"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will propose a new national welfare strategy, a program of welfare reform through State-sponsored, community-based demonstration projects. This is the time to reform this outmoded social dinosaur and finally break the poverty trap. Now, we will never abandon those who, through no fault of their own, must have our help. But let us work to see how many can be freed from the dependency of welfare and made self-supporting, which ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... a mountain; and her decks stretched so far away, fore and aft, below me, that I wondered how I could ever have considered the little 'Paul Jones' a large craft. There were other differences, too. The 'Paul Jones's' pilot-house was a cheap, dingy, battered rattle-trap, cramped for room: but here was a sumptuous glass temple; room enough to have a dance in; showy red and gold window-curtains; an imposing sofa; leather cushions and a back to the high bench where visiting pilots sit, to spin yarns and 'look at the river;' bright, fanciful 'cuspadores' ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Street, and through Laura Place, without the exchange of many words. Thorpe talked to his horse, and she meditated, by turns, on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys and trap-doors. As they entered Argyle Buildings, however, she was roused by this address from her companion, "Who is that girl who looked at you so hard as she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the big Dutchman, receiving an impression of quiet, ponderous efficiency that was yet strangely suggestive of a velvet-covered steel trap. This impression, however, was only a fleeting one as to the latter part; it struck Barry just once in that first early morning view of his ship, when the Hollander gave a softly spoken order to a brown Javanese, smiling ruddily as he spoke, and the sailor ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... said Norton. "Why Pink, New York is a big trap; and you would find yourself at the wrong end of a ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... to Enfield Chase, with directions to search for that undiscoverable house, to make thorough investigation of it, and to take into custody every individual therein. They found the place—an old rambling house in the heart of the Chase, full of trap-doors, passages, unexpected steps up or down, holes, corners, and cupboards at every turn. But it had no inhabitants save servants, and they could tell little. Their mistress was Mrs Perkins, the widowed sister of Mr Mease, a Berkshire farmer. It was quite true they were Catholics, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... a trap," shouted Jacques, but Pierre gave no heed to him. His one idea was to come up with his foes and he forgot everything else. He led the others by at least five yards, followed by Jacques, Earl, Jean, and Leon ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... strength. Yet our spies have seen nothing but old age and infirmity. This is surely some ruse on the part of the enemy, and it would be unwise for us to attack." The Emperor, however, disregarding this advice, fell into the trap and found ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... the station, and consequently Lucian bought the Confessions of an English Opium Eater which he saw on the bookstall. When his father did drive up, Lucian noticed that the old trap had had a new coat of dark paint, and that the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... her wholly out of the conversation. The matters seemed to be very important, and the conversation was animated: it was about so-and-so who was expected, or was or was not engaged, or the last evening at the Casino, or the new trap on the Avenue—the delightful little chit-chat by means of which those who are in society exchange good understandings, but which excludes one not in the circle. The young gentleman next to Irene threw in an explanation now and then, but she was becoming ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... of it," Cletus said, cannily dodging the trap. "But I once made a study of the ancient language." He ripped out a stream of what had once been his native tongue. Then, partly at least to test Nishka's knowledge, he added in English, "How's for looking at my room before we ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... this play, the king, who did not know the trap which was laid for him, was present, with his queen and the whole court: Hamlet sitting attentively near him to observe his looks. The play began with a conversation between Gonzago and his wife, in which the lady made many protestations of love, and of never marrying a second husband, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... silence of the black valley was emphasized now and then by the doleful voices of dogs that answered each other across the sleeping miles. At such times he felt as though he had been caught in a trap. He saw in imagination the endless unvaried chain of his days stretching before him, and he rebelled against it and knew not how to break it. His experience of life was comparatively little and ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... Marie, a baron is transformed into a bisclaveret,[39] or wolf, for three days every week, much to his wife's discomfort; in another a falcon changes into a knight, who is finally caught in a bird-trap; in another a lady falls into a trance, and is supposed to be dead, until her rival, seeing a weasel restore another one by placing a vermilion flower in its mouth, she places it in the lady's mouth and thus awakens ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... about to make fools of themselves. Poor Peregrine, however, had other troubles on his mind. Not only had his grandfather been successful in love, but he had been unsuccessful. As he had journeyed home from Noningsby to The Cleeve in a high-wheeled vehicle which he called his trap, he had determined, being then in a frame of mind somewhat softer than was usual with him, to tell all his troubles to his mother. It sounds as though it were lack-a-daisical—such a resolve as this on the part of ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... differing considerably from her anxious expectations. True, they had only one servant within doors, the woman named Ruth, but she did not represent the whole establishment. Having bought a horse and trap, and not feeling called upon to act as groom, Harvey had engaged a man, who was serviceable in various capacities; moreover, a lad made himself useful about the premises during the day. Ruth was ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... novice thinks he will trap successfully by such artless endeavours as putting a bait on the plate of a trap that is covered over with moss, or by digging a pitfall in the middle of a wild beast's track, he is utterly mistaken. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... cruel, or frighten you, my poor Babe," she said, "but—you've walked into a trap in coming here, and I've got to try and save you. Thank heaven my husband's away, but we've no time to lose. Tell me quickly about Maieddine. I've heard a good deal of him, from Cassim, in old days; but tell me all that ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... I, in a maze of wonder at this deep solicitude in a tailless cat who had lost one foot and half an ear in some cruel trap. My host smiled a sweet smile, and, addressing a few words to my little ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that must not be overheard; and there is no place so safe for a confidential conference as in a hansom driving through the streets of London. Drive slowly towards the Evening Graphite office," she said to the cabman, pushing up the trap-door in the roof of the vehicle. Mr. Stoneham took his place beside her, and the cabman turned his ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... as a pin, and as smart as a steel trap," said Barbara, regardless of elegance; "and—since nobody else will ever dare to give in—I believe Arctura Fish is the very next thing, now, ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... however, but we were all glad to make an early start, so before daylight we were on the road. The old sergeant agreed with Faye in thinking that we were in a trap at the camp, and should move on early. We did not stop at the Redoubt, but I saw as we passed that the red curtains were still at ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... hev fer six years back. He can't be ketched. We seen him an' his band of blacks a few days ago, headin' fer a water-hole down where Nail Canyon runs into Kanab Canyon. He's so cunnin' he'll never water at any of our trap corrals. An' we believe he can go without water fer two weeks, unless mebbe he hes a secret hole ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... Penny, but really I was reasoning something else. I was admitting that, now that this little phrase had popped up through some trap-door of my mind, my conscience, long dormant on the cheating theme, would have to be talked round again. And, as something like suspense set in, I was anxious to join ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... neighbours who were his ancient enemies. He said that it was reported to him that the country was ravaged, and the property of his subjects considered by his enemies as their lawful plunder. As a matter of fact it was a trap he was preparing. He hoped that his brother and other relatives in Cibao would, either by force or by trickery, capture as many Spaniards as would be required to pay his ransom. Divining this plot, Columbus sent Hojeda, but with an escort of soldiers sufficient ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... "he was mendin' a trap, over there,"—pointing to an enclosed corner close by the house, that had been roughly boarded over and fitted up with bench and table by Master Ben, so as to make a ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... hand here, or shure the mounseers will be out of the trap," he shouted, at the same time seizing a capstan-bar, which was close at hand, and dealing a blow with it at the head of the Frenchman, who fell stunned off the ladder, back upon his companions following at his ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... to obey, and soon returned with a report that there was a trap-door leading into the loft under the roof, and that they could draw ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... Is the fellow crazy? (Aloud.) Perhaps you are afraid that this is a trap to catch you alive?—Read it yourselves! Here—is the general pardon fully signed. (He hands a paper to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... go in mufti—be Jerome Fandor, undisguised. Better be on the safe side—this may be an anti-spy trap. Of course I shall miss my rendezvous; but they will not be put off so easily. They will write at once, making a new appointment. Then I shall go as Corporal Vinson, if I think it the wisest thing ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... of strange queerums and quicksets, that have a bin trap laid for your ever gracious onnur, and for the mercifool lovin kindness of sweet missee. Whereof I be all in a quandary, for it do seem I wus within an ames ace of a havin bin chouse flickur'd meself. Whereby I paradventerd before to tell your noble onnur my poor thofts ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... her friends," cried the old man with delight. "When the sky grow so dark, I take my lantern and go out to my trap I have set this morning. Then I hear a strange whistle, many times, and I think some one get lost and I cry 'hello,' and you answer and I find mademoiselle and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... got to help me do it. No decent girl is goin' into that house as it is, with my consent. It's the worst old rat-trap I ever saw. I've got the key, and I'm goin' through it this afternoon, and then I'm goin' to plan what ought to ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... despise an enemy," and marched in person at the head of his advance guard to find the Tartars. Meha, who had been at all these pains to throw dust in the Emperor's eyes and to conceal his true strength, no sooner saw how well his stratagem had succeeded, and that Kaotsou was rushing into the trap so elaborately laid for him, than by a skilful movement he cut off his communications with the main body of his army, and, surrounding him with an overwhelming force, compelled him to take refuge in the city of Pingching ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... try to explain the real customs and traits of animals after only having forty days experience for that covers our trapping and hunting in South America. I did learn considerable about that much discussed animal Monkey. I was taught by a native how to trap him, the simple remedy I'll give my reader without any extra cost, although I gave a mexican hat for that recipe. To catch a monky take a ripe cocoa-nut dig out the three eyes and the meat Fill up the unbroken shell with almost any kind ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... M.M. intimates that he is no novice in the art of driving, which is fairly true as regards a pony-trap—and the fears of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... against Cardinal Consalvi. "The rest have their theological prejudices," said he, "but he has offended me on political grounds; he is my enemy; he has dared to lay a trap for me by holding out against my dynasty a pretext of illegitimacy. They will not fail to make use of it after my death, when I am no longer there to keep them in awe!" On the day after the marriage the whole court were to defile before the new ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... features of the officer, and mark the change that sweeps over the latter. His eyes seem to flash fire, and his pallid face—thin with suffering and loss of blood—flushes despite his physical weakness. His handsome mouth sets like a steel-trap. ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... state, and when packed command a higher price than any other by $1 per bbl. They are found in the Straits and all the Lakes. They spawn in the fall, in the Straits, and in shoals and on reefs about the Lakes. They are caught in seines, gill nets, trap nets, and with spears; never with hooks. Those found in Detroit river come up from Lake Erie regularly in the fall to deposit their spawn. They were found in our lakes and rivers in vast quantities when the white men first visited their shores. They constituted, with other kinds, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... live up to your pet name and keep your trap shut? Butt out!" exclaimed Dalton, curling his upper ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... felt a creep of undefinable horror. Not so my servant. "Why, they don't think to trap us, sir; I could break that trumpery door with ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... of shopping to do, and Arthur drove her from one shop to another, waiting outside in the pony-trap while she made her purchases. Then they had tea together in a restaurant on the quay. They had never been more happy together. When they came out of the tea-shop on to the pavement they found themselves entangled ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... voice, as though it came out of the ground beneath our feet. "Thur's enough o' Ole Rube left to fill the stummuk o' this hyur buffler; an by the jumpin Geehosophat, a tight fit it ur! Wagh! I'm well-nigh sufflocated! Gie's yur claws, Bill, an pull me out o' this hyur trap!" ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... this pumpkin could make her go to the ball. Her godmother took the pumpkin and hollowed it out, leaving only the rind; she then struck it with her wand, and the pumpkin was immediately changed into a beautiful gilt coach. She next sent Cinderella for the mouse-trap, wherein were found six mice alive. She directed Cinderella to raise the door of the trap, and as each mouse came out she struck it with her wand, and it was immediately changed into a beautiful horse; so that she had now six splendid grays for ...
— Little Cinderella • Anonymous
... retreat without halting to the familiar camps in central Virginia it had so long and valiantly defended. Meade followed with alert but prudent vigilance, but did not again find such chances as he lost on the fourth of July, or while the swollen waters of the Potomac held his enemy as in a trap. During the ensuing autumn months there went on between the opposing generals an unceasing game of strategy, a succession of moves and counter-moves in which the opposing commanders handled their great armies with the same consumate skill with which the expert fencing-master uses ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... eye-witnesses, quite as palpably as the enormous bulk of the ancient chateau. It is a true "castle in Spain." Among the sights to be seen in the palace is the chamber of Mademoiselle de la Valliere, and the trap-door by which she was visited by Louis Quatorze. There are also the chamber and oratory of our James II., who died at Saint Germain, on the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... saw into his object or not was more than he could tell. His idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her as far as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a necessity with the girl,—not to spring any trap of a declaration upon her until tolerance had grown into such a degree of inclination as her nature was like to admit. He had succeeded in the first part of his plan. He was at liberty to prolong his visit at his ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... design—Nature's design. This caterpillar was in the act of loyally carrying out a law inflicted upon him by Nature—a law purposely inflicted upon him to get him into trouble—a law which was a trap; in pursuance of this law he made the proper preparations for turning himself into a night-moth; that is to say, he dug a little trench, a little grave, and then stretched himself out in it on his stomach and partially buried himself—then Nature was ready for him. She blew the spores ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... three hundred and thirteen days For more than twenty years. Saying "Yes'm" and "Yes, sir", and "Thank you" A thousand times a day, and all for fifty dollars a month. Living in this stinking room in the rattle-trap "Commercial." And compelled to go to Sunday School, and to listen To the Rev. Abner Peet one hundred and four times a year For more than an hour at a time, Because Thomas Rhodes ran the church As well as the store and the bank. So while I was ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... remember unless remembrance is forced upon them. And if the world ever forgets the Glorious Dead, and the "heritage" which these Glorious Dead left to those who still live on—well, don't talk to me of Christianity and civilisation and the clap-trap of those high ideals which everyone prates of, few understand, and still fewer strive to live up to. If the war has not yet taught the political and social and Christian world wisdom, nothing ever will; and, moreover, it does not deserve to learn. Yet, only the other day, I heard some elderly ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... for the second number upon his Imperial programme. He used the division of the spoils to pick a quarrel with Austria. The Habsburgs fell into the trap. The new Prussian army, the creation of Bismarck and his faithful generals, invaded Bohemia and in less than six weeks, the last of the Austrian troops had been destroyed at Koniggratz and Sadowa and the road to Vienna lay open. But Bismarck did not want to go ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... was thus imprudently engaged, the other party of the Saukies started from their hiding-places, and, running to the entrance of the strait, threw up in an instant another fortification, and had the satisfaction to see the whole force of their enemies thus circumvented and caught in a trap. The Iroquese soon perceived the difficulty and danger of escape; they, however, behaved with that extraordinary composure which is the peculiar characteristic of this people on every occasion. The lakes were at that time frozen over, yet not so hard as to permit them to effect a ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... that could be required of him! He would have Richard rest a day before encountering him but when he heard in what condition he had left Alice and her brother, he said no more, but the next morning had his trap ready ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... behind asked no questions when old Jasper led them. The horses' hoofs beat the dirt street like the crescendo of thunder. The fierce old man's hat was gone, and his mane-like hair was shaking in the wind. Louder-and still the Stetsons were quiet-quiet too long. The wily old man saw the trap, and, with a yell, whirled the column up an alley, each man flattening over his saddle. From every window, from behind every corner and tree, smoke belched from the mouth of a Winchester. Two horses ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... have to rig up a b'ar-trap outside," Ben said, "or we shall be having them here after the meat; and a b'ar's ham now and then will make a change. Wapiti flesh ain't bad, but we should get dog-goned tired of it arter ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... end! My father made me go and work like a common slave. But I have had enough of that sort of life, and I don't wish to hear anything more about 'locks and keys, and fairy palaces.' Come with me, and I'll teach you how to set a trap." ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... that was built on the Eddystone Rock, in December of the year 1755, and thus, once again, were those black reefs left unguarded. Once more that dread of mariners, ancient and modern, became a trap on the south coast of England—a trap now rendered doubly dangerous by the fact that, for so long a period, ships had been accustomed to make for it instead of avoiding it, in the full expectation of receiving timely warning from ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... however, since the strangers were evidently making no attempt to conceal their presence. They were galloping rapidly toward the camp in plain view of all. There might be treachery lurking beneath their fair appearance; but none who knew The Hawk would be so gullible as to hope to trap him thus. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... before he had been a painter of some standing in a colony, and portraits signed 'Van Tromp' had celebrated the greatness of colonial governors and judges. In those days he had been married, and driven his wife and infant daughter in a pony trap. What were the steps of his declension? No one exactly knew. Here he was at least, and had been any time these past ten years, a sort of dismal parasite upon the foreigner ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... punishment for the slightest fault. "Our only hope," said one of these devotees, "is that at the hour of death our sins will not have exceeded our penances." Lord Nelville, as he entered this monastery struck his foot against a trap, and asking the use of it—"It leads to our place of interment;" said one of the young monks, who was already struck with the malady caused by the malaria. The inhabitants of the south being very much afraid of death, we are astonished to find institutions in Italy which fix ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... subtle—the thing had lain in wait for me for some time. It has its insidious, seemingly innocuous trap for every one. With me? No—I didn't try to seduce the janitor's wife—nor did I run through the streets unclothed, proclaiming my virility. It is never quite passion that does the business—it is the dress that passion wears. I became bored—that ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... to all language, and I was eager to learn to use it. Children who hear acquire language without any particular effort; the words that fall from others' lips they catch on the wing, as it were, delightedly, while the little deaf child must trap them by a slow and often painful process. But whatever the process, the result is wonderful. Gradually from naming an object we advance step by step until we have traversed the vast distance between our first stammered ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... was scarcely able to withstand the things which were said against the obstinacy of the Academicians, speaks falsely, without disguise, as he was reproached for doing by the elder Catulus; and also, as Antiochus told him, falls into the very trap of which he was afraid. For as he asserted that there was nothing which could be comprehended, (for that is what we conceive to be meant by {GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI}{GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA}{GREEK SMALL ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... go down his burrow and reason with him? Do we strive to elevate his moral outlook? Not at all. We induce him to come out. And when he has come out, we see to it that he doesn't go back. In short, we set a trap. And if the rat that we catch is not the one that we wanted, we set ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... bore it without a murmur, and as if his fortitude exasperated him, the teacher showered the blows more swiftly and fiercely upon him than before, till a tear or two did steal down the boy's cheek. Then he was sent to his seat, and in a few minutes he was happy with a trap for catching flies which he had contrived ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... they said to wait a moment, and one policeman went forth into the night while I warmed myself at the stove, all the while racking my brains for the trap they were going ...
— The Road • Jack London
... that they can strengthen their class by making any secret alliance with the Throne against the masses, then they will discover rapidly that the sovereigns of the House of Brunswick are grown far too wise, and far too noble-hearted, to fall once more into that trap. If any of them (and some do) fancy that they can better their position by sneering, whether in public or in their club, at a Reformed House of Commons and a Free Press, they will only accelerate the results which they most dread, by forcing the ultra-liberal party ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... business was rapidly developing into an acute pain in the neck for him. But if he didn't let Kellogg camp across the run, the three of them could move seventy or eighty miles in any direction and be off his land. He knew what they'd do then. They'd live-trap or sleep-gas Fuzzies; they'd put them in cages, and torment them with maze and electric-shock experiments, and kill a few for dissection, or maybe not bother killing them first. On his own land, if they did anything like that, he could ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... it, and no sooner was it seen that the diver, alive, was out of the underwater trap, and that Joe, in his arms, had also come up, than a great ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... threw himself over by Tom, his arms around him—"that he's the biggest fraud to spring such a trap on me, and plan to ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... enough above the sidewalk to give me room, but the sidewalk here was high, being made of plank, as were all the walks in town; so I went under it by getting down on my hands and knees, and, as the building had no underpinning, I went on under and up through a trap-door in the floor. I got a good many things to eat from Joyce's, such as canned fruit and the like; but I always wrote down on a piece of paper nailed on the wall everything I got from any store, so that in the spring, if ...
— Track's End • Hayden Carruth
... my description. A portion of the building was occupied by the jailor, but the prison part consisted of two rooms, one under the other, and also partly underground. This under room had no entrance from the outside, but was accessible only through a trap-door from ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... without its being witnessed by the audience. After much consultation, Malibran having been assured that her wish should be fulfilled, it was arranged that the pot of porter should be handed up to her through a trap in the stage at the moment when Jules had thrown himself on her body, supposing that life had fled; and Mr. Templeton was drilled into the manner in which he should so manage to conceal the necessary arrangement, that the audience would never suspect what was going on. At the right ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... exhausted with fatigue; and a new method of disposing of them was adopted, borrowed from Nero, but improved on the plan of that tyrant. A hundred or a hundred and fifty victims, for the most part women and children, were crowded together in a boat, with a concealed trap-door in the bottom, which was conducted into the middle of the Loire; at a signal given, the crew leaped into another boast, the bolts were withdrawn, and the shrieking victims precipitated into the waters, amid the laughter of the company of Marat, ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... it! A man sits, without motion, and commits sins merely because he feels lonesome, because he has nothing to do: the machine does all his work. He has no work, and without toil man is ruined! He has provided himself with machines and thinks it is good! While the machine is the devil's trap for you. He thus catches you in it. While toiling, you find no time for sin, but having a machine—you have freedom. Freedom kills a man, even as the sunbeams kill the worm, the dweller of the depth of ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... thirty bob a week; used to lend money to the clerks at high interest, and did very well; for when he pegged out he left the old woman a couple of thousand. His name was Trappem—John Trappem, but he was better known as 'Old Jack Trap.' When they came on board the Barcoo they put on no end of side, and they were 'Mrs., the Misses, ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... slip a little collar of tar paper over each little tree to protect it against field mice, rabbits and ground hogs. Red squirrels trouble me the least of all the pests as I cannot keep them out of my double section wire rat trap, and the pet stock men give my boys 30 ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... was no hope that we should fall into this trap they had laid, there came into the doorway a great, black-haired Jomsburg Lett, clad in mail of hardened deerskin, such as the Lapp wizards make, and helmed with a wolf's head over the iron head piece. He carried a long-handled ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... in a marsh. No fast boarding-house women there, lurking for the unwary; no breaches of promise; "no nothing" in the old-man-trap line. Abjure fast boarding-houses, you silly old bachelors, and go to grass ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... them; night. Now the forehead decreases, a little hair flutters above the sand; a hand comes to the surface of the beach, moves, and shakes, and disappears. It is the earth-drowning man. The earth filled with the ocean becomes a trap. It presents itself like a plain, and ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... But—" Billy nodded toward the body of the instructor, then spun hastily as a sound came from the rear of the shed, the Thor gun coming to focus. A trap door was rising there. Three natives were looking ...
— Be It Ever Thus • Robert Moore Williams
... a piece of clap-trap you have got ready for the hustings. Now, do not let them lure you to the hustings, my dear Mr. Brooke. A man always makes a fool of himself, speechifying: there's no excuse but being on the right side, so that you can ask a blessing on your ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... laid your trap Already? Tell me. You need not be afraid! I saw them kiss, in the garden, yesternight; And I have wondered, ever since, if fire Could make a brand quite hot enough to stamp ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... but his wall-eyes flashed white firelight and his long jaws snapped like a spring trap as Jan rebounded from the bump against his buttress of a shoulder. When those same steel jaws parted again, as they did a moment later, an appreciable piece of Jan's left ear fell from them to the ground. Jan let out a cry, ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... head. No: it could not be meant to be worn there, that was plain. He turned it round and round. It must be intended for some kind of bird-trap: yes, that must be it; and he cast an inquiring glance at Indiana. She blushed, shook her head, and gave another ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... him some, but I'm hanged if I'm going to tell him all. There are too many in the secret already, what with you and the two in London; and as I keep on telling you, if one whiff of a suspicion gets abroad, the whole thing's busted, and a trap will be set that you and I will be caught in for ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... resisted the trap of appeasement, cynicism and isolation that gives temptation to tyrants. The world has answered Saddam's invasion with 12 United Nations resolutions, starting with a demand for Iraq's immediate and unconditional withdrawal, and backed up by forces from ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George H.W. Bush • George H.W. Bush
... many of the audience exchanged approving glances. They believed M. Latour had shown himself quite a match for Maitland in not falling easily into what they regarded as a neat little trap which had been set to prove his lack of chemical knowledge. They attributed Maitland's failure to further interrogate Latour upon his understanding of chemistry as evidence that he had met an equal. To be sure, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... be some way out of the trap if he could only find it. Whenever the thought of eating humble pie to Luck came into his mind, the rage boiled in him. He swore he would not do it. Better a hundred times to see the thing out ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... dashed back for a piece of sugar, and was off again. The boy said that the blacksmith, who was also a farrier, had seen Marshall, and declared he was quite sound; but Snelgrove was done for completely, and the trap was too badly smashed ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... but even at this slight descent upon the scale, we may already point out a great difference. Although there is no reproduction, still there are decided proofs of inferiority; for instance, a hare or rabbit caught in a trap, will struggle till they escape, with the loss of a leg; a fox, which is carnivorous, will do more; he will gnaw off his own leg to escape. Do they die in consequence? no, they live and do well; but could a man live under such circumstances? impossible. If you ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... his dog, proceeds to hunt fortune with it, leaving behind him a trap to catch rats.—What the trap does catch ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Andre-Louis had seen the trap. La Tour d'Azyr's words were but as a move in a game of chess, calculated to exasperate his opponent into some such counter-move as this—a counter-move that left him entirely at the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... were moved somewhat to one side. Now, as my master was always particular that the paper should lie always in the same place, it seemed strange to me they should be so disturbed. But on going nearer I perceived the reason. For there, usually hidden to view, was now exposed a cunning trap-door, opened by a hinge and sunken ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... Hers was an alert, vigorous mind, bright and strong like a steel trap, and her brother's vagueness and growing habit ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... slick man-traps!" he gasped. "I never heard of anything more clever. Nor was there ever a bigger idiot than I, to walk stupidly into this same trap! What's the game, I wonder? Robbery, it must be. And I have a watch, some other little valuables and nearly a hundred and fifty dollars in money on me. Oh, I'm the sleek, fat goose ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... how man can live directly on solar energy. "Chlorophyll is the only substance known in nature that somehow possesses the power to act as a 'sunlight trap,'" William L. Laurence writes in the NEW YORK TIMES. "It 'catches' the energy of sunlight and stores it in the plant. Without this no life could exist. We obtain the energy we need for living from the solar energy stored in the ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... of his never-fading hope, and she listened and smiled, and then ordered her pony-trap round, and tucking Bobby in beside her, drove him along the road by which he had come. They very soon met Nurse toiling along, with a heated, anxious face, and Bobby began to feel rather ashamed of himself. But the ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... not be precipitate. I was very near falling into a terrible trap. If I were to marry the girl, and only, by so doing, settle away her inheritance on Peschiera!—how hard it is to be ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mates all, if the whole affair warn't a complete trap! Down comes a clerk with the papers, sure enough—but in ten minutes more the whole blessed lot of us was puckalowed, and hard an' fast, by a strong press-gang. They put us into a cutter off Redriff Stairs, an' the next noon all hands was aboard of the ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... him all the more vigorously for his self-denial when the curtain was down. Singers of the old school should take this lesson to heart and ponder it. They imagine success is measured by the number of times they are applauded, and consequently introduce loud, high notes and other clap-trap at the end of every solo, if possible. They forget that while they thus secure the applause of the uncultured, real connoisseurs are disgusted, and put them down in their mental note-books ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... shouts of demoniac laughter they fell on to the swords and daggers of the Murids below. The flat roofs had been taken off the whole row of houses and replaced by layers of brushwood thinly covered with earth; every house, in fact, was a death-trap.' ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... little, perhaps, baas. At least, I should be if I thought about the morrow, which I don't, since to-day is enough for me, and thinking about what one can't know makes the head ache. Dingaan is not a nice man, baas; we saw that, didn't we? He is a hunter who knows how to set a trap. Also he has the Baas Pereira up there to help him. So perhaps you might be more comfortable here kissing Missie Marie. Why do you not say that you have hurt your leg and cannot run? It would not be much trouble to walk about on a ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... boatswain had started for the steerage, where three hundred Chinamen were packed like herrings on the floor and in the berths along the sides of the room. When he opened the trap-door to go down the stairs, the poisonous stench which assailed his nostrils almost knocked him down. "By all the great sharks in the sea," he cried angrily, "I believe it would be easier to breathe in the bottom ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... a good doctor. Once she cured a man. When he got well he could not pay her for the medicine. His name is Louis —-. She asked for her money; she asked many times; she could not get it. He was going to the woods, far away, to trap; he said he would pay her when he returned, but she wanted it then. She said, 'I will never forget this; I will be revenged.' He went far up the St. John River with his traps; he set them in the stream ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... article of diet for the Australian natives. Wherever there were good fishing-places on the coast or good oyster-beds powerful tribes were camped, and on the inland rivers are still found weirs constructed by the natives to trap fish. So far as can be ascertained, the Australian native was rarely if ever a cannibal. His neighbours in the Pacific Ocean were generally cannibals. Perhaps the scanty population of the Australian continent was responsible for the absence of cannibalism; perhaps some ethical ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... and most original methods at that. Some take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and, in order not to soil things, refrain from uncleanliness until the end of the meal: they keep the dropping-trap closed as long as the victuals are unfinished. This is a radical scheme, but not in every one's power, it appears. It is the course adopted, for instance, by the Sphex-wasps and the Anthophora-bees, who, when the whole of the food is consumed, expel at one shot the residues ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... think I ever was madder in all my life." He walked unsuspectingly into her trap. "I driv' away soon after or I don't know what would have happened. The more I thought about it the madder I got. Once I started to turn round and go back. I would, if I hadn't thought he was such a weak fool. It ain't done with; ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... woman vanished from the stage, and was succeeded by a knowing, active, capable damsel, with a temper like a steel-trap, who remained with me just one week, and then went off in a fit of spite. To her succeeded a rosy, good-natured, merry lass, who broke the crockery, burned the dinner, tore the clothes in ironing, and knocked ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... ached for his boy as he watched him go, and during the next few weeks Iris pity changed into an active anxiety. In setting that trap—he could call it nothing else—for Lew, he and H lne had put forces into conflict that were not amenable to any light control. Lewis had passed his word. Leighton knew he would never go back on it. On the other hand, for the first time in all her life Folly's primal ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... should have been enough; but as a schemer Lodovico was wholly extraordinary. His plans grew in the maturing, and took in side-issues, until he saw that Naples should be to Charles VIII as the cheese within the mouse-trap. Let his advent into Italy to break the power of Naples be free and open; but, once within, he should find Milan and the northern allies between himself and his retreat, and Lodovico's should it be to bring him to his knees. Thus schemed Lodovico to shiver, first Naples and then France, before ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini |
