by ulceration. ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... were too many things to explain; too many things which seemed to connect her directly with the Rodaines; too many things which appeared to show that her sympathies were there and that she might only be a trickster in their hands, a trickster to trap him! Even the episode of the lawyer could be turned to this account. Had not another lawyer played the friendship racket, in an effort to buy ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... bank of the road and shut us in on that side completely. At every turn of the road he repeated his reconnoissance, so that our advance was very slow, giving a watchful enemy almost time to place an ambush, if they had none ready prepared. It was as sweet a place for a trap as greaser's heart could wish. On our right was the impenetrable cactus-hedge, with an open space beyond, terminated at the distance of a few yards by a wood or plantain-patch. On the left was another wood, matted with tangled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... helped the banner or the banner her, whether she was in mortal sin when she rode the horse belonging to the bishop of Senlis, whether she could commit mortal sin, whether the saints hated the English. Every trap they could lay for her they laid. She answered all clearly; when she had forgotten any thing she said so; her patience never gave way; she was never confused. When asked whether she was in a state of grace, she said: "If I ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... to contribute to insure the impunity of knaves is almost to make one's self their accomplice. And the victim who says nothing and submits, does contribute to it. The honest man, on the contrary, should speak, and point out to others the trap into which he has fallen, ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... wonderful thing in the whole place, and then he took us out-of-doors again, and led us to a little shed or enclosed door-way just outside of the main part of the fort, but inside of the fortifications, where he had his bench and tools. He moved away the bench, and then we saw that it stood on a wooden trap-door. He took hold of a ring, and lifted up this door, and there was a round hole about as big as the hind wheel of a carriage. It was like a well, and was as dark as pitch. When we held the lamp over it, however, we could see that there were winding steps leading down into ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... broad, forms the northeast portion, and lies within British jurisdiction. Saginaw, a deep and wide-mouthed bay, is the principal indentation on the western coast. The rim of this lake is composed mostly of detrital rocks, which are rarely exposed. In the northern portion of the lake, the trap-rocks on the Canada side intersect the coast. The waters are as deep as those of Superior, and possess great transparency. They rarely attain a higher temperature than 50 deg., and, like those of Superior, have the deep-blue tint of the ocean. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... this time had stood atop of a hill at a safe distance, viewed these performances with concern. Our captive shouted loudly for him to come join us and share in the good fortune. Not he! He knew a trap when he saw one! Not a bit disturbed by the tales this man would probably carry back home, our old fellow attached himself ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... jury. Much as it might cost her, she would not hesitate to break all ties with him, and any that existed were very slight. He, himself, had kept them so. Perhaps, after all, he had better order the trap round, leave Miss Kavanagh ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... this is my right hand, that is a lie; Helen said I may not play with 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
... the chance of hearin' a few kind words like them that these taxi pirates live for. This old coffee mill that Mr. Ellins had hailed reckless could give out more groans and grinds and produce less speed than any other fare trap I was ever in. The connectin' rods was wabbly on the shaft, the gears complained scandalous, and the hit-and-miss average of the cylinders was ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... that drowned the rushing noise of the wind. I had never imagined so wild and lonely a scene. Behind and around us lay a wilderness of white, desolate peaks, crowded together under a grey, pitiless sky, with here and there a patch of trailing-pine, or a black pinnacle of trap-rock, to intensify by contrast the ghastly whiteness and desolation of the weird snowy mountains. In front, but far below, was the troubled sea, rolling mysteriously out of a grey mist of snowflakes, breaking in thick sheets of clotted froth against ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... invented a trap to catch fish. The very first thing he caught was a huge shark. When he brought it to land, it looked so great and fierce that he thought it was surely a god, and he at once ordered his people to worship it. Soon all ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... restrained by the policeman outside from making a daily meal of the nearest infant school, and sure to gobble up aunty some day. Charlie trembled at the thought; Cecil pondered profoundly how, by the judicious arrangement of a trap-door in the middle of his room, he might carry out the original idea of Jack ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... cover over which he was passing would suddenly give way and precipitate him under the sidewalk in theatrical trap door fashion. Scott was the last person in all the world whom ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... between him and Stephen which looks less like a renewal of their treaty than a truce. In the troubles in the king's army during the summer campaign against Geoffrey, Robert was suspected of treason. At one time William of Ypres set some kind of a trap for him, in which he hoped to take him at a disadvantage, but failed. The outcome of whatever happened was, evidently that Stephen found himself placed in a wrong and somewhat dangerous position, and ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... 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 some search, I was fortunate ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... last, after a fortnight, of course it did not break. That would have been a violence of which English weather would not have been capable. There was no abrupt drop of the mercury, as if a trap were sprung under it, after the fashion with us. It softly gave way in a gradual, delicious coolness, which again mellowed at the edges, as it were, and dissolved in a gentle, tentative rain. But how far the rain might ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... direction of the determination of the position of stars than in the elucidation of the surfaces of planets, that my father's astronomical predilections lay. Our telescope was a refractor and had an objective of two feet diameter. It was firmly supported on a trap rock pedestal. The eye piece adjustment was unusually successful, and the remarkable freedom of the objective from any traces of spherical or chromatic aberration gave us an image of surprising clearness. The photographic results were admirable. I ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... is to come up with or take possession of something departing, fugitive, or illusive. We catch a runaway horse, a flying ball, a mouse in a trap. We clutch with a swift, tenacious movement of the fingers; we grasp with a firm but moderate closure of the whole hand; we grip or gripe with the strongest muscular closure of the whole hand possible to exert. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... them. He is a naked man, who carries a naked sword. The quality of his literary style is so successful that it succeeds in escaping definition. The quality of his logic is that of a long but passionate patience, which waits until he has fixed all corners of an iron trap. But the quality of his moral comment on the age remains what I have said: a protest of the rationality of religion as against the increasing irrationality of mere Victorian comfort and compromise. ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... you come to more huts, in some of which the men live, while others serve for quarters for the native officers who assist in the superintendence of the Home, and to whose noble efforts so much of its success is due. Then there is the kitchen, and a dining-room, and a stable for the bullock trap, in which the released prisoners are brought to the Home, to avoid the risk of a foot journey when their old associates might hinder them ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... Bird of Prey, as he no longer had the heart to call him, walking up and down in his room like an eagle caught in a trap. He erected his crest fiercely enough, though, when the young fellow came in at his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... his lantern on the ground, beside the post of one of the empty stalls, drew up a small spring bolt which secured it to the floor, and then forcing the post to one side, discovered a small trap-door. 'Follow me,' he said, and dived into the subterranean descent to which this ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... to his explanation with unconcealed dismay. "Good heavens, Dan!" he protested, "You trust this woman? You know she is in league with these ruffians. Do you want us to fall into a trap?" ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... "Dewan Sahib, we be men as brave as Bhart—we are of the same caste, but there is a difference between such an one as he took the head of and a Pindari Chief. The Pindaris are the wild dogs of Hind, they are wolves, and is it easy to trap ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... smiled in spite of themselves, as they drank the proffered wine, and the youngest-looking of the party, a brisk, handsome fellow, entered into the spirit of the captain with ardor, though he evidently thought he should trap him into a confession unawares, by the apparent carelessness and bonhomie ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... forth steam when the manager came on the scene. The stoker tried to pick off the bits of iron before the manager could see them, but the steam was to high for that; and when at last the noise subsided and the steam had cleared away, the whole of the revellers were on view, caught in a trap, as there was only one exit. Most of the men were fined or suspended, the bits of iron were discovered on the levers, and the stoker had a week's notice to clear out, and lock-up valves were fitted on every boiler and the keys kept in ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... "concealed mischief in this heap of meal" I called for the other two letters, and found they were written by the same hand Willis says: "Oh! I know the old boss too well, he's true as steel; he won't have anything to do with trap business. Besides, I've got my free papers, and I'm not afraid to go, but I wont take my wife and children" I proposed that Mr. Dolbeare or some neighbor go with him That pleased him, but Mr. Dolbeare could not go. As my ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... am, mighty afraid. Fighting's good enough when there's no help for it. But I call it a fool's plan to ride straight into a trap when you might ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hall; she saw him in a moment; and he divined that she had not known he was within, but had meant only to pass through; for she stopped short as though irresolute, and looked at him with a wild and imploring gaze, like a forest thing caught in a trap. ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... own escape—'you knew not that the bloody Guise and the Paris cut-throats rose and slew every Huguenot they could lay hands on? Why, did not the false wench put off your foolish runaway project for the very purpose of getting you into the trap on ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... horizon. The people felt his restlessness and transmitted it to the animals. Dogfights broke out and the doryms pulled reluctantly at their harnesses. With each passing second their chances grew slimmer and Jason searched desperately for a way out of the trap ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... saw the trap he had fallen into; saw and trembled. He asked himself what on earth he should do; and presently the saying came back to him, "And this is the highest stroke of art, to turn evil into good." He argued thus: Wolf's love of money is my great evil; ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... should associate. (This estimate by no means did Graham justice, but Flint was not in a judicial mood.) Then this crack-brained girl with her foolish fake of a theory—and he had been idiot enough to fall into this trap, and now Winifred would think he had boasted of Nora Costello as a conquest, perhaps bragged about saving her life. Oh, the whole thing was past endurance! Meanwhile everything around moved on mechanically. He heard his host say impatiently, "My dear, if you keep that epigramme ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... roof and against the window panes. Here, at the Summit House, they were constantly to be seen hawking back and forth against the side of the building, as barn swallows are given to doing in the streets of cities. The rude structure was doubly serviceable,—to me a shelter, and to the birds a fly-trap. I have never observed any other warbler thus ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... was impossible any of our men could get up the tree on the outside, there being no branches to climb by; and, to shoot at the tree, that they tried several times to no purpose, for the tree was so thick that no shot would enter it. They made no doubt, however, but that they had their enemies in a trap, and that a small siege would either bring them down, tree and all, or starve them out; so they resolved to keep their post, and send to us for help. Accordingly, two of them came away to us for more hands, and particularly desired that some of our ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... rest-houses were usually crowded with people, who presumably never left them, for in the open we never encountered a solitary human being, nor indeed a single animal or bird, with the exception of a dead ermine which had been caught in a trap and which our Yakute drivers, with characteristic greed, promptly took from the snare and pocketed. Talking of ermine, the district of Sredni-Kolymsk has always been famous as a fruitful breeding-place of this pretty little creature, and they ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... always was a fraud, and, for all his lumbering bulk and "MOLINEAUX-like" capacity of "tatur-trap," never could train-on soundly, or—figuratively speaking—"spank a hole in a pound of butter." Many cleverish trainers, and still more ambitious backers of the "Corinthian Jay" species, have had a shy, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 7, 1891. • Various
... Pierre, somewhat surprised by this disinterestedness, commenced to stammer out some explanations, Mouret closed his mouth by saying that he preferred to earn his wife's bread. Nevertheless the worthy son of the peasant remained uneasy; Mouret's indifference seemed to him to conceal some trap. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... emotions. We have developed a curious idea of what men and women ought to be; and one of our pretences is that men should affect not to understand sentiment, and to leave, as we rudely say, "all that sort of thing to the women." Yet we are much at the mercy of clap-trap and mawkish phrases, and we like rhetoric partly because we are too shy to practise it. The result of it is that we believe ourselves to be a frank, outspoken, good-natured race; but we produce an unpleasant effect of stiffness, angularity, discourtesy, and self-centredness ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "Home, Sweet Home." Jone was too much riled by the woman's manner to be willing to let her think he had made a mistake, and he stopped her short. "Look here," he said to her, "I don't ask you to come here to tell me anything about vehicles. When I order any sort of a trap I want it." When I heard Jone say trap my soul lifted itself and I knew there was hope for us. The stiffness melted right out of the landlady, and she began ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... made a charge at my head from behind, but I quickly brought round the muzzle of my gun to his mouth and he retreated. My men behaved with admirable coolness. The chief and his counsellors, by accepting my invitation to be seated, had placed themselves in a trap, for my men had quietly surrounded them and made them feel that there was no chance of escaping their spears. I then said that as everything had failed to satisfy them they evidently meant to fight; and if so, they must begin, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Hut. Other work went on apace. The skua gulls, snow and Wilson petrels were laying their eggs, and Hamilton went ashore to secure specimens and to add to our already considerable collection of bird skins. Hunter had a fish-trap lowered from the forecastle, used a hand dredge from the ship, and did tow-netting occasionally from the launch in its journeys to and from the land. Hurley and Correll had bright sunshine to ensure good photographic results. Bage and Hodgeman looked after ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... adhesion simply declared that I had abstained from such food for half a year, and I intended to abstain in the future. Of course this forbids my habit or any intention to the contrary; but I deprecate interpreting this as a vow or as a trap and a superstition. One who feels and believes as I do the vast superiority of our vegetarian food, never can desire, unless perhaps in some abnormal state of illness, the ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... her system was "quick returns," and the interest was consequently expected to the day. For a few seconds my father hesitated, but he manfully broke the seal—muttering, audibly, "What can the old rattle-trap write about? Her interest-money is not due for another fortnight." He threw his eyes hastily over the contents—his color heightened—and my aunt Catharine's epistle was flung, and most unceremoniously, upon the ground—the hope that accompanied the act, being ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... the sun. At first all seemed like part of a dream from which she dreaded to awake, but soon there came to her the joy of knowing that all the exquisite things that made appeal to her senses were indeed realities. Almost holding her breath, she walked forward to the open golden doors. "It is a trap," she thought. "By this means does the monster subtly mean to lure me into his golden cage." Yet, even as she thought, there seemed to be hovering round her winged words, like little golden birds with souls. And in her ears they whispered, "Fear not. Doubt not. Recall the ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... this large house, with its smooth lawn and well grown trees, its vines clambering about the pillars of the veranda and interlacing themselves into a transparent veil of green; to see Gerhardt pottering about the yard, Vesta coming home from school, Lester leaving in the morning in his smart trap—one would have said that here is peace and plenty, no shadow of unhappiness hangs over this ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... them. A most dramatic case of this kind occurred at a political meeting held one evening in the Springfield court-room, which at that date was temporarily in a hall under Stuart and Lincoln's law office. Directly over the platform was a trap-door. Lincoln frequently would lie by this opening during a meeting, listening to the speeches. One evening one of his friends, E.D. Baker, in speaking angered the crowd, and an attempt was made to "pull him down." Before the assailants ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... with the trap, outside. I told him that he had better not come in until I had seen you, for I thought that your domestics would not know what to do with him, till they ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... the greater settlement. Cynicism is never more than a half-truth, and because man is imperfect it does not follow that he must be futile. Russia is a land of strange silences, but it is manifest that whatever the innermost quality of the Czar may be, he is no clap-trap vulgar conqueror of the Wilhelm-Napoleon pattern. He began his reign, and he may yet crown his reign, with an attempt to establish peace on a newer, broader foundation. His religion, it would seem, is his master and not his servant. There has been ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... well take it along. We can hang it on the back of the boxsled," said Gif. "Perhaps we can use the meat to trap some other wild animals." ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... not much add to the danger which attended my purpose at best. In any case, this man already had me under scrutiny. So, after some little display of surprise and doubt, I took him at his word, inwardly reserving the right to draw back if I found myself entering a trap. The man's very proposal involved craft as against the master of the chateau, but toward me he seemed to be acting with the utmost simplicity and honesty, so straightforward and free from ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... some of my readers' lips—the tract of country best worth seeing in the neighbourhood of Sydney, is Illawarra, commonly called the Garden of New South Wales. By a change in the formation from sandstone to trap, a soil this here produced capable of supporting a vegetation equal in luxuriance to any within the tropics. In the deep valleys that intersect the country, the tree-fern attains a great stature, and throwing out its rich spreading ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... cratered and jagged, exactly like that of the half always facing Clamer. No sign of activity could be seen by eye, nor anything unusual. Even the immense trap-doors, all closed now, matched exactly their surroundings. Underground, however, activity was violently intense; and, now, ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... Leigh. Studying Hebrew indeed! A likely story! She had better go back to her wash-tub and spinning-wheel! Much Hebrew she will learn! Her eyes are set on Gordon's fortune, and Mrs. Murray is silly enough to think he will step into the trap. She will have to bait it with something better than Hebrew and black eyes, or she will miss her game. Gordon will make a fool of her, I dare say, for, like all other young men, he can be flattered into paying her some little attention at first. I am surprised at Mrs. ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... small place in Tipperary—the dusk of the early winter evening was closing in, and Harold recollected that his prompt departure from Dublin had prevented him from apprising Jack of his movements. Of course there would be no trap from Lisnahoe to meet this train, but that mattered little. Half a dozen hack-drivers were already extolling the merits of their various ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... lay Willie o' Kinmont, like a wolf in a trap, sleeping soft and waking oft, with thoughts of the gallows, on which he was to swing in the morning, and of his wife and bairns and the 'gude fellows' in the Debateable Land he was never to see again. But in an instant, at the hail and sight of his friends, the fearless humour of ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... the clerk. "A begging interview? For, if so, take my advice—don't try it. It would be no use. Mr. Grimes never gives anything away. He wouldn't even bait a rat-trap ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... had noted my glance at my watch before I got into the cab, and, in the hopes of an over-fare, he began lashing his horse across the head and neck. It was this that roused me out of a gloomy reverie, and I pushed up the trap. ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... the trap was the pig. He viewed it with contempt, and, to show his disdain of his enemies and his disregard for their snare, he tried to walk through it with a lofty tread. He found he had undervalued it, however, when, in spite of his struggles, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... henceforth he would receive only one person at a time, who should lay down his arms before entering the hall now set apart for public audience. It was a chamber built over a vault, and entered by a sort of trap-door, only reached by ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... what I found. What I thought at the time was this. The chap who'd owned the 'ouse before 'er father 'd been a regular slap-up burglar. What you'd call a 'igh-class criminal. Used to drive 'is trap—like Peace did." Mr. Brisher meditated on the difficulties of narration and embarked on a complicated parenthesis. "I don't know if I told you it'd been a burglar's 'ouse before it was my girl's father's, and ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... miles above to look out for his enemy, Black Hawk, who was headed that way, stopped opposite the spot where the Indians had gathered. Black Hawk raised a white flag and tried to parley; but the captain assumed that it was an attempt to trap him and, without warning, fired into the Indians at short range with a cannon loaded with cannister. Thus a second time was the usage of all nations violated in this war by refusing to recognize the flag of truce. Twenty-three ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... forth and join us. That he acceded instantly to my request gave me a good opinion of his own faithfulness and honesty; for a man of a suspicious and crafty nature assuredly would have believed that my request was but a trap laid for his destruction; and thereupon the bars were removed. And the truth of my words was made manifest, as El Sabio came instantly to Pablo and received his caresses with every sign of gentleness ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... thought that I dreamed, that my fancy played me some trick; and I closed my eyes and did not open them again for a minute. But when I did, there they were, hard, real, and angular. Convinced at last, in a maze of joy and fear, I closed my hand upon them, and, stealing on tip-toe to the trap-door, laid first my saddle on it and then my bags, and over all my ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... If ye go, I guess it'll be aboard a liner, where ye'll be penned up like a rat in a trap. That's the way people travel these days, 'in luxury,' they call it. But give me my old Flyin' Queen, a strong breeze abeam, and ye kin have all yer iron or steel tubs as ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... mouse got caught in a trap, And this little mouse she heard it snap, This little mouse did loudly squeak out, And this little mouse did run all about, This little mouse said, "Do not bewail And let us take hold and pull him out ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... 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
... shield. Emerging from the trees, the carriage came upon a small low farm house. Three illuminated windows stood out sharply on the front of the house, which shut out the moon's disc; the wide, open gate looked as if it was never shut. Two white stage-horses, attached to the back of a high trap, were standing in the courtyard, half in obscurity; two puppies, also white, rushed out from somewhere and gave forth piercing, though harmless, barks. People were seen moving in the house—the carriage rolled ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... little beast, though probably unable to see its enemies, was showing its yellow teeth and squalling in its deadly anger, the jaws coming together with a snap like that from the sudden springing of a steel trap. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... tergiversation that has distinguished the entire political career of the Risque-tout Prime Minister; and yet, he has to speak of him as if he were the greatest statesman England has ever seen—hanging on his words as silver, when knowing them all the while to be but clap-trap Dutch metal! Convinced, as he must be, that the Washington Treaty is one of the trashiest pieces of diplomacy that has ever disgraced a government, and that the whole community has been dissatisfied at ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a green leather seat and a coat of arms worked on its back cushions. There were little heaps of mahogany sawdust here and there on the dirty tiled floor, and a pile of sacking in one corner. Beneath a window the flap of an open trap-door half hid a large green damp-stain; a deep recess in the wall yawned like a cavern, and had two or three tubs in the right corner; a man with a blond head, slightly bald as if he had been tonsured, was rocking gently in one of ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... representing the public of the Indian capital, for the kind support which has been so encouraging to Miss Howe, the company, and myself personally, during the past season. Many a time ladies and gentlemen of my profession have said to me, 'Mr. Stanhope, why do you go to Calcutta? That city is a death-trap for professionals,' and now the past season proves that I was right and they were wrong; and the magnificent houses, the enthusiasm, and the appreciation that have greeted our efforts, especially on the Saturday evening performances, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... 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
... to man's account. The kitchens and offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between patches of fertility represented by rooms; and there was a mouldy old well with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near the bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells. One of these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters, MASTER B. This, they told me, was the bell that rang ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... some evidence for his senses by any sort of noise, voice, or movement, his madness would gain strength enough to burst the lock. I was rather ridiculously worried about the locks. A horrid mistrust of the whole house possessed me. I saw it in the light of a deadly trap. I had no weapon, I couldn't say whether he had one or not. I wasn't afraid of a struggle as far as I, myself, was concerned, but I was afraid of it for Dona Rita. To be rolling at her feet, locked in a literally tooth-and-nail struggle with Ortega would have been odious. I wanted to spare ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... use made by the triumphant party of the power thrown into their hands, have heightened the passions which existed before. It certainly appeared too much as if the rebellion had been purposely invited by the government, and the unfortunate men who took part in it, deliberately drawn into a trap by those who subsequently inflicted so severe a punishment on ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... it might be through the roof," said Hamilton, "or possibly you made one of your famous dramatic entries through a star-trap ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... him—could he strike before the time set? But the thought was useless. Even if his friends could harbor him after such a deed, his enemies would find him, and his life would be forfeit to a certainty. His own trap was closing ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... who used to set traps for birds. He put a piece of broken mirror into his trap, and a Hoopoe spying it went in to admire herself, and was caught. The fowler looked at the shining crown upon her head and said, "What have we here! I never saw a crown like this upon any bird. I must ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... Duppo and True followed close behind me, but True could only get on by making a succession of leaps, and sometimes Duppo had to stop and help him through the forked branches, by which he ran a risk every instant of being caught as in a trap. ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... like rats in a trap," he muttered. "She'll strike in four hours, and Gawd help us all if we can't git ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... Badgers are far more plentiful than most people have any idea of; but, unfortunately, they are generally killed whenever a chance of doing so presents itself, the trap and the gun ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... gaining the confidence of his enemies. The oldest statesmen, and the most prominent, cannot follow the dictates of their own judgment and conscience without being reproached as though they were laying a trap for the presidential chair. The very laws of Congress are set down as the results of personal venality or ambition. The House of Representatives, or even the Senate Chamber, are disgraced every year ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... foot. But already at their rear loud shouts warned them of a new danger. The western detachment of the Imperialists had meanwhile worked round their rear, and, ignorant of the fate of their comrades, believed that Bonaparte's army was caught in a trap. The eyes of all the French staff officers were now turned anxiously on their commander, who quietly remarked, "We have them now." He knew, in fact, that other French troops marching up from Verona would take these new foes in the rear; and though Junot ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... and the old lady seemed so much interested that Ruth soon grew bright and merry, and began to notice the pretty country through which they were passing; and when the train stopped at a rustic station, where a little pony trap was waiting to convey the old lady to her own home, they felt as if they had known each other for years instead of hours, and were really ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... will sing." The effect is produced here because the words selected are concrete ones which visualize. Repetitive passages in the tales often contribute this effect of sound upon meaning, as we find in The Three Billy-Goats Gruff: "Trip, trap; trip, trap! went the bridge as the youngest Billy-Goat Gruff came to cross the bridge." The sound of the words in this entire tale contributes largely to the meaning. The Troll roared and said, "Now I'm coming to gobble you up!" Usually the bits of rhyme interspersed throughout ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... Tom Ross followed closely enough to know what was going on, but not so closely that they would walk into a trap. Fortunately the country was heavily wooded with evergreen and there was still an abundance of leaves on the trees. Fortified by such a long experience as theirs it was not difficult to keep under cover, and when the tribes went into camp that ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and Dubois, the prefect of police, the reproduction, or rather the invention, of new tortures and improved racks; the oubliettes, which are wells or pits dug under the Temple and most other prisons, are the works of his own infernal genius. They are covered with trap-doors, and any person whom the rack has mutilated, or not obliged to speak out; whose return to society is thought dangerous, or whose discretion is suspected; who has been imprisoned by mistake, or discovered to be innocent; who is disagreeable ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... interesting enough to analyse the reasons which made Charles dislike in the mouth of Pedro sentiments so very like his own; but we must proceed, only pointing out the way in which men, determined to repeat the traditional clap- trap about the Stuarts, are actually blind to the meaning of the very facts which ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... and not for himself alone. He was in sore straits and perplexity as to what he should do to get his spearmen from the trap. Now Gorlois, Earl of Cornwall, was with the king. This lord was very valiant and courteous, though stricken in years, and was esteemed of all as a right prudent councillor. To him the king went, and unravelled all the coil. Uther prayed Gorlois to counsel him as became his honour, ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... at one of Paul's camps was astonished to see a crew of men unloading four-horse logging sleds at the cook-shanty. They appeared to be rolling logs into a trap door from which poured clouds ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... in their course. Suddenly, with admirable skill, he flung his scimitar edgewise at the legs of his farthest foe, who stopped short, roaring with pain. The chieftain sprang at the foremost, and hurled him down into the street below, where he was dashed to atoms. A trap-door offered itself to the despairing eye of the rebel. He descended and found himself in a room filled with women. They screamed, he rushed through them, and descending a Staircase, entered a chamber tenanted by a bed-ridden old man. The ancient invalid enquired the cause ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... practice, trying to get a look-in on something. He comes up with the novel proposition that the prostitute has a hard time of it, puts his picture in the paper, and the first thing you know, he's a celebrity. He gets the rake-off and she's just where she was before. How could you fall for a mouse-trap ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... cages. It was now of the utmost importance to recapture her majesty. Stale meat-offal and other infallible lures were put out till Pussy, urged by the reestablished hunger-pinch, crept up to a large fish-head in a box-trap; the negro, in watching, pulled the string that dropped the lid, and, a minute later, the Analostan was once more among the prisoners in the cellar. Meanwhile Jap had been watching the 'Lost and Found' column. ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Cabinet secrets, the fact remains that a good deal of truth has still to come out with regard to his resignation of office in 1882. I do not propose to lift the veil here, but it is well known that an ingenious trap was laid for him, and that, with characteristic confidence in the good faith of his fellow-men, he walked unsuspectingly into it. His resignation, it will be remembered, was due to his refusal to accept as satisfactory a letter written by Mr. Parnell, in which ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... that day. Late in the afternoon he had found a rabbit caught fast in a snare which he had set deep in the thicket, and the little animal had squealed in terror, just as rabbits always squeal, when he leaned and took it from the trap. And when he had straightened to his feet with it clutched fast in his arms, to look for a club with which to end its struggles quickly, his eyes had lifted to encounter the stormy eyes of the girl who had flashed up before ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... an appointment with a client at a neighboring village. Waving farewell to Carolina and Hope Georgia, who stood at a window, he rode away. "The old man is sure to be all right," he muttered. "He leans toward Altacoola and believes in Stevens. He'll lean some more until he falls over—into the trap. There's a fortune in sight—within reach. Langdon has faith in his friends. ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... that shall make ye quick," says this fellow Penfeather, dangling a great key before my swimming eyes. "Here's freedom from your devil's trap and a plaguy time I've ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... into the boulevard, which was crowded at this hour of twilight, men were driving themselves home in high carts, and through the windows of the broughams shone the luxuries of evening attire. Dresser's glance shifted from face to face, from one trap to another, sucking in the glitter of the showy scene. The flashing procession on the boulevard pricked his hungry senses, goaded his ambitions. The men and women in the carriages were the bait; the men and women on the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... companions, but the forerunner of death at his hands. Foolish bird! why did you go into the snare? Poor thing; it could not find food anywhere, and it was famishing with hunger; the seed was so attractive, and he who had baited the trap knew it full well, and that the bird could not resist its appetite. The fowler is our Lord. The bait is Divine Love. The bird is the soul. O skillful catcher of souls! O irresistible bait of Divine ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... trying to make me care for him.... He wasn't really as dreadful as you might think him, only just insane—about me—and utterly unscrupulous. But he did want me to like him and so, when I found out, when Fritzi told me I was in a trap, I tried to play his game. I flirted one day in the garden, at lunch, and made him think—— You see, I had to gain time and try to get word to people. But I hated him so I——" She broke off, the pupils of her fixed eyes big and ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Menace of Tragedy that Impended in the Shadows." They gave her a brief respite in one of those gilded resorts "Where the Clink of Coin Opens Wide the Portals of Pleasure, Where Wealth Beckons with Golden Fingers," but this was only a trap for the unsuspecting girl, who was presently, sewed in a plain sack, tossed from the stern of an ocean liner far out at sea by creatures who would do anything for money—who, so it was said, were Remorseless in the ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... any way of letting her know she was getting it. It's no use writin' to those scoundrels of lawyers of hers and telling them. She'd only think it was a trap; or she'd think I'd caved in, and be so cockahoop we should never get any forrader. Then I got the idea. It looks a bit roundabout, but I believe it'll work, I do really. But it'll take a lot of working, and I'm wondering whether that little housekeeper of yours—what's her name—Mary ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... 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 ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... were brought, Ferrier said, "Now I'm going to make him sweat violently, and then I shall trap him up, as some of you say, and you must do your best to keep him warm afterwards, or else you may lose him. When he has perspired enough you must rub him dry, with some muslin that I'll give you, and then merely ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... caught his balance and began walking steadily over the top of the swaying car. At the other end of the car he opened the trap door which was used to push hay through for the animals, examining its interior carefully. There was no sign of a stranger inside, nor did he expect to ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... principle of Japanese guidance in his administration to find that his Throne would be as good as publicly and solidly established. Being saturated with the doleful diplomacy of Korea, and seeing in these proposals a mere trap, Yuan Shih-kai, as we have shown, had drawn back in apparent alarm. Nevertheless the words spoken had sunk in deep, for the simple and excellent reason that ever since the coup d'etat of the 4th November, 1913, the necessity ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... in the vicinity. These come to the cage, alight on the flap, and begin to eat the seed. The bird-catcher gives the string a sharp pull and thus traps his victims between the flap and the side of the cage. He then disentangles them, places them in the cage, and again sets the trap. ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... pitiable; but your sister is a girl of gentle breeding—a sweet, charming, sincere young girl whom everybody admires and respects. If you are anything but a gutter-mut, you'll respect her, too, and the only way you can do it is by shutting that unsanitary whiskey-trap of yours—and keeping it shut—and by remaining as far away from her as ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... suddenly come on a mixed crowd of Boxers, soldiers and townspeople fleeing in panic all mixed together, and had mown them down with mitrailleuses. There was a cul-de-sac, which was horrible, it was reported. The machine-guns had played for ten or fifteen minutes in that death-trap without stopping a second until nothing had moved. The incident was only a day or two old, yet everyone had heard of it. People exclaimed that this was going too far in the matter of vengeance. But everything had been ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... knew no such thing as fear. He had the heart of a lion, and jaws like a steel trap. And no wise dog ever let Benny get a good, ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey |
