"Flick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... minutes the Arabs she had noticed on the road entered. Their brown, slipperless feet were caked with sticky mud, and directly they found themselves under shelter in a dry place they dropped the robes they had been holding up, and, bending down, began to flick it off on to the floor with their delicate fingers. They did this with extraordinary care and precision, rubbed the soles of their feet repeatedly against the boards, and then put on their yellow slippers and threw back the hoods which had ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... at this speech, which brought back to her with a sharp flick the egregiousness of her absurd self-deception. What a simpleton she had been—what a little naive, provincial simpleton! In spite of her high opinion of her own cleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped she had been in the childish, idiotic American ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... 'em on the boat," continued Stampede viciously. "And she with me every minute, smiling in that angel way of hers, and not letting me out of her sight a flick of her eyelash, unless there was only one hole to go in an' come out at. And then she said she wanted to do a little shopping, which meant going into every shack in town and buyin' something, an' I did the lugging. At last she bought a gun, and when I asked her what she was goin' to do with ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... closed because its master, a social acquaintance of the club man's, was at this time touring the Orient in his steam yacht. No man should have entered that doorway. So, as the horse started under the flick of the long whip, Shirley peered unobserved through the glass window ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... swung round and steadied himself with his back against the bunk when he saw Mart and Joe lift their hands and hold them there, palms outward, a bit higher than their heads. Something in the sight enraged Casey unreasoningly. A flick of the memory may have carried him back to the old days in the mining camps when Casey drove stage ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... aside and let you fight it out. You say he is indifferently skilled with the sword, and, in addition, that he has a fever. Thus you should contrive to put your steel through him, and a duel it will have been. But if by luck or skill he should have you in danger, I shall be at hand to flick in my sword at the right moment and make an opening through which ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... steps gave back the sound of his tread as he mounted, with eerie, wandering echoes. The grey walls glimmered with a ghostly desolation around him. Halfway up, he stopped to flick the ash from his cigar, and laughed aloud. But the echoes of his laughter sounded like voices crying in the darkness. He went on more swiftly, like a phantom imprisoned and seeking escape. The echoes met him and fell ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... give Artless a start that would make him bound through it. Round and round they went, however, several times, with Artless rearing, backing, and plunging; but at last the whip came down at the right moment, just the slightest flick, Riley let go his head, and out he dashed in his indignation, the battle ending in a wild gallop up the street, with the car swinging behind him, and the whole of the Irish side of the road out cheering and encouraging, ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... General, with a searching note in his voice which seemed to probe coldly and with deadly accuracy among the strenuous emotions in the young man's mind. "Harris—you are an officer of promise. Don't cut that promise short." With a flick of his ashes to one side he turned away. The cigar went back into the corner of his ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... overhead, and stopped just in front of the place where Archie sat. Archie looked at him; he looked at Archie. The squirrel put its paws together and rubbed its nose. It chippered a minute, twinkled its bead-like eyes, then, with a final flick of its tail, it was off, and up the tree again like a flash. Archie looked after ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... straw. In the morning this paste was rubbed in, and the horses brushed until their coats shone. The hoofs were then blacked and polished, the mouths washed, and their teeth picked. It is related that after this grooming the master of the stables was accustomed to flick over their coats a clean muslin handkerchief, and if this revealed a speck of dust ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... pearl-powder and the faintest soupcon of rouge. I rubbed on her sweet lips just the suspicion of pink, liked by an elderly grande dame francaise, who has not yet "abdicated." I then made myself up more seriously: a blue shadow on the lids, a raven touch on the lashes; a flick of the hare's-foot under my eyes and on my ear-tips: an extra coat of pink and a brilliant (most injurious!) varnish on the nails. Then, with a dash of Rose Ambree for my companion's blouse and Nuits d'Orient for mine, we sallied forth scented like a harem, ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... said. "If it loses, I'll take it up." Hahn gave him an eye-flick of acknowledgment. He was used to mascots. Sandy watched the play until at last the jack slid off to rest by the side of the case, leaving the winning card, a nine, exposed. Sandy alone had won. The luck-piece had proved ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... never forget his first wild scamper over the moorland. He would persist in riding in his best London clothes, spotless broad white collar, shining silk hat, gloves, and all. Before mounting he even bent down to flick a little tiny bit of dust ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... of hasking and of sending in my card," said Aby; and he gave his horse a flick as intending thus to cut short the conversation. But Mr. Somers had put his hand upon the bridle, and the beast was ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... of malevolence in either of their comments, only a resigned recognition of certain unpleasant truths which seemed to have been habitual to both of them. Mr. Langworthy paused to flick away some flies from the butter with his professional napkin, ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... with any excitement or pleasure. She wondered what Seagreave would think of her when he saw her; she would be a vision far more brilliant than any spirit of the autumn woods, and she would wear her emeralds again, the emeralds for which Bob Flick had squandered a fortune. She put up her hand and touched them where they hung about her neck, concealed under her gown, for she wore them night and day, never allowing them to leave her person. Good old Bob! Seagreave had said there were only a few great dancers. Well, ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... electricity in that hand. When your hand moves, it'll be as fast as the jump of a spark! And when that hand moves, the gun is going to come out clean in it. It's got to come out with it! You hear? It's got to! Your fingertips catch under the butt; they flick up. They don't draw the gun; they throw it out of the holster; they pitch the muzzle up, and the butt comes smack back against the palm of your hand. And in the same part of a second you pull the ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... There is his spine, the root; his body, the stem; his limbs and head, the formative elements, prefixes and suffixes, case-endings and what not. Let him loose in the sentence, and see how he wriggles gaily from state to state: with a flick of the tail from nominative to genitive, from singular to plural: declaring his meaning, not by means of what surroundings you put about him, but by motions, changes, volitions so to say, of his own. 'Now,' says he, 'I'm pater, and the subject; set me where you will, and I am still ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... two men to be guarded against, as to their revenge. One, whom I openly hold in some serious animosity, whom I am at the pains to wound and defy, and whom I estimate as worth wounding and defying;—the other, whom I treat as a sort of insect, and contemptuously and pleasantly flick aside with my glove. But, it turns out to be the latter who is the really dangerous man; and, when I expect the blow from the other, it ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... She journey'd on amid the gath'ring gloom, A spectre form emerging from the tomb. Earth had no resting place—no worshipper— No dove returned with olive branch to her: Her lamp burned dimly, yet its flick'ring light, Guided the wanderer thro' the lengthen'd night. Oft in her weary search, she paused the while, To catch one gleam of hope—one favour'd smile; But the dim mists of ignorance still threw, Their blighting influence o'er ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... day. But you know I can't, you dear old thing. I'm writing this in the orchard, where the H.Q. horses live, and Jezebel is standing sleepily in the shade of her tree. She looks intensely stupid. She occasionally tries to flick away a fly with her short tail. Occasionally she sighs deeply, with that blubbery, spluttery noise that all horses make when ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... far-off figure flick across the chasm toward the jutting platform. He saw Darl strike its edge, bit his lip as his friend teetered on the rim and swayed slowly outward. Then Darl found his balance. An imperative gesture sent the watcher back to ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... his arm this way and that, displaying it. He snapped his fingers: flick went each separate muscle, the ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... names, Monsieur Charles, You needn't hammer so loud. If there are any spies lurking behind the bellows, I beg they come out. Dirty fellows!" The old Sergeant seizes a red-hot poker And advances, brandishing it, into the shadows. The rows of horses flick Placid tails. Victorine gives a savage kick As the nails Go in. Tap! Tap! Jules draws a horseshoe from the fire And beats it from red to peacock-blue and black, Purpling darker at each whack. Ding! Dang! Dong! Ding-a-ding-dong! ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... training to know how to get part of the answer. He leaned halfway across the com, and was able to flick down a lever with the very tip of his longest finger. Instantly the cabin was filled with a clicking so loud as to make an almost ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... bound to git back airly, ef they's moer guyard mountin' to be did. So here goes, Serlizer or no Serlizer." The horses were pretty fresh, and they tore along, enjoying the fun, and answering with their heels to every playful flick of the whip. The road was rough and hilly; the jolting almost threw the occupants of the box seat off the waggon that had no springs. Old man Newcome groaned, and implored Ben, for the sake of Serlizer, to go easy or leave him on ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the last verse of the song of Klein-Zach. When he drank too much gin or rack, You ought to have seen the two tails at his back, Like lilies in a lac, The monster made a sound of flick flack, Flic, flac, ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach
... was evidently desperately wounded. It was strange indeed that he could still sit there and flick his whip with so terrible an injury. In the back of his great red coat, just under the left shoulder-blade, was a gash in the cloth, where some weapon had passed, and all round was a wide patch of dark scarlet which told its own tale. Nor was this all. As he ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dislike sitting idle in a carriage. I always drive myself,' she said calmly, and, with a rather tighter hand than usual on the reins, she turned the ponies' heads, and even gave each a sharp flick with the whip, which sent them up the leafy road at ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... flick of the reins, Suraj broke into a smart canter, willingly enough. What were sunsets or local devils to him compared ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... his heart was beating! With what a strange and deep emotion he found himself once more in the world! Driving in the dense and devious thoroughfares was like sailing on a cross sea outside a difficult headland. He could smell the brine and feel the flick of the foam on his lips and cheeks. It ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... in light summer dresses, and white-faced straw-hatted men fresh from Boston desks; the stack of bicycles outside the post office; the come-and-go of busy officials, greeting one another; the slow flick and swash of bunting in the heavy air; and the important man with a hose sluicing the ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... for subsequent processes in which heat is generated by the nature of the finishing process. At other times, or rather in other machines, the water is distributed on the two sides of the cloth by means of two rapidly rotating brushes which flick the water from two rollers rotating in a tank of water at a fixed level. In both cases, both sides of the fabric are "damped," as it is termed, simultaneously. The damped fabric is then allowed to lie for several hours to condition, ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... true—true as it is that Tours has always had its feet in the Loire, like a pretty girl who bathes herself and plays with the water, making a flick-flack, by beating the waves with her fair white hands; for the town is more smiling, merry, loving, fresh, flowery, and fragrant than all the other towns of the world, which are not worthy to comb her locks or to buckle her waistband. And be sure if you ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... my rescue. He had his pencil out, and contrived to flick a piece of paper into my lap unseen ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... portion of the island is obtained. We were mounted on small horses active as goats. Each horse was attended by a burroquero, literally a donkey driver. They were fine athletic fellows, armed with a rabo, a cow's tail at the end of a stick, to flick off the venomous flies which worry both animals and riders. They carried also cloaks and umbrellas, to shield their masters from cold and mist. We rode out of the town between walls covered in profusion with heliotropes, roses, geraniums, fuchsias, ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... little way, stopped, turned, and looked after her. He saw the flick of her skirt as her nimble heels flew up the three steps of the kitchen porch, and he wondered why she was glad that he was not religious, and why she had gone away like that, so fast. The pigs were clamoring, shriller, louder. It was no hour for a youth who had not yet wetted his feet in manhood's ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... he staggered and would have fallen, had it not been for the youth who bore him up. Holtcolm, in his drunken anxiety for his neighbour's steadiness, stood near him and with tender, maudlin solicitude began to flick the grains of bergamot scented snuff from the lace of Lord Cedric's steenkirk. At the same time from the glass he held there spilled on his Lordship's brocaded coat of blue and silver a good half-pint of wine. Cedric upon being balanced ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... driver relaxed enough to flick the tandem grays with his whip and permit a twisted smile to play round the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... of anxious suspense. The next minute an immense disturbance leaped out of the darkness upon the sea, kindling upon it a livid clearness of foam, and the first gust of the squall boarded the brig in a stinging flick of rain and spray. As if overwhelmed by the suddenness of the fierce onset, the vessel remained for a second upright where she floated, shaking with tremendous jerks from trucks to keel; while high up in the night the invisible canvas was heard ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... contribution of fine dirt on to the occupants of the car. It would have been difficult to accuse Gay of doing it on purpose, however, for she appeared blandly unconscious of the neighbourhood of fellow beings. She gave a little flick of her whip, and away she went over a great burnt-out patch of veld, leaving the long, white, dusty road to those who had no ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... angry flick at an imaginary crumb and flounced off in the direction of the kitchen. The next moment her shrill voice was heard addressing ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... none o' me childre' is red-headed on me; they're no more to be let an' held than a flick o' fire," said Aunt Mary Ann. "Who 'd ever take the notion to be setting up business out there ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... expert at cards, awake at one moment to his weakness, and the next overwhelmingly aware that his opponent, by an incredible blunder, is delivered into his hands. The elation of it fairly frightened Mr. Chichester, and he so far forgot himself as to take up his whip and administer a sharp flick on Archdeacon's shoulder—an outrage which the good horse, after an instant of amazement, resented by a creditable attempt to bolt. This was probably the best that could have happened. It gave the Parson a job he understood, and for five ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... took the parcel from his son's hand, turned it round and round under the gaslight, laid it down, and dismissed it with a flick as of contempt for his incompetence. At that Ranny gave ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... shoulder. The boat was blazing, but the light from it reached his comrades and himself. The Indians on the bank saw them. Hasty bullets began to flick the water near them. Canoes ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as we gazed, and was gone with a flick, having missed the May-fly. But the wind of his passage, or the stir of wing, struck the merry dancer down, so that he fluttered for one instant on the wave, and that instant was enough. Swift as the swallow, and more true of aim, the great trout made one dart, ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... past week the casualty list has gone on rapidly increasing, and to-day our total is close on one hundred killed and wounded in less than two weeks' intermittent fighting out of a force of four hundred and fifty rifles. The shells occasionally fly low and take you on the head; the bullets flick through loopholes or as often take you in the back from some enfilading barricades, and thus through two agencies you can be hastened towards the Unknown. As far as I am personally concerned, it is largely a matter of food whether this affects one ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... "I shall never come through it alive, never in the world. They will know me in the flick of an eye for a boy; I know they will. Why, the folk we are passing can see something wrong; they all are ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... much use if his wife's a widow, as the man said—eh? Looking well enough yourself, though, Miss Christian, ma'am. Getting younger every day, in fact. I'll have to be fetching that East Indee capt'n up yet. I will that. Ha! ha! Get on, Boxer!" Then, with a flick of the whip, they were off ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... wide area in between, in which combat was practical. The Mekinese battleship reached a height where it could maneuver on solar-system drive without rockets. It might, of course, flick into overdrive and be gone thousands of millions of miles within seconds. But that would be flight. It would not return accurately to the scene of the fight. So overdrive could not be used as a battle tactic. It could be used only ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... the Bay of Bengal, along which a P and O steamer was gliding on its homeward way. An awning was hoisted over the deck, but not a breath of wind fluttered its borders, and the passengers lay back in their deck-chairs too limp and idle to do more than flick over the pages of the books which they were pretending to read. It was only twenty-four hours since they had left Calcutta, and they were still in that early stage of journeying when they looked askance at their fellows, decided that never, no, never had Fate placed them in the midst of such uninteresting ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... nodded pleasantly, and the wheels grated over the rocky ground by the well. With a slow flick on the long whip, the carriage crossed the three roads and rolled rapidly into the turnpike. And while she gazed straight ahead into the flat distance, Molly was thinking, "All this has happened because I went down ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... had spent the greater part of his life in the saddle. There was no more enjoyable kind of idleness possible for him than to jog along in the sunshine on one of the Captain's old hunters; called upon for no greater exertion than to flick an occasional fly off his horse's haunch, or to bend down and hook open the gate of a plantation with his stout hunting-crop. Bates had many a brief snatch of slumber in those warm enclosures, where the air was heavy with the scent of the pines, and the buzzing of summer flies made a perpetual ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... men never got it out of books. Now, you tell me—you've got a spiflicating style of talk about you—no brag, you tell me—course, the best man wins, if you mean that: now, if I was one of 'em, and I fetches you a bit of a flick, how then? Would you be ready to step ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... minds less upright and less firm would push the system of the great philosopher. "I cannot forgive Descartes," he said; "he would have liked, throughout his philosophy, to be able to do without God, but he could not help making Him give just a flick to set the world in motion; after that he didn't know what to do with God." A severe, but a true saying; Descartes had required everything of pure reason; he had felt a foreshadowing of the infinite and the unknown without daring to venture ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in her mind Too firmly rooted to be rooted out, Who ev'ry day in strength and beauty grew, till he Appeared the fairest youth in all the camp. First pity for the youth, then love for him Mysterious came to her, until at last The flick'ring flame shone sudden in her breast. "This stranger I must wed, for him I love, I know not how; that pleasant face is like The face of him I dearly loved; I see Appearing ev'ry day upon that face, As if by magic wrought, those beauties that Were seated on dead Rama's face." Thus mused This ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... given to joking. I can still see his serious face, his unclipped head of hair, often brought back behind his ears with a flick of the thumb and spreading its ancient Gallic mane over his shoulders. I see his little three-cornered hat, his small clothes buckled at the knees, his wooden shoes, stuffed with straw, that echoed as he walked. Ah, no! Once childhood's games were past, it would never have done to rear the Grasshopper ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... home for me. The next day he turned out to be broken-winded and lame. I tried having him put in harness; the horse backed, and if one gave him a flick with the whip he jibbed, kicked, and positively lay down. I set off at once to Mr. Tchornobai's. ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... the cabin and go over those tally books." Which was merely a subterfuge to get Bill away from the wagon without letting the boys know something was wrong. Bill got up, brushed the dirt off his trousers with a flick of his fingers, lighted the cigarette he had just ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... carriage and pair, to convey us thither in three days, was a careless, good-looking fellow, whose light-heartedness and singing propensities knew no bounds as long as we went on smoothly. So long, he had a word and a smile, and a flick of his whip, for all the peasant girls, and odds and ends of the Sonnambula for all the echoes. So long, he went jingling through every little village, with bells on his horses and rings in his ears: a very meteor of gallantry and cheerfulness. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... immense volumes that half bury her, making her look, as she leans upon her elbow, like the stoning of Stephen. She yawns; then she looks towards the tall glass; then she looks out at the weather, mooning her great black eyes, and fixing them on the sky as if they stuck there, while my tongue goes flick-flack along, a hundred and fifty words a minute; then she looks at the clock; then she asks ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... the weather leaches flick.... "Don't let her come up," he roared at the helmsman. "Steer her, you Swede bastard.... Where the hell did you ever steer before? On ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... scholars suffer. He wields a rod rather than a filigree bow, as old romancers fabled,—no plaything, but a most business-like article, well-poised in the handle, and thence tapering into graceful, stinging nothingness; and not a scholar escapes at least a flick of it. ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... to trudge the three miles home in the boats: the slightest flick of the foot would have sent one of them flying beyond the eye of God or man. After a couple of miles the shoes began to tell, and I stood still and lifted up one foot behind me, craning over my shoulder to see if I could catch sight of the glimmer of skin through ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... flick of the sword he laid the reptile twitching on the floor—and for a few minutes was madder with Joy than ever in his life he had ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... me hurrying Back by the sword-blade thinness of the bridge From paradise to earth, and in the middle Flick me down sideways to the fires ...
— The Garden of Bright Waters - One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems • Translated by Edward Powys Mathers
... beast out, set him on the ground, and walked on. He shook his ears twice, then lopped after me like a dog, at a slow canter. At the point where he had tumbled I collected him again by the ears, lifted him, climbed the bank and restored him to his thicket, into which he vanished with a flick of his ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he, "surely you must know—" He paused to flick a speck of soot from his knee, and then continued: "Did she ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... and the scene had but changed to this extent that the moving figures had settled down to a man to give themselves up to the soothing influence of tobacco. On his rug, U Saw had not stirred a limb save to flick the ashes from his cheroot, nor had his gaze wandered aside from the glowing flame. The quiet had become profound. Then, in deep silence, there was a sound of footsteps approaching the courtyard. Without turning his head, U Saw raised his hand. ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... Perhaps you would better tell me and let me judge for myself," she suggested; and out of the past came a flick of the memory whip to make him feel again that ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... tear his eyes from the rocket, even to watch the last of the red lights flick out, the ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... a distance of a quarter of an inch from her chin he administered the slightest flick ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... hardly see the race, I'm so groggy from the jolt Elsy hands me. Friendless breaks in front and stays there all the way. Lou Smith just sets still 'n' lets the hoss rate hisself. That ole hound comes down the stretch a-rompin', his ears flick-flackin' 'n' a smile on his face. He wins by five len'ths 'n' busts the track record fur the distance a quarter of ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... imagined, with elbows always flexed, and fingers always stretched apart. In due course his legs followed, of like purpose and absurdity. For swimming he only used his tail, but for balancing and steering, his feet and hands. Would he rise to the surface, he must flick his tail, and turn his toes and fingers upwards. Would he seek the bottom, he must depress them. Would he lie motionless, suspended in mid-water, he must point them straight outwards ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... steps and scrambled into the seat beside the driver, settling his bag between his knees; and, with a flick of the peeled hickory whip, the carriage rolled into the branch road and disappeared, scattering a whirl of mud drops as it splashed through the shallow puddles which lingered in the dryest season beneath the ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... burn'd the star of sadness As behind the beams I peer'd; All was woe that seem'd but gladness Ere my gaze with truth was sear'd; Cacodaemons, mir'd with madness, Through the fever'd flick'ring leer'd. ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... ride before dawn and when the evening breeze had come to cool the hot earth a little through the blazing afternoons he would lie in the place of honor by some open window, where he could watch a hireling flick the flies off his lean, road-hardened horse, and listen to the plotting and the carried tales of plots, pretending always to be sympathetic ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... Flick, flick, flick! I guess it must be going to begin now, but it's queer the people don't stop talking: how can they expect to hear the pictures if they go on talking? Now it's off. PASSED BY THE BOARD OF—. Ah, this looks interesting—passed by the board of—wait ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... he repeated, "and a flick of the wrist—very little more than would be necessary for a thirty yard ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... probably recognize me at once as the missing convict. This choked me off, for though as a rule I have no objection to a slight scuffle, I felt that in my present condition the average housemaid could knock me over with the flick of a duster. ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... moving; were these the stags' horns, he asked himself, in a kind of bewilderment of fear? There could be no doubt of it. The beasts were now lying down—he could not see their bodies—but clearly enough he could make out their branching antlers, as they lazily moved their heads, or perhaps turned to flick a fly away. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the vilest of the vile, the pig, into the company of which she was relegated for all eternity. She was then ordered to ground in a manner reminiscent of the tones used to bazaar dogs, which order was emphasised with a flick of the courbaash upon a part which had known the meeting ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... again. There was an impression as though the speed of a train were decreasing as one looks out of the window. And how one view held for several seconds, a vast and wild mountain-range with glaciers and snow peaks by moonlight. When this faded gradually, the scenes began to flick by, more and more rapidly, and grew blurred. Phil and Ione were attacked by nausea until, again, they had to lie down. After that came the familiar succession: the wooden animals, the tangle of vines, the vast sea, the spheres, and more blurred ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... the old doctor was of the sort who intrench themselves in a professional reserve. You might draw up beside the road to question him, but you could as well deter the course of nature. He would give the roan a flick, and ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... flourished his kambok, or long whip, in the air, and made it crack like a pistol, and the horses reared, and the oxen started and slowly bored in between them, for they whinnied, and kicked, and spread out like a fan all over the road; but a flick or two from the terrible kambok soon sent them bleeding and trembling and rubbing shoulders, and the oxen, mildly but persistently goring their recalcitrating haunches, the intelligent animals went ahead, and revenged themselves by breaking the harness. But that ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... a ball, radiating long, sharp needles in all directions that defied attack. In his youth One Eye had once sniffed too near a similar, apparently inert ball of quills, and had the tail flick out suddenly in his face. One quill he had carried away in his muzzle, where it had remained for weeks, a rankling flame, until it finally worked out. So he lay down, in a comfortable crouching position, his nose fully a foot away, and out of the line of the tail. Thus he waited, keeping perfectly ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... always remains outside of us. That's why we look with wonder at the past. And this persists even when from practice and through growing callousness of fibre we come to the point when nothing that we meet in that rapid blinking stumble across a flick of sunshine—which our life is—nothing, I say, which we run against surprises us any more. Not at the time, I mean. If, later on, we recover the faculty with some such exclamation: 'Well! Well! I'll be ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... signs of courage of the age—to fail to put on overalls, if we look our best in them! After all, every reform is in our own hands. But most people seem so entirely helpless to do anything but, metaphorically speaking, flick a fly off their own noses, that they leave reformation to God, and look upon their own unbeautiful effect and the unbeautiful effect of other men as an act of blind destiny. So we, as it were, sigh "Kismet"—in ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... shout "He has it." He holds up his finger in sign of defeat, but he utters no cry. Shall he be killed, or shall he not? The answer depends on the president or "giver" of the exhibition. He looks round, and if he perceives that the great majority are giving an upward flick of the thumb, and hears them call "Give him the steel!" the man is doomed; if, on the contrary, handkerchiefs are waved, his life is spared. A good fight or a good record may save him to fight again another day. The formal ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... only on the eight that are sure to stand. That leaves twenty-three wards that we Republicans always conceded to you people; but if we manage to carry thirteen of them along with the eight I'm talking about, we'll have a majority in council, and"—flick! he snapped his fingers—"out you go—you, McKenty, Cowperwood, and all the rest. No more franchises, no more street-paving contracts, no more gas deals. Nothing—for two years, anyhow, and maybe longer. If we win we'll take the jobs and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... cold he felt ants creeping under the soles of his feet. They crept in among his toes, swarmed over his injured leg, then over the other, and reached his knees. In a mysterious way one had suddenly settled on his nose; he wanted to flick it off, but a whole swarm was sitting on his arms. He decided not to drive them away, for in the first place they were keeping him awake, and then he rather liked them. He smiled, as one reached his waist, and did not ask how they came to be there. It was not surprising that there should be ant-hills ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... sitting at a low tripod table; and all that he had was the small table—a plain cheap table with folding legs—and three playing cards. Business was a trifle slack. I thought that his voice crisped aggressively as we elbowed through, while he sat idly skimming the three cards over the table, with a flick ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... a flick of the officious napkin. "Now shall we say a chop, sir?" Here a smiling obeisance. "Or shall we make it a steak, sir—cut thick, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... glow of which older people have to be artificially stimulated. That is really the great dividing-line—when the sparkle, the lightness, the sharpened sense which stimulates brain and tongue and feeling, ceases to respond without a flick of help from the right touch of alcohol. That intoxication of sheer living was upon Ishmael now, as it had been on that long-ago evening when the Neck had been cried, as it had a few times since, with music, or a windy sun, or a bathe in ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... moment, from one of the wings, a thin curl of smoke rose and floated up alongside a painted tamarind-tree. It might at first have been only the smoke of a cigar. Next moment, however, a flick of flame stole out and moved up the tree, and a draught of air blew the smoke across the stage. There were a few excited whispers, a rush in the wings; some one in the gallery shouted "Fire!" and just then a shower ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... remove the tracing-paper; there should now be visible upon the surface of the material, in charcoal dust, a perfectly clear reproduction of the pattern. Should, however, the impression be blurred, it is quite easy to flick everything away with a duster and repeat the process. The causes of failure would most probably be that the perforations were too large or too far apart, or that there was some movement of either paper or material during the process. ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... careful, capable, intensely respectable, none the less he could have struck him. A moment only. From the sleeve of his coat he flicked, or affected to flick, a speck. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... thrust them, not into a world where they could live out a peaceful and innocent life, but into the midst of dangers and miseries. Sometimes, beneath his windows, he could see a shoal of little fish flick from the water in all directions at the rush of a pike, one of them no doubt horribly engulphed in the ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... lash of scornful intolerance for all things hypocritical, the flick of which Barbara had never known before, was gone from Miriam's tongue. She moistened her lips and tried to speak, and had to try again ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... at the side of him. The long mowing arms stayed them. It became a butchery of sheep before he was midway of the hall, thence the rest of his passage to the door was between two huddled heaps, with not a flick in either. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... alive the flick'ring flame, Which strives to burn with feeble force Within the heart, so dull and tame, But still of life, the ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... and he threw the sun-bit away with a flick of his wrist. His hand ached with the impossible task of steadiness he had set it, and his finger and thumb burned and smoked. But the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... long as there were houris to divert their leisure, tribute of youths to swell their armies, and taxes wrung from starving subjects to maintain their pomp, there was not one of those who held the reins of government who cared the flick of an eyelash for the needs of the nations on whom the Empire rested, for the cultivation of its soil that would yield a hundredfold to the skilled husbandman, or for the exploitation and development of its internal wealth. While there was left in the emaciated ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... suppose I have made it easy enough for you: We have another twelve miles to make. You'll have to get up." But Peter this time did not stir till I touched him a flick ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... told our Mr. Morshed he'd follow him more sang frays, which is French for dead, drunk, or damned. Barrin' 'is paucity o' language, there wasn't a blemish on Jules. But what I wished to imply was, when we climbed into the back parts of the car, our Lootenant Morshed says to me, "I doubt if I'd flick my cigar-ends about too lavish, Mr. Pyecroft. We ought to be sitting on five pounds' worth of selected fireworks, and I think the rockets are your end." Not being able to smoke with my 'ead over the side I threw it away; and then your Mr. Leggatt, 'aving been as nearly mutinous ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... faster and faster. Occasionally Nora touched the mare the faintest little flick with the end of her long whip. The creature responded to her touch as though girl and horse ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... stir, hands were thrown up. One struck at his face, and the fingers were stiff; one arm was cast over his shoulders, and Andy heard the intake of breath which precedes a shriek. Not a long interval—no more, say, than the space required for the lash of a snapping blacksnake to flick back on itself—but in that interim the hands of Andy were buried in the throat of ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... evidently had no suspicion as to the answer he would get. Doubtless he thought the great Master would tell him of one more hand-washing necessary before retiring, or possibly some gnat's burden which Mr. Almost had been carrying around on his sleeve on the Sabbath. Flick that off and be perfect! Mr. Almost wanted to make his perfection secure. He had all kinds of earthly securities; now this one more, the security of heaven, guaranteed by Jesus, and he would rest satisfied. He would just nail that down in passing. ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... drawing the lash of a whip back into striking readiness ... a brutal nose broken askew, a blaster burn puckering across cheek to misshapen ear ... that, evil, gloating grin of anticipation. Flick, flick, the slight dance of the lash in a master's hand as those thick fingers tightened about the stock of the whip. In a moment it would whirl up to lay a ribbon of fire about Shann's defenceless shoulders. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... of trouble," I contradicted. "And in the end some fool leaves the skylight open in a fresh breeze, a flick of salt water gets at them and the whole lot is ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... a habit she couldn't get over. But it no longer gave her keen pleasure. She told herself that her three friends were deteriorating in their middle age. Lizzie's sharp face darted malice; her tongue was whipcord; she knew where to flick; the small gleam of her eyes, the snap of her nutcracker jaws irritated Harriett. Sarah was slow; slow. She took no care of her face and figure. As Lizzie put it, Sarah's appearance was an outrage on her contemporaries. "She makes us feel ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... who was armed with a long whip, and two or three workmen, who were well provided with sticks or pitchforks, and hungry, footsore Dick did not at that moment feel equal to facing them all, and doing himself justice. So, with an impudent flick of his tail he followed Huldah, with the air of one who would not deign to ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... from the flailing blow of the claymore, and yet Count Victor did not wish to increase the evil impression of his first visit to this country by a second homicide, even in self-defence. He measured the paunched rascal with a rapid eye, and with a flick at the left wrist disarmed him of his poignard. Furiously the Gael thrashed with the sword, closing up too far on his opponent. Count Victor broke ground, beat an appeal that confused his adversary, lunged, and skewered him through the thick ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... walking out of the room, with a toss of her head and a flick of her pretty skirts indicative of the independence and indifference she felt. She did not propose to be ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... round, and two or three fowls fly out the front door, and she'd lay hold of a broom (made of a bound bunch of 'broom-stuff'—coarse reedy grass or bush from the ridges—with a stick stuck in it) and flick out the floor, with a flick or two round in front of the door perhaps. The floor nearly always needed at least one flick of the broom on account of the fowls. Or she'd catch a youngster and scrub his face with a ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... for Harry that Evan did not deny it. The calm disdain which he read on Evan's face acted on his fury, and digging his heels into his horse's flanks he rushed full at him and dealt him a sharp flick with his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... brother, Ralph his name was. He's the bank-clerk and a dude. He gives his cuffs a flick, and starts in to make things jolly all round by telling a story about a man he knows named Wotherspoon. Jerry fixes him with his eye, ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... duster. Not that they need dusting; but as a gentle reminder of the extraordinary care he has bestowed upon us, in little things as well as in bigger, during our brief acquaintance with him, he dusts them off. That last attentive flick of his coat-tail is the finishing touch of an elaborate retrospective panorama we are expected to conjure up of the valuable services he has rendered us, and for which he is now ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... passed below them, with a gleam of dim light on the shining broad quarters of the grey mare, on a bright heavy stirrup, on a long silver spur; but the short flick of yellowish flame in the dusk was powerless against the muffled-up mysteriousness of the dark figure with an invisible face concealed ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... set, but yet I linger still, Gazing with rapture on the face of night; And mountain wild, deep vale, and heathy hill, Lay like a lovely vision, mellow, bright, Bathed in the glory of the sunset light, Whose changing hues in flick'ring radiance play, Faint and yet fainter on the outstretch'd sight, Until at length they wane and die away, And all th' horizon round fades ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... Anyway, as we steamed into range he registered direct hits time after time, and his misses were so close the spray was flying all over us. Yes, Fritz is wonderfully accurate, but"—here my companion paused to flick some dust from his braided cuff—"but when we began to knock him about a bit it was funny how it rattled him—quite funny, you know. His shots got wider and wider, until they were falling pretty well a mile ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... stood on the middle line between the two courts with his hands folded in front of him. She certainly felt a little nervous, but she knew her skill, and she sent a scorcher of an undercut skimming across the net. The ball stopped dead. Phadrig gave a flick with his right forefinger, and it hopped back over the net and ran swiftly along the ground to Brenda's feet. She flushed as she picked it up and changed courts. Then she raised her racquet and sent a really vicious slasher into the opposite court. Phadrig, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... watch the herd, Es the plungin' leaders squirm'd an' shrank— Es I heerd the flick of the unseen lash Hiss on the side of a steamin' flank. Guess the feller was smart at the work! We work'd them leaders round, ontil They overtook the tail of the herd, An' the hull of ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... a bit at that; an' she sez, 'Well, There ain't no cause at all for you to feel Modest about the things you 'ave to tell; An' wot yeh say sounds wonderfully reel. Your talk'—an' 'ere I seen 'er eyelids flick— 'Makes me 'omesick. ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis
... array, and the most delicate of lemon puddings was cooling on the ice. Nothing more could be done for hours; but Polly resisted all her mother's efforts to induce her to rest, and roamed excitedly up and down the rooms, now and again pausing to flick a few grains of dust from the mantel, or to rearrange one of the graceful bunches of ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... practised the manipulation of the whip all their lives. They could flick a square inch of ice at thirty feet with its tip. It was capable of a gentle tap, or the force of a pistol shot, at its wielder's discretion. The whip was the terror of the team, for even at his distance Tinker, the leader, could be brought to account if he failed to do his ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... his hook, crouched down, and cautiously drew near the bank. A dexterous flick of his rod landed the worm fairly in the middle of the run. Hardly had it hit the water before something grabbed it, and Charley drew forth a flopping fish. But it proved to be only a fingerling. In disgust Charley wet his hand and carefully ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... the grumbling mass of irritable beasts was urged forward by the white drover and his boys. It was a ticklish job, and the whips were kept quiet at first, except to flick up one or another which tried to poke out of the mob. All went well till the leading cattle came to the wing of the yard. Those iron rails frightened them. They had only seen a yard once before in their lives, and the rails of that one were ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... the grave, elderly man in the office, and he asks for firemen in the bare, cold waiting-room. One man comes up, a pale, nervous chap, clean-shaven and quiet. I take his "Continuous Discharge" book, flick it open at the last entry—trawling! The last foreign-going voyage is dated 1902, "S. Africa," "Voyage not completed." I hand it back. "Won't do," I remark shortly, and look round for others. The man looks at the ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... It sounds like a tex. But what's th' matter wi' th' lad? Thee't hardly atin' a bit o' supper. Dostna mean to ha' no more nor that bit o' oat-cake? An' thee lookst as white as a flick o' new bacon. What's ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... dialect, eked out by significant nods and signs, but never expressing distinctly, or in plain language, the subject on which it turned. At length one of them, observing Meg was still fast asleep, or appeared to be so, desired one of the lads "to hand in the black Peter, that they might flick it open." The boy stepped to the door, and brought in a portmanteau, which Brown instantly recognised for his own. His thoughts immediately turned to the unfortunate lad he had left with the carriage. Had the ruffians ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... postal-order for a pound. Sally's heart seemed to stop beating for an instant. She looked again at the postal-order, and with a sharp movement put it inside her blouse. Then she put the letter in the fire, and watched it flame and blacken and flick to pieces in the draught. Slowly, thinking with all her might, she took off her out-of-doors jacket and hung it up. A pound! She was rich! With a pound you could do a lot. You could ... you could buy material for a frock. You could buy underclothes, ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... certain bush close by with bright red berries when they were unripe. They look good to eat. But when they ripened, they grew fat and juicy, the size of a grape, and of a liverish color. I thought that one of them had fallen on my left forearm and went to flick it off. Instead of being that, the thing burst into a blood splotch as soon as I hit it. That was the first time I had been bitten by one of those bugs. They are about the size of a sheep tick when empty, but they get on you and suck and suck, till they are full of your blood and size ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... gazing up at the tall slender trees that seemed to tower to the very skies. Thomas was not fond of waiting, but he thought that he had the best of it in this case: it was more cheerful to sit in the carriage and "flick" the flies from Rex and Regina than to go poking about in the gloomy pine-woods. Yet, notwithstanding the darkness of its interior and the sombre character of its dense masses of evergreen foliage as seen from without—whence the name of "black timber," ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea—and I was young—and I saw it looking at me. And this is all that is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour—of youth!... A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... louder, then a door was sharply shut, and Flick, the big watch-dog, gave a low growl and the gate of the farmyard clicked again and again as it swung violently backwards and forwards ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... vot I see," he cried, in his high, broken treble, "there's some on you that ain't fit to flick a fly from a joint o' meat. You'd make werry good ladies' maids, the most of you, but you took the wrong turnin' ven ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the unfolding schematic structure. He was thrilled at sight of the selectors and analyzers of processed beryllium, the logic-and-semantic circuits in complex little bundles, the sensitized variant-tapes waiting for transferral impress, all revealed by a flick of Arnold's fingers that threw open entire sheathed sections to bare the inner secrets. The thousands of tiny transistors amazed Beardsley. The endless array of electric eyes startled him. And the spongy centers of synaptic cell-clusters horrified him, recalling too vividly to ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... held it gently Stretched out to the firelight, And looked at it, saying, "You are but a mite, Yet how sharp is your claw; If I breathed on you once You'd be blown to a distance, And if I should sneeze You would straightway be wafted Right into the flames. 270 One flick from my finger Would kill you entirely. Yet you are more powerful, More free than the peasant: Your wings will grow stronger, And then, little birdie, You'll fly where it please you. Come, give us your wings, ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... truth won't wear ornaments The embraced respected woman The habit of the defensive paralyzes will The idol of the hour is the mob's wooden puppet Their sneer withers Tighter than ever I was tight I'll be to-night With one idea, we see nothing—nothing but itself You want me to flick your indecision ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... silence of the dawn. Soon the haze lifted, leaving the dew thick on the grass by the ditch, and on the moss and the ivy in the hedgerow bank. The larks soared once more into the sky; a robin sang wistfully in the ash; a brown wren, with many a flick of her tiny wings and many a merry curtsy, hopped in and out among the trees, trilling loudly a gleeful carol. The tits flew hither and thither, twittering to each other as they flew. The hedge-sparrows' metallic notes sounded clear amid all the varied music, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... and send them on board of their several craft in a state of strict sobriety. And Gregory meant to bear a hand, and lift it pretty frequently towards the most loyal part of man, in the large festivities of that night. He smacked his lips at the thought of this, and gave a little flick to his horses. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore |
