"Duck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... off. The only remaining member of the Portland's crew was a Malay—a man of whom she had an instinctive dread; for, since the massacre of the ship's company he had one day asked her with a mocking grin if she could not "clean his coat." His coat was Melton's white duck jacket, and the ensanguined garment brought all the horror of her ...
— The Adventure Of Elizabeth Morey, of New York - 1901 • Louis Becke
... half-raw, sadly mangled, cold roast beef, with waxy potatoes and overgrown cabbages, were scattered along the table. "What a beastly dinner!" exclaims an inside dandy, in a sable-collared frock-coat—"the whole place reeks with onions and vulgarity. Waiter, bring me a silver fork!" "Allow me to duck you, ma'am?" inquires an outside passenger, in a facetious tone, of a female in a green silk cloak, as he turns the duck over in the dish. "Thank you, sir, but I've some pork coming." "Will you take some of this thingumbob?" turning a questionable-looking pig's countenance over in its pewter bed. ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... was done for the day, I joined some impatient companion who had been fishing on the pond since morning, as silent and motionless as a duck or a floating leaf, and, after practising various kinds of philosophy, had concluded commonly, by the time I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient sect of Coenobites. There was one older man, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... and faithful! Not minding about the child at all; for he knew the rights of the story. He's dearly fond o' Johnny, you know—just as if 'twere his own—isn't he, my duck? Do Mr. Miller love ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... knew of my journey. I came bare alone. I threw a shell in the sea and made a boat of it, and took the track of the wild duck across the mountains of ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... Levin, weary, hungry, and happy after a tramp of twenty miles, returned to his night's lodging with nineteen head of fine game and one duck, which he tied to his belt, as it would not go into the game bag. His companions had long been awake, and had had time to get hungry and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... seems to have fallen from my shoulders just as water does from the back of a duck!" Carl exclaimed, joyously, and the patrol leader saw that he ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... farm-house close by a deep river, and from the house down to the water side grew great burdock leaves, so high, that under the tallest of them a little child could stand upright. The spot was as wild as the centre of a thick wood. In this snug retreat sat a duck on her nest, watching for her young brood to hatch; she was beginning to get tired of her task, for the little ones were a long time coming out of their shells, and she seldom had any visitors. The other ducks liked much better to swim ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Pete," he replied. "It's beyond me, for I never saw anything like it before. Anyway, I'm going to find out. You take my pack and gun and go back to the lake. Get a duck for supper, a good big fat fellow. I'll be there as soon as I can, and tell you what I can learn at the Fort. We've run across something to-day, Pete, more than ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... to duck back into bed and crush everything. But she only looked in and said to try and behave for the next three hours, ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... himself an adept at that best of boxing tactics, the ability to dodge. He rarely moved more than would take him sufficiently out of harm's way. A little bending of the head from one side to the other, a quick side-step or an adroit duck, saved him from being the bull's-eye ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... say. I don't want to blow—not here, any road—but it takes a good man to put me on my back, or stand up to me with the gloves, or the naked mauleys. I can ride anything—anything that ever was lapped in horsehide—swim like a musk-duck, and track like a Myall blackfellow. Most things that a man can do I'm up to, and that's all about it. As I lift myself now I can feel the muscle swell on my arm like a cricket ball, in spite of ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... would eat out of a basket. He rather blushed for Becky that she must sit there in the sight of everybody and share a feast with a shabby old Judge, a lean and lank stripling with straight hair, a lame duck of an officer, and two middle-aged women, who made spots of black and purple on the landscape. Like Oscar, George's ideas of life had to do largely with motor cars and yachts, and estates on Long Island, palaces ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... gone fishing. Bela was a duck for water. Since no one would give her a boat, she had travelled twenty miles on her own account to find a suitable cottonwood tree, and had then cut it down unaided, hollowed, shaped, and scraped it, and finally brought it home as good a boat ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... river in solitude, once more rowing steadily upward through the noon, between the territories of Nashua on the one hand, and Hudson, once Nottingham, on the other. From time to time we scared up a kingfisher or a summer duck, the former flying rather by vigorous impulses than by steady and patient steering with that short rudder of his, sounding his rattle along ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... girl, or a couple of citizens, loitering about. I take pains to remember these small items, because they suggest the day-life or torpidity of what may look very brilliant at night. These corked-up fountains, slovenly greensward, cracked casts of statues, pasteboard castles, and duck-pond Bay of Balaclava then shining out in magic splendor, and the shabby attendants whom we saw sweeping and shovelling probably transformed into the heroes ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... how these young gentlemen behave if we get alongside of mounseer. They can hold their heads high enough now, but when the Frenchman's shot come whizzing about their ears, they'll duck ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... rejoined Amy. "You meant it all right. And they may not have been the same ones at all. Mr. Hammond did not say they made inquiries for us, or for that poor young fellow. What was it they called him—'The Duck?'" ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... the case of a duck that had been sucked into the same soft pond mud the summer before, and cited the instance. He forgot to add that on that occasion the mud had ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... know that you know What the teal and the black duck are dreaming at noon, And the way of the wistful wild geese as they go Through the haze of the hills to keep tryst with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... "Why not 'duck?' It's a day for ducks. Only you're so afraid of paying me compliments. I see you think you know why I've come. Tell me at once, or I won't ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in a very ingenious fashion to prevent duck from flying away when put upon water: "The trained hawks were now brought into requisition, and marvellous it was to see the instinct with which they seconded the efforts of their trainers. The ordinary ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... they reached the canoe. In spite of this some of them were so tremendous that, broken though they were, the swirling foam completely buried the craft for a second or two, but the sharp bow cut its way through, and the water poured off the deck and off the stooping figures like rain from a duck's back. Of course a good deal got in at their necks, sleeves, and other small openings, and wet them considerably, but that, as Moses remarked, "was not'ing ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... met the sheriff on the street the day he arrived. The sheriff had a memory trained to hold faces indefinitely. He smiled a little, made a polite gesture in the general direction of his hat and passed on. Casey swore to himself and resolved to duck guiltily around the nearest corner if he saw the sheriff coming his ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... observing, that for some days before this date, we had frequently seen flocks of ducks flying to the southward. They were of two sorts, the one much larger than the other, the largest were of a brown colour; and, of the small sort, either the duck or drake was black and white, and the other brown. Some said they saw geese also. Does not this indicate that there must be land to the north, where these birds find shelter, in the proper season, to breed, and from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... have to listen to Bernard, as you never will do. We've got such a Mr Green down here, Grace. He's such a duck of a man,—such top-boots and all the rest of it. And yet they whisper to me that he doesn't ride always to hounds. And to see him play billiards is beautiful, only he can never make a stroke. I hope you play billiards, Grace, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... fortifications on the sea-coast, and substitute in their place wooden Martello towers! This would be very much like building 120 gun ships at Pittsburg and Memphis, for the defence of the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers, and sending out duck-boats to meet ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... with. Ambition, the desire to mount aloft, touched and fired the boy's mind. As he read, studied, and observed, while his hands were busy with his work, there was a constant fluttering going on in the eyrie of his thoughts. By an instinct analogous to that which sends a duck to the water, the boy took to the discussion of public questions. It was as if an innate force was directing him toward his mission—the reformation of great public wrongs. At sixteen he made his first contribution to the press. It was a discussion of a quasi-social subject, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... evening with their load, they rolled the big logs into the duck pond back of the barn, where the crust of ice was thin, there to soak until Christmas morning, at which time they would be placed in their respective fire-places in the big dining and living-rooms of the house, and ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... threw herself into the stream, and let it carry her down, like a duck, a foot or two, while she looked intently on the bottom, then simply walked up out of it on to a stone. I could see that her plumage was not in the least wet; a drop or two often rested on her back when she came out, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... equipped for such an expedition as I could possibly wish, save in one particular. I had a smart, light-draught vessel, capable of "going anywhere where a duck can swim," as we say at sea; we were well armed, had plenty of ammunition, mustered a crew of twenty-six prime seamen, the pick of the Barracouta's crew—men who would go anywhere, and face anything—we carried an ample supply of blankets, beads, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... to the sales she came upon a nice white duck coat and skirt which she contrived to buy as a present for Jane. It was necessary to count over the contents of her purse very carefully and to give up the purchase of a slim umbrella she wanted, but she did it cheerfully. If she had been a rich woman she would have given presents to ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... master to the Canadian, who, imitating his example, had taken down a long duck gun from the same side of the hut, "take your dog with you and reconnoitre in the neighborhood. You speak Indian, and if any of these people are to be seen, ascertain who ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... the skins of albatross and mollyhawks, the polished horns of oxen, small calf-skin bags and penguin mats made by the women, and occasionally wild-cat skins. They usually wear blue dungaree on week-days, and broadcloth or white duck on Sundays. With the women and children it is different, for they depend on parcels sent by friends, and as of late years there has been no regular communication with the island they have been at times very short, especially of underclothing. Now that whalers ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... made a funeral o' me this mornin'.... But, aw say, Pudge; th' next time at there's aught o' this sort agate again, aw wish thae'd be as good as keep that pow o' thine to thysel', wilto? Thae's raise't a nob at th' back o' my yed th' size of a duck-egg; an' it'll be twice as big by mornin'. How would yo like me to slap tho o' th' chops wi' a stockin'-full o' slutch, some Sunday, when thae'rt swaggerin' at front o' ...
— Th' Barrel Organ • Edwin Waugh
... day of this expedition about twenty-five men went out on a hunt for porkers. Six very good-sized ones were secured by this party, to which I belonged. Another expedition went duck hunting and bagged eighty fine ones. Great numbers of chickens were everywhere in the woods and towns. They belonged to the natives. A party of soldiers caught fifteen of these while the hogs and ducks were being secured. These three parties returned about the same time loaded ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... one who pointed out the imposing figure, which was clad always in white duck or linen in the summer, and wrapped in a picturesque military cape in winter, added the remark: "And he is the Little Colonel's grandfather." To be the grandfather of such an attractive little bunch of mischief as Lloyd Sherman was when she first came to the Valley was a distinction ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Butte of Warlencourt. No material change had taken place on this part of the front since the fruitless attack of November 11. The 1st Division, however, had done a good deal of work in the back areas, and had laid duck-board tracks from High Wood to the front line, and increased the number of light railways. B.H.Q. were at some dugouts at the 'Cough Drop,' a place about a mile north of High Wood. The 149th Infantry Brigade had now decided to make use of a party of 'Observers,' and Major Anderson asked me ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... 'A was a pessus!" vociferates the owner of the streaming ribbons and the scarlet countenance. "And did she tumble out of her pram, the duck, and wicked Polly never see her? And thank Good Gracious, not a bruise on her blessed little body-woddy, nor nothing ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... shield of Ajax son of Telamon. When Ajax lifted his shield Teucer would peer round, and when he had hit any one in the throng, the man would fall dead; then Teucer would hie back to Ajax as a child to its mother, and again duck down ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... willows, was heard a confusion of sounds, twittering and little shrill cries which announced an awakening to life. Looking out of the window, she could see the birds picking at the humid earth with their beaks, snapping at the worms. Over the pond floated a light mist. A wild duck, far prettier than the tame ducks, was swimming on the water, surrounded with her young. She tried to keep them beside her with continual little quacks, but she found it impossible to do so. The ducklings escaped ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... fell on Porton's arm the other swung around in a startled way. Then, as he caught sight of Dave and his friends, he gave a sudden duck and crowded in between several ladies standing in front of him. The next instant he was dashing out into the street in the midst of a perfect maze of ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... some time before I could coax them to go to the bushes where the swan had fallen. I did not blame them much, for when the big bird came down, it seemed as if the very heavens were falling. We supplied our friends with ducks several days, and upon our own dinner table duck was served ten successive days. And it was just as acceptable the last day as the first, for almost every time there was a different variety, the cinnamon, perhaps, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... tank which served as a fire engine, but he must have in his hall, or beneath the stairs, or hanging up behind his shop door, at least one leathern bucket inscribed with his name, and a huge bag of canvas or of duck. Then, if he were aroused at the dead of night by the cry of fire and the clanging of every church bell in the town, he seized this bucket and his bag, and, while his wife put a lighted candle in the window to illuminate the street, set off for the fire. The smoke or the flame was his guide, ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... this seemed to be felt by the five Khaki Boys as they stood in the mud and darkness waiting. For it had rained and the trench was slimy on the bottom in spite of the "duck boards." ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... and sent the canoe, with one powerful sweep, several rods down the bank, keeping so close to the land that the leaves of the overhanging limbs brushed the heads of the occupants, and compelled them to duck their heads. This done, he allowed the boat to rest, while he listened to learn what his enemies were doing. The sounds that fell upon his ear told him the flight of the boat had been detected, and there could be no doubt that the whole force of Iroquois ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... across the Atlantic, are strung the villages, nestled in bays and coves. And it is out from this coast that the dozen little islands lie. First, and partially across the mouth of the bay where the fishing fleet lies, is Long Island. Then comes High Duck, Low Duck, and Big Duck. Farther south there are Ross's, Whitehead, and Big Wood islands, not to mention spits, points, and ledges of rock innumerable and ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... thing they call a yawl, which floats like a cockle-shell, and carries two or three people, and row off to one of the cunningest, prettiest, slenderest, most scrumptious little ships you ever set eyes on, sitting on the water like a white duck with its ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... man, he had to run the farm alone. Now they raised poultry, which his wife had always attended to. And he knew she had a habit of setting hens on duck eggs. He had never inquired her reasons, being shiftless, but that fact he knew. Well, come to investigate the hen-house, there was duck eggs, and hens on 'em, and also a heap of hens' eggs, but no more hens wishing to set. So the man, having no judgment, persuaded ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... stable-sergeant, who was Anthony Fritzen, of Scranton, Penna. The horses were then led to the corral and the real stable duties of the day commenced. In leading the horses through the stable to the corral, the length of your life was dependant upon your ability to duck the hoofs of the ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman
... somewhat more extensive. The emu is frequent on the plains, and that once supposed "rara avis," the elegant black swan, was seen in the greatest abundance on the river to which it has lent its name, and particularly on Melville lake. Equally abundant were numerous species of the goose and duck family. White and black cockatoos, parrots and parroquets, were every where found. Pigeons and quails were seen in great quantities, and many melodious birds were ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... his last high school year, planning to study law—all the Maynes took to law as a duck to water. Brave, simple-hearted, direct, clear-thinking, scrupulously honorable,—this was one of the diamonds used to cut the rough hard ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... more than a foot across. It stands towards the southern part of the island; and all the other islands are visible from it,—Smutty Nose, Star Island, and White Island,—on which is the lighthouse,—much of Laighton's island (the proper name of which is Hog, though latterly called Appledore), and Duck Island, which looks like a mere reef of rocks, and about a mile farther into the ocean, easterly of ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... down, pull down, cut down, knock down, hew down; raze, raze to the ground, rase to the ground[obs3]; trample in the dust, pull about one's ears. sit, sit down; couch, squat, crouch, stoop, bend, bow; courtesy, curtsy; bob, duck, dip, kneel; bend the knee, bow the knee, bend the head, bow the head; cower; recline &c. (be horizontal) 213. Adj. depressed &c. v.; at a low ebb; prostrate &c. (horizontal) 213; detrusive[obs3]. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... said the young Malay, laughing, as he coloured through his brown skin; "it is nothing. I saw a wretch trying to do harm, and I fired at him with small duck shot. You would ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... they seemed to void in a way of defence, and it stunk worse than assafoetida, or what is commonly called devil's dung. Our people saw several geese, ducks, and race-horses, which is also a kind of duck. The day on which this port was discovered occasioned my calling it New-Year's Harbour. It would be more convenient for ships bound to the west, or round Cape Horn, if its situation would permit ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... smiled. You have no idea how much younger he looked when he did smile; the benevolence that made him a Natural History Philanthropist just shone out from his eyes, and beamed all over his face, till I longed to be—well, say a duck, or something of that sort—that he might ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... her profession, and not having a word of compliment to say? Instead, he praised the noble elms and chestnuts of the Park, the broad white lake, the flowers, the avenues. He was greatly interested by the whizzing by overhead of a brace of duck. ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... Green—that little handkerchief of a park that never seemed so embroidered with turns and bridges and bandstands and duck ponds before. Through the crowd that had already gathered we edged our way till we came to the double line of bayonets and batons that guarded the entrance to Dawson street. Over the broad, blue shoulder of the policeman directly in front of me, I glimpsed a wicked-looking little ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... in a tone of obsequious respect which not only delighted, but astounded Archie, who hadn't known he could talk like that, "accordin' to instructions, when I heard a suspicious noise. I crope in, sorr, and found this duck—found the accused, sorr—in front of the mirror, examinin' himself. I then called to Officer Cassidy for assistance. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... was on the 10th of January, and he had extracted a promise from Fulk, to take him duck-shooting to the mouth of our ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a darling and a duck, and I love you like anything," said Nancy. "Now come downstairs. We are all hungry, and the boys are mad to be at ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... cool-eyed, low of voice. There were medicine-closets with orderly rows of labeled bottles, linen-rooms with great stacks of sheets and towels, long vistas of shining floors and lines of beds. There were brisk internes with duck clothes and brass buttons, who eyed her with friendly, patronizing glances. There were bandages and dressings, and great white screens behind which were played little or big dramas, baths or deaths, as the case might be. And over all brooded the mysterious authority of the superintendent ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... any possibility be discovered in the one by W. F. Witherington, R.A. If our remarks were made with an affectionate eye to the young ladies of the satin-album-loving school, we should assuredly style this "a duck of a picture"—one after their own hearts—treated in mild and undisturbed tones of yellow, blue, and pink—and what yellows! what blues! and what pinks! Some kind, superintending genius of landscape-painting evidently prepared the scene for W.F. Witherington, R.A. It displays nothing of the vulgar ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... isn't always the man with the biggest fists that's got the most fight in him—is about as far above me as—as—" she sat down on the floor, ponderously, beside the open bag, and gesticulated with a hairbrush, at loss for a simile "as an eagle is above a waddling old duck. No, I don't mean that, either, because I never did think much of the eagle, morally. But you get me. Not that he knows it, or shows it. Heyl, I mean. Lord, no! But he's got something—something kind of spiritual in him that makes you that way, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... itself, and from ornamental pedestals spring conventional representations of the sacred tree of Buddha, delicately wrought in iron. Tall flagstaffs, 60 or 80 feet high, surmounted by emblematical figures or representations of the Brahminy duck, float their long streamers in the wind, while the sound of tinkling bells descends from the "tis" with which every pinnacle is crowned. Surrounding all is a broad platform fringed with shops and other buildings, for the Burmese love their pagoda, ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... tables likewise fastened by ropes, the captain and myself took our meal with some difficulty, and swallowed a little of our broth, for we spilt much the greater part. The remainder of our dinner being an old, lean, tame duck roasted, I regretted but little the loss of, my teeth not being good enough to have ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... he lent a hand. As the Shiner felt the added sail she poked her nose in and took the water green. But the narrow build forward threw off the load, and she rose like a duck. The seiner was carrying a fearful press of sail, but she stood up stiffly under it, all the red and green lights of the other seiners falling astern; it was evident that the skipper meant to keep them there. Before long, occasional flashes of light, being ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... approach to loose behavior on the part of the wife is severely punished by the husband. The variations that occur are often simply matters of adaptation to circumstances; thus, according to J.G. Millais (Natural History of British Ducks, pp. 8, 63), the Shoveler duck, though normally monogamic, will become polyandric when males are in excess, the two males being in constant and amicable attendance on the female without signs of jealousy; among the monogamic mallards, similarly, polygyny and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... old man, in a yachting suit, and another man in white duck. They are aft, and both appear to be holding pistols. There are two women, one middle-aged, I should say, and the other barely more than a ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... pleased her. She scolded me and found fault with me incessantly. Everything I did she considered clumsy; God had given me two left hands; my coat fitted so badly, it made me look like a scarecrow; my walk was a cross between that of a duck and cock. What she disliked especially was my politeness toward the customers. As I had nothing to do until the opening of the copying bureau, where I should have direct dealings with the public, I considered it a good preliminary training to take an active part in the retail business of the grocery ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the peroxide bottle and a teaspoon, Ern. We'll fix him up, poor duck. What's your name, ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... Kettle; "that'll suit me down to the ground, daddy. Stewed duck is just the thing I like, and palm-oil sauce isn't half bad when you're used to it. I'll recommend your pub to my friends, old one-eye, when ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... mops and brooms and scrubbing brushes; and the good housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in water, insomuch that an historian of the day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers like unto a duck; but this I look upon to be a mere sport of fancy, or, what is ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... shepherds, back! Enough your play Till next sun-shine holiday. Here be, without duck or nod, Other trippings to be trod Of lighter toes, and such court guise As Mercury did first devise With the mincing Dryades On the lawns and ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... know. No other woman was holding him like that. It never occurred to him that he could not or should not like other women at the same time. There was a great deal of palaver about the sanctity of the home. It rolled off his mental sphere like water off the feathers of a duck. He was not eager for her money, though he was well aware of it. He felt that he could use it to her advantage. He wanted her physically. He felt a keen, primitive interest in the children they would ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... duck's paces won't suit you, if you are as fond of galloping as other young ladies. Come, jump up, and see which is the best ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... WILD DUCK (Anas boschas).—The mallard is splendid in plumage, and in shape is far more graceful than his domesticated brother. In early winter the wild ducks fly overhead in a wedge-shaped phalanx, and by and by they pair, and if disturbed start up with a sudden quack, quack from the copse-wood ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... If we were ducking missiles from an enemy, I'd get orders from the commander. But to duck asteroids, there's no problem. I go over them by firing the steam tubes along the bottom of the ship. That way, you feel the acceleration on your feet. If I fired the top tubes, the ship would drop out from under ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... were ten or twelve peasants, his servants, all of them poachers or refugees, who like himself had some interest in "retiring from the world" (his own expression), and in finding a place of safety behind good stout walls. An enormous pile of hunting weapons, duck-guns, carbines, blunderbusses, spears, and cutlasses, were raised on the platform, and the porter received orders never to let more than two persons at a time approach ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... and another round went by, with no further damage to Joe and no diminution of strength on the part of Ponta. But in the beginning of the fifth round, Joe, caught in a corner, made as though to duck into a clinch. Just before it was effected, and at the precise moment that Ponta was ready with his own body to receive the snuggling in of Joe's body, Joe drew back slightly and drove with his fists at his opponent's unprotected ...
— The Game • Jack London
... she said, smiling. "That especial frock shan't appear again while I'm down here. But it's a duck of a frock, really, Roger!"—with a feminine sigh ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... up with that duck and march him back to camp, along with his feathered messengers," Jack grumbled disappointedly. "Somehow I hate and despise a ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... Duck Bank into the hollow. On the right, opposite the lighted Dragon Hotel, lay Duck Square in obscure somnolence; at the corner of Duck Square and Trafalgar Road was a double-fronted shop, of which all the shutters were up except two or three in the centre of the doorway. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... selected under this order. The dog was of a dingy red colour, and the slut black. They were not large; their hair was short, but very thick coated; they had dew claws. Both attained great reputation as water-dogs. They were most sagacious in everything, particularly so in all duties connected with duck-shooting. Governor Lloyd exchanged a Mexican ram for the dog at the time of the merino fever, when such rams were selling for many hundred dollars, and took him over to his estate on the eastern shore of Maryland, where his progeny were ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... edge of the clearing I heard the tinkling of a brook. Walking to its edge, I knelt and dipped my hot wrists in the cold stream, wetting my hands, face and matted locks, while the natives eyed me solemnly but with, I thought, looks of anxiety. And then a strange thing happened. As I took off my duck's-back fishing hat, filled it to the brim and raised it to my lips, a cry of horror burst from the throats of those swarthy giants. The chief strode forward and dashed the cap from my hand, at the same time ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... of movement, I leave his side, dart between a carriage and a van, duck under the head of a cab-horse, and board a 'bus going westward somewhere—but anyhow, going in exactly the reverse direction to the botanist. I clamber up the steps and thread my swaying way to the ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... being mere membranes extended parallel to their sides, and having no movement independent of the body. The bird was, so to say, suspended between them and moved forward by quick strokes of a pair of enormously large webbed feet, precisely as a duck propels itself in water. All these things excited in me no surprise, nor even curiosity; they were merely unfamiliar. That which most interested me was what appeared to be a bridge several miles away, up the river, and to this I directed my steps, crossing ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... the reign of Charles II. at the east end of St. James's Park, there was a swampy retreat for the ducks, thence denominated Duck Island, which, by Charles was erected into a government, and a salary annexed to the office, in favour of the celebrated French writer, M. de St. Evremond, who was the first and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... cherished her, and excepting Signor Padrone, who had never seen her in his lifetime ... for paroco Snello said he desired no visits from any who took liberties with Holy Church ... as if Padrone did! Luca one day came to me out of breath, with money in his hand for our duck. Now it so happened that the duck, stuffed with noble chestnuts, was going to table at that ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... all. Every man's life bears its inscription if he will take the trouble to read it. There was James Grahame, born, as you may say, wi' a sword in his hand, and Bauldy Strang wi' a spade, and Andrew Semple took to the balances and the 'rithmetic as a duck takes to the water. Do you not mind the day you spoke anent the African missions to the young men in St. Andrews' Ha'? Your words flew like arrows—every ane o' them to its mark; and your heart burned and your e'en glowed, ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... He went on as dry as a duck in a shower. 'You're one o' the few sensible men in this village. You live within yer means, an' you ought to ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... of great excitement and suspense when we launched the Victory. You should have seen the faces of Benedicto and Filippe when she floated on the water as gracefully as a duck. I got on her, and with a punting pole went half-way across the river and ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... worthy of your giant intellect," said Mr. Pedagog, scornfully. "For myself, I do not at all object to anything you may choose to say to me or of me. Your assaults are to me as water is to a duck's back." ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... see me yesterday—kissed my hand, and seemed in a general verve for embracing. He is very earnest, very simple, very childlike. I like him. Pen says of him, 'He is not really pretty. He is rather like his own ugly duck, but his mind ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... recording the names of those relations and friends from whom he learnt his several virtues, this man may boast to after-ages of having learnt from one coachman how to cut a fly off his near leader's ear, how to tuck up a duck from another, and the true spit from a third—by-the-bye, it is said, but I don't vouch for the truth of the story, that this last accomplishment cost him a tooth, which he had had drawn to attain it ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the dry season brings. Dirt-trains kept the right of way, however, for the Work always comes first at Panama. Or it might be the famous "yellow car" itself with members of the Commission. Once it came all but empty and there dropped off inconspicuously a man in baggy duck trousers, a black alpaca coat of many wrinkles; and an unassuming straw hat, a white-haired man with blue—almost babyish blue-eyes, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he strolled about with restless yet quiet ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... to the park used to bring them bags of biscuits and bread crusts. When the ducks and geese were nicely fattened the Brigands used to carry them off and devour them at home. When they became tired of eating duck or goose, some of the Councillors made arrangements with certain butchers and traded away the ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... from her chair, and the drake immediately began to lead her towards the door. When he had conducted her out on to the lawn, he led her to a little lake near the house, and there she saw what it was that troubled Mr. Drake. A duck, very probably his wife, had been swimming in the lake, and in poking her head about, she had caught her neck in the narrow opening of a sluice-gate and there she was, fast and tight. The lady lifted the gate, Mrs. Duck drew out her head and went ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... the mighty river, saw where it dashed over the rocks in dust and flew with the clouds to carry the rainbow. I saw the wild buffalo swimming in the river, but the stream carried him away; he floated with the wild duck, which soared into the sky at the rapids; but the buffalo was carried over with the water. I liked that and blew a storm, so that the primaeval trees had to sail too, and they were whirled about ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... always cotton to a free-and-easy cuss As takes his dose and thanks the Lord it wasn't any wuss. There ain't no use of swearin' and cussin' at your luck, 'Cause you can't correct your troubles more than you can drown a duck. Remember that when beneath the load your suffering head is bowed That God will sprinkle sunshine in the trail of every cloud. If you should see a fellow man with trouble's flag unfurled, And lookin' like he didn't have a friend in all the world, Go up and slap him ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... of mountains ... and pasturage sweet and free as savannah or upland or prairie ... with flights and songs and screams that answer those of the wild pigeon and high-hold and orchard-oriole and coot and surf-duck and red-shouldered-hawk and fish-hawk and white ibis and Indian-hen and cat-owl and water-pheasant and qua-bird and pied-sheldrake and blackbird and mockingbird and buzzard and condor and night-heron and eagle. To him the hereditary countenance descends both mother's and father's. To him ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... between my house and hers for all sorts of things, and, as they slopped until the road ran tiny rivulets, I had to change shoes and stockings twice. I was not conscious till afterward how funny it all was. I must have been a good deal like an excited duck, and Amelie like a hen with a duckling. When she was not twitching my sash straight, she was running about after me with dry shoes and stockings, and a chair, for fear "madame was getting too tired"; and when she was not doing that she was clapping ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... overnight. But, as it hadn't much to do with such plot as there is, we cut it out. It came cheaper. Here comes your father back from his walk with that lunatic, Young WERLE—you had better go and play with the Wild Duck. [HEDVIG goes. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... on the wharf, with some naval officers, when he came down from his first trip. The steamer seemed an animated hen-coop. Live poultry hung from the foremast shrouds, dead ones from the mainmast, geese hissed from the binnacle, a pig paced the quarter-deck, and a duck's wings were seen fluttering from a line which was wont to sustain duck trousers. The naval heroes, mindful of their own short rations, and taking high views of one's duties in a conquered country, looked at me reproachfully, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... both as showing the general use of signs as a practice and the diversity in special signs for particular meanings. The surprise of the agent at the unsuspected accomplishment of his charges was not unlike that of a hen who, having hatched a number of duck eggs, is perplexed at the instinct with which the ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... of that day remembered Samuel Clemens as a slender, fine-looking man, well dressed, even dandified, generally wearing blue serge, with fancy shirts, white duck trousers, and patent-leather shoes. A pilot could do that, for his surroundings ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of asceticism; and that all the living interest which was still supposed necessary to the scene, might be supplied by a traveller in a slouched hat, a beggar in a scarlet cloak, or, in default of these, even by a heron or a wild duck. ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... Don't you know me? I've heard of the Phelpses ever since I was knee-high to a duck. They are folks nobody need feel ticklish about shaking hands with. You're the only swelled up one of the stock. I never knowed but one wuthless Phelp, and he was a good enough fisher when he was sober. Colonel, were you ever picked up by puttin' out your paw to the wrong man? Want to ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... with this superabundance of game, the wild pigeons disappeared so totally and suddenly that the most experienced hunters cannot explain this sudden disappearance. There were found also about Ville-Marie many partridge and duck, and since the colonists could not go out after game in the woods, where they would have been exposed to the ambuscades of the Iroquois, the friendly Indians brought to market the bear, the elk, the deer, the buffalo, the caribou, the beaver and the muskrat. ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... wonder great as my content To see you here before me. O my soul's joy! If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have waken'd death! And let the laboring bark climb hills of seas Olympus-high, and duck again as low As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die, 'Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear, My soul hath her content so absolute That not another comfort like to this Succeeds ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... rolling sea. The little groves of timber, scattered here and there, sheltered from the summer sun the wild cattle of the plains. The shorter grasses hid the coveys of the prairie hens, and on the marsh-grown bayou banks the wild duck led her brood. A great land, a rich, a fruitful one, was this that lay about ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... Vavrika had been deeply scarred by smallpox in the old country. She was short and fat, homely and jolly and sentimental. She was so broad, and took such short steps when she walked, that her brother, Joe Vavrika, always called her his duck. She adored her niece because of her talent, because of her good looks and masterful ways, but most of all because of ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... Selection." The first of these is known under the name of Heredity. It is a matter of common observation that every animal or plant produces offspring after its own kind. Under no conditions would we expect a duck to lay an egg from which could hatch anything but a duck. No Plymouth Rock chicken mated with another of her own kind will ever lay an egg that will produce a Rhode Island Red. We may believe that the dog has descended from some form of wolf, but it is not meant that ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... of that woman like water from a duck's neck," Leon said, "which every five minutes she comes up here and talks to me in French high speed with the throttle wide ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... bilge water, tobacco and rum warned him that his expected visitor was approaching. And an instant after the door was opened, and a short, stout, dark man in a weather-proof jacket, duck trousers, cow-hide shoes, and ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Chicken Bouillon Stuffed Celery Wafers Roast Duck Currant Jelly Mashed Potatoes Baked Squash Spiced Punch Cabbage-and-Green-Pepper Salad Plum ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... wondered how, when it had been fully two years since the colonel, with every one else, abandoned Duck Creek to the Chinese, he managed to spend money freely, and to lose considerable at cards and horse-races. In fact, the keeper of that one of the two Challenge Hill saloons which the colonel did not patronize ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton |
