"Toothpick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... package, for he was small, pale, nervous, shifty, and rat-like; and neither his hands nor his eyes were still for an instant. Further to set him apart he wore a hard-boiled hat, a flaming tie, a checked vest, a coat cut too tight for even his emaciated little figure, and long toothpick shoes of patent leather. A fairer mark for cowboy humour would be difficult to find; but I had a personal interest and a determined character so the gang took a look at ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... enough to know that it was Millaird's thick and hairy hands that gathered together all the loose threads of Operation Retrograde and deftly wove them into a workable pattern. Now the director leaned back in a chair which was too small for his bulk, chewing thoughtfully on a toothpick. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... barrier—the points of the family lawyer were untrussed. He leaned back in the caleche with the air of a man who had subscribed to the Peace of Europe, and dined well on top of it. He criticised the fortifications with a wave of his toothpick, and discoursed derisively and at large on the Emperor's abdication, on the treachery of the Duke of Ragusa, on the prospects of the Bourbons, and on the character of M. Talleyrand, with anecdotes which made up in raciness for what they ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... when Symes dined cheek by jowl with hoi polloi who left their spoons in their cups and departed using a toothpick like a peavy, his thoughts turned to his coming triumph in Crowheart. And although his gorge rose at the sight of a large, buck cockroach which scurried across the table and turned to wave a fraternal leg at him before ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... answered a question, and hardly ever stirred. I had one fixed idea—that of self-destruction; and after two unsuccessful attempts, I was so closely bound and watched night and day that any further attempt was impossible. They would not trust me with a toothpick or a button or a ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... the space-differences of sensations. The touch of the point of a toothpick on the skin has a different space quality from the touch of the flat end of a pencil. Low tones seem to have more volume than high tones. Some pains feel sharp and others dull and diffuse. The warmth felt from spreading the palms of the hands out to the fire has a "bigness" not felt ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... any galley slave of a French frog with the sword, or spit you upon the rapier. I will cleave you with the axe, transfix you with the arrow, or blow you to the pit with the devil's sulphur. I will fight any of you or all of you with any weapons from a battering-ram to a toothpick—and God assist the better man. And there you have Laurence ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... has a toothpick in his waistcoat pocket, or in the thing that serves him for a waistcoat—an instrument that, he says, has been in his family the last fifty years. Conceive, my dear Fotherby, an hereditary toothpick! No, Mr. Davis does not deserve that fate. And now let me give you a bit of advice. ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... forth, and so on. This isn't half the list. The man who has a "Toothpick once used by Charles Dickens" will have to have a hearing; and the man who "once rode in an omnibus with Charles Dickens;" and the lady to whom Charles Dickens "granted the hospitalities of his umbrella during a storm;" and the person who "possesses a hole ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with "urgent" inscribed in pencil on it, was brought to him that evening as he was finishing his coffee. She had no difficulty in getting it taken in. Mr. Parke's theory was that a newspaper man gained more than he lost by accessibility. He came out immediately, furtively returning a toothpick to his waistcoat pocket—a bald, stout gentleman of middle age, dressed in loose gray clothes, with shrewd eyes, a nose which his benevolence just saved from being hawk-like, a bristling white mustache, and a pink double chin. It rather pleased Frank ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... sit down to write a story about a man who fell off a bridge and landed in a kettle of tar on a canal boat and, before I have completed a full paragraph, I can have stopped to clean the small o, small e, and small a of my typewriter with a toothpick, stopped to think about the pearl buttons on a vest I owned in 1894, the Spanish-American War, what the French word for "illumination" is, and whether I paid my last Liberty Loan installment. Before I have finished that ...
— Goat-Feathers • Ellis Parker Butler
... was a bore, and I was squeamishly out of sorts with him for his volubleness, but I could not help admiring him as I watched him go down. Past seventy years of age, lean as a toothpick, and shrivelled like a mummy, he was doing what few young athletes of my race would do or could do. It was forty feet to bottom. There, partly exposed, but mostly hidden under the bulge of a coral lump, I could discern his objective. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... the colonel good-humouredly, reaching for a toothpick from the glass stand in the centre of the table. "We think a man deserves something who hasn't missed a convention ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... genovese": I had no intention of flattering the Genoese with this remark, but rather the older recitativo, the recitativo secco. And as to Wagnerian leitmotif, I fear I lack the necessary culinary understanding for it. If hard pressed, I might say that I regard it perhaps as an ideal toothpick, as an opportunity of ridding one's self of what remains of one's meal. Wagner's "arias" are still left over. But now I shall ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... been to some of the big department stores where you can buy everything under one ruff from a elephant to a toothpick, and have a picture gallery and concert throwed in. They had got a big trunk full of things to wear. I wondered what they wanted of 'em when they wuz goin' off on another long journey so soon; but considered that it wuzn't my funeral or ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... rock weighing a hundred or more pounds, dropped it on the middle of the fragment; and it did not even bend what this man of awful strength had severed with his two hands as one would break a wooden toothpick between the fingers. Then Peters picked up a stove which stood, fireless, in the room; and he cast it through an open window, seven or eight feet away, into the yard beyond, where it fell, breaking into a hundred pieces. I need scarcely say ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... represented in lacquer-ware of many kinds, on the sides and covers of carven boxes, on tobacco-pouches, on sleeve-buttons, in designs for hairpins, on women's combs, even on chopsticks. Bundles of toothpicks in tiny cases were offered for sale, each toothpick having engraved upon it, in microscopic text, a different poem about the war. And up to the time of peace, or at least up to the time of the insane attempt by a soshi(4) to kill the Chinese plenipotentiary during negotiations, all things happened ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... very thin slices of nice bacon. Season the oysters with a little salt and pepper. Roll each oyster in a slice of bacon; pin together with a toothpick; roast over hot coals, either laid on a broiler, or fasten them on a meat fork and hold over the coals. Cook until the bacon is crisp and brown. Don't remove ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... steps and around to the desk. Her father realized that his fellow-passenger had been teasing him when he referred to this place as a boarding-house, but he was not at all crushed by the magnificence he was encountering. He felt that he was in for it—so he cocked his toothpick pluckily and wrote on the loose-leaf register the room ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... advises "Myra" that if ladies were to confine themselves to a single round oath, it would be quite sufficient; and he objects, when he is at the public table, to the conduct of his neighbor who carelessly took up "Simeon's" fork and used it as a toothpick. All this, no doubt, passed for wit in the beginning of the century. Punning, broad satire, exaggerated compliment, verse which has love for its theme and the "sweet bird of Venus" for its object, an affectation of gallantry and of ennui, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... publishing firms, and there ensued a blank of three weeks. At the end of that time I received a peremptory note inviting me to call at their office. When I presented myself I was shown into a bare, square room, where an august little man was standing, using a silver toothpick. He was short, with a large-sized lower chest; bald, with a short, grey beard cut to a sharp point; waxed moustache ends, sticking out ferociously; and brown eyes, keen ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... a clove or toothpick in his mouth: he is the very mint of compliment, all his behaviours are pointed: his face is another volume of essays, and his beard is Aristarchus. He speaks all cream skimmed, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. The other gallant is his zany, and doth most of these tricks ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... toothpick at the table or in the presence of others. If it seems absolutely necessary to use one at the table, cover your lips with your napkin; ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous
... trying to sleep, and others smoking. I went over beside the chap who had answered my first question, and after telling him who I was and what I was there for, he made room for me and I sat down. He was a funny-looking little chap about the build of a wooden toothpick, but he looked as if he was made of steel wire. We soon struck up a conversation, and his "Cockney" sure did sound funny to me; he was one of the sappers, and when he found that I had left the Infantry to join them he was disgusted. "Well," said he, "you are a bloomin' ass. Why, blime me, mite, ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... a lb. of calf's liver cut in thin slices, parboil for 5 minutes, wipe each piece dry, lay a thin slice of bacon on each slice of liver, season with salt and pepper, roll up and fasten with a wooden toothpick, dredge with flour and fry until done in bacon fat or drippings. When done take out the rolls and thicken the gravy with a little brown flour. If there is not gravy enough add a little boiling water. A teaspoonful of mushroom catsup added to ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous
... drawling out his words; "well, I don't know but you are more than half right. There have been some deaths from yellow fever in Savannah already this season, and who knows but" and turning to the captain, who at this moment came on deck, carelessly handling his toothpick, he exclaimed, "Captain Allen, Mr. Conners has got ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... "Toothpick Kid is here," said he, "and Limber Jim, and the Doughie. You'd think he'd stay away after the trouble he—I expect that ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... oysters and drain them well, and season with salt and pepper, and a drop of lemon juice if desired. Cut fat bacon into very thin, even slices, and wrap each oyster in a slice of bacon, fastening securely with a wooden skewer—a toothpick will do. Two cloves can be inserted at one end of the roll to simulate ears. Have the frying pan very hot, and cook the little pigs until the bacon crisps. Serve immediately upon small ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman
... Slingsby Into armour of Seville, With a strong Arkansas toothpick Screwed in every ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... on his relations when he returned. Seven needle-books, for his sisters; a gilt buckle, for his mamma; a handsome French cashmere shawl and bonnet, for his aunt (the old lady keeps an inn in the Borough, and has plenty of money, and no heirs); and a toothpick case, for his father. Sam is a good fellow to all his relations, and as for his aunt, he adores her. Well, we were to go and make these purchases, and I arrived punctually at my time; but Sam was stretched on a sofa, very ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... doctors ain't got any license to monkey with," began Bill, chewing out blue smoke from his lungs with each word, "and they're both fevers. After they butt into your system they stick crossways, like a swallered toothpick; there ain't any patent medicine ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... a few other rules that would seem unnecessary to mention here were it not that they are so constantly sinned against. Among others it may be suggested not to do anything disagreeable in company. Do not scratch the head or use a toothpick, earspoon or comb; these are for the privacy of your own apartment. Use a handkerchief whenever necessary, but without glancing at it afterwards, and be quiet and unobtrusive in the action as possible. Do not slam the door, do not tilt your chair back to the loosening of its joints, do not lean ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... have fishman send you all the bones; put the bones on to boil; wash, dry, and season the fillets; roll them (putting in some bits of butter), and fasten each one with a wooden toothpick. Strain the water from the bones; thicken with a little brown flour and onion; add to this one-half can of tomatoes, a little cayenne pepper, salt, and chopped green peppers. Let this sauce simmer for a couple of hours (this need not be strained); ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... rustic simplicity and city acumen. A diagnosis of the provincial's ways in Paris, like every form of life there, has been given by a shrewd observer, who mentions among other signs that the novice may be recognized by the fact that he keeps his toothpick after dinner and carries it ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... again there is a complete change. Medjidis, cheriks, piastres, and paras now take the place of Serb francs, Bulgar francs, and a bewildering list of nickel and copper pieces, down to one that I should think would scarcely purchase a wooden toothpick. The first named is a large silver coin worth four and a half francs; the cherik might be called a quarter dollar; while piastres and paras are tokens, the former about five cents and the latter requiring about nine to make one cent. There are no copper coins in Turkey ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... I's indignant 'nough to choke. Whah's our Christmas dinneh comin' when we's 'mos' completely broke? I can't hahdly 'fo'd a toothpick an' a glass o' water. Mad? Say, I'm desp'ret! Dey jes better treat me nice, dese ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... countesses. Every time I beheld her, with a big emerald earring gleaming at either side of her head, I thought of a Lenox Avenue local in the New York Subway. However, it was not so much her jewelry that proved such a fascinating sight as it was her pleasing habit of fetching out a gold-mounted toothpick and exploring the most remote and intricate dental recesses of herself in full view of the entire dining room, meanwhile making a noise like ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... their own liquor over a quick fire. When plump wrap each oyster in a slice of bacon, and fasten with a small skewer (wooden toothpick). Saute in the blazer, heated very hot. Serve on thin rounds of toast. These cromeskies are most easily cooked in a double broiler, resting on a dripping-pan, ...
— Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties - With Fifty Illustrations of Original Dishes • Janet McKenzie Hill
... old-fashioned bay'nets; but what we ought to have had was a couple o' those pretty, bill-hooky blades the Ghoorkha boys use. They'd make short work of briars and brambles and things. Toothpicks, our lads calls 'em; and the little fellows the Toothpick ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... a man that had the misfortune to be born with a wooden toothpick in his mouth instead of a ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... is either white or untidy, well-gloved or otherwise, he twirls his moustache, or his whiskers, or picks his teeth with a little tortoise-shell toothpick. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... out with Sir Kit as his second, and carried his message next day to the last of his adversaries: I never saw him in such fine spirits as that day he went out—sure enough he was within ames-ace of getting quit handsomely of all his enemies; but unluckily, after hitting the toothpick out of his adversary's finger and thumb, he received a ball in a vital part, and was brought home, in little better than an hour after the affair, speechless on a hand-barrow to my lady. We got the key out of his pocket the first thing we did, and my son Jason ran to unlock the barrack-room, ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... country were not less savage and horrible. The wild rocks raised their lofty summits till they were lost in the clouds, and the valleys lay covered with everlasting snow. Not a tree was to be seen, nor a shrub even big enough to make a toothpick. The only vegetation we met with was a coarse strong-bladed grass growing in tufts, wild burnet, and a plant like moss, which sprung ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... this was your toothpick, eh? Na! Na! We ken whaur we are, and wha we want, and by Cruachan, I ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... teeth were strong and white and even. He walked toward the door with his light quick step, paused for a toothpick as he paid his check, was out again into the July sunlight. ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... for the setting were in a little basket by themselves. Peggy hung over them breathlessly, and saw in fancy eighteen balls of yellow down, teetering on toothpick legs. Then her imagination leaped ahead, and the cream-colored eggs had become eighteen lusty, pin-feathered fowls, worth forty cents a pound in city markets. Peggy's heart gave a jubilant flutter. Many a fortune had started, ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... tyee!" quoth the Siwash, studying me with dusky eyes, "is a mighty passion. Know you that our first circulating medium was shells, a small perforated shell not unlike a very opaque quill toothpick, tapering from the middle, and cut square at both ends. We string it in many strands and hang it around the neck of one we love—namely, each man his own neck. And with this we buy what our hearts desire. Hiaqua, we ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... and EDWARD clear the table. HOFFMANN has arisen and comes to the foreground. He has a toothpick in his mouth. ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... unbuttoned his waistcoat, and stuck his legs out before him—an example that Mr. Sponge quickly followed, and each assumed an attitude that as good as said 'I don't care twopence for you.' A dead silence then prevailed, interrupted only by the snap, snap, snapping of Jack's toothpick against his chair-edge, when he was not busy exploring his mouth with it. It seemed to be a match which should keep silence longest. Jack sat Squinting his eyes inside out at Sponge, while Sponge pretended to be occupied with ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... toothpick from the pocket of her mannish jacket and used it energetically. I shuddered. "Unfortunately," she went on, a little indistinctly, "unfortunately, I lack resources for ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... And as for the toothpick habit! Let no one ever tell me that that atrocity is American! Here it goes with every course, and without the pretended decency of holding one's serviette before one's mouth, which, in my opinion, is a mere affectation, ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... if a fellow had better hold on to a box of matches like grim death, and that the time wasn't out of sight when you'd have to give fifty-seven dollars and a half for a toothpick," Tembarom afterwards said to ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... pillow or a folded soft comfort is placed on a table in a warm room—temperature not below 75 F. On baby's tray near by, and within reaching distance, are the boracic acid solution in a small cup, a medicine dropper, the warm saucer of oil, the toothpick applicators (made by twisting cotton about one end, making sure the sharp end of the pick is well protected), a glass jar of small cotton balls made from sterile absorbent cotton, the castile soap, talcum powder, needle and thread. A vessel of warm water, ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... The best toothpick is a finely-pointed stick of cedar. Toothbrushes should not be too hard, and should be used, not only to the teeth, but to the gums, as friction is highly salutary to them. To polish the front teeth, it is better to use a piece of flannel than ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... repast. Her own breakfast, she explains, is a dejeuner a la thumb, the sort enjoyed by the peasant who carves a bit of bread and cheese in his hand, and she promises us a sight, some leisure day, of a certain dejeuner a la toothpick celebrated for the moment among the artists. A mysterious painter, shabby, but of a certain elegance and distinction even in his poverty, comes daily at noon into a well- known restaurant. He buys for five sous a glass of chianti, a roll for one sou, and with stately grace ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... find that the latest act of the duke on the scaffold, before submitting to the stroke of the executioner, was to call his servant, and put into the man's hand a toothpick-case, the last token of ill-starred love. "Give it," he said, "to that person!" After the description of Monmouth's burial occurs the ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.26 • Various
... the library without taking off his hat, and chewing a toothpick vigorously. He began to talk at once, stretching himself out in a Morris chair, and accepting a cigar. This time ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... thought, 'are not the four Cardinal virtues, Temperance, Justice, Prudence and Fortitude?' and then resumed my watch inside. Dr. Mansfield finished writing, and then held up the slip as though for a final revision before handing it to me. A toothpick which he had in his mouth worked energetically from side to side, and he gravely shook his head as in perplexity. 'I don't like this,' he ejaculated at last, 'I don't want to give it to you. There'll be trouble here. It's very serious. Better let me tear it up.' 'Let ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... Cole asked where he was. There'd be a row and a bit o' shooting, I dessay, for it's amazing, that it is, amazing, the way the old vagabone has took to our lad. But I don't like his going off with 'em, and with nothing better than a bit of a toothpick of a knife. Wouldn't be long before he got hold of a club, ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... get this financial misquotation out of Murkison's head, but we might as well have tried to keep the man who rolls peanuts with a toothpick from betting on Bryan's election. No, sir; he was going to perform a public duty by catching these green goods swindlers at their own game. Maybe it ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... legs beneath the table and sat back, hands deep in pockets, and a toothpick hanging limp from between lips ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... rascallion-like, the costly bauble! Filled with what motley, unlovable contents: stale pawn-tickets of foreign monts de piete, pledges never henceforth to be redeemed; scrawls by villanous hands in thievish hierolgyphics; ugly implements replacing the malachite penknife, the golden toothpick, the jewelled pencil-case, once so neatly set within their satin lappets. Ugly implements, indeed,—a file, a gimlet, loaded dice. Pell-mell, with such more hideous and recent contents, dishonoured evidences of gaudier summer life,—locks ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... me, "Asker, stick to your poetry: whenever I want cloth, my merchants bring it from Europe." And I obeyed his instructions; for on the approaching festival of the new year's day, when it is customary for each of his servants to make him a present, I wrote something so happy about a toothpick, I which I presented in a handsome case, that the principal nobleman of the court, at the great public audience of that sacred day, were ordered to kiss me on the mouth for my pains. I compared his majesty's teeth to pearls, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... ceiling just out of reach of the children. Stick a ripe cherry or a candied cherry on the tooth pick. The children in turn jump up and try to catch the cherry in their mouth. The cherry is the prize and when won by one of the children another cherry must be put on the toothpick until each child has ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... chance the countess had surmised correctly concerning this gentleman. He was a bannerless knight, named Julien de Boys-Bourredon, who not having inherited on his estate enough to make a toothpick, and knowing no other wealth than the rich nature with which his dead mother had opportunely furnished him, conceived the idea of deriving therefrom both rent and profit at court, knowing how fond ladies are of those good ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... exclaimed Nyoda fervently. "A rhinocerous, a wild rhinocerous, with an ivory toothpick on his nose, would be a simple problem compared to Kaiser Bill. No, my dears, Kaiser Bill is a goat, a William goat, with the disposition of a crab, the soul of a monkey and the constitution of a battle tank. We named him Kaiser ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... on the phiz of man or beast before. For all I was so scart that I was sweating icicles, I couldn't help but snicker. Howsomever, at that moment brother bear threw his weight on the board, and she snapped like a toothpick, and my merry smile took a walk. I was in a desperate fix! He had only to keep on pulling down boards to the last one, and then, of course, I'd come down with it. Something had to be done. I grabbed a sack of flour and heaved it at him; the sack caught on a splinter and ripped, so ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... any little thing of that kind in hand, sir?' inquired the favoured gentleman in blue, drawing a toothpick from his waistcoat pocket. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... was reached when, luncheon over, he asked for a toothpick, which he quickly passed between his teeth. At this, applause broke out on all sides, and the performance ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... after the girls had begun to gather in Number 2 duet, and Belle Tingley, who had drawn the unlucky short toothpick, was banished to the corridor to keep watch—but with a great plateful of goodies and the "golden goblet" used in the hazing exercises, filled to ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... and carried into effect much more generally than have copyrights. The patentee of an improved toothpick would be able to secure to-day a wider recognition of his right as a creator than is accorded to the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or of ...
— International Copyright - Considered in some of its Relations to Ethics and Political Economy • George Haven Putnam
... wander to the dock in search of the prisoner, in vain; for that gentleman would most likely be lounging among the most distinguished ornaments of the legal profession, whispering suggestions in his counsel's ear, or making a toothpick out of an old ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... the Toothpick and Joint Keeper of the Snuffbox? I mind me! Thou heldest these posts under our royal Sire. They are restored to thee, Lord Spinachi! I make thee knight of the second class of our Order of the Pumpkin (the first class ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they libel as the perfection of bad cookery, and barefaced chicane—pronounced that the love of travel was the imperial impulse. The politicians of the clubs—who, having nothing to do for themselves, manage the affairs of all nations, and can discover high treason in the manipulation of a toothpick, and symptoms of war in a waltz—were of opinion, that the Czar had come either to construct an European league against the marriage of little Queen Isabella, or to beat up for recruits for the "holy" hostilities of Morocco. With the fashionable world, the decision ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... generally fails to blow up some important personage with wet dynamite. In Italy a socialist is an anarchist pure and simple, who wishes to destroy everything existing for the sake of dividing a wealth which does not exist at all. It also means a young man who orders a glass of water and a toothpick at a cafe, and is able to talk politics for a considerable time on this slender nourishment. Signor Succi and Signor Merlatti have discovered nothing new. Their miracles of fasting may be observed by the curious at any time in a ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... long, a shield, helmet, breastplate, and tilting pole, together with his porridge pot, which holds one hundred and twenty gallons, and a large fork, as they call it, about three feet long; I am inclined to think this must have been his toothpick! His sword ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... of a bow window, and had been rewarded by a vision of wet paving stones, wet beggars and wet sparrows. He felt depressed and inclined to wonder why he existed. Turning from the window to the long room at his back he saw an elderly Colonel yawning, with a sherry and bitters in one hand and a toothpick in the other. He decided not to remain in the Club. So he took his hat and went out into the street. It was raining in the street and he had no umbrella. He hailed ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... see the sights and shocked everybody by his dreadful manners. He put his muddy boots on the fauteuils, did mon ami Thomas; he fell in love with a gay woman of the Boulevards whose skin was all plastered up like an old cathedral; he ate oysters with a hair-pin at dinner; he offered his toothpick to his vis-a-vis, and altogether conducted himself in such a manner that one was forced to say to him (chorus), Ah, my friend Thomas! at Paris that's hardly done. Ah, mon ami Thomas! at Paris that is not done at all. The audience is in ecstasies of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... to her machine, wondering why she had been requested to do those letters when Nelly Morrison had nothing better to do than sit picking at her type faces with a toothpick. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... quartered in the Capitol, and Pennsylvania Avenue was a drill ground. At the President's reception, the distinguished politician C. C. Clay, "wore with a sublimely unconscious air three pistols and an 'Arkansas toothpick,' and looked like an admirable vignette to twenty-five cents' ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... toothpick!" gasped Mr. Damon. "This is awful!" And the airship rushed on toward the volcano which could be plainly seen now, belching forth fire, smoke ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... we want accommodation." "Mr. Jorrocks, indeed!" replied Mr. Creed, altering his tone and manner; "I'm sure I shall be delighted to receive Mr. Jorrocks—he's one of the oldest customers I have—and one of the best—none of your 'glass of water and toothpick' gentleman—real downright, black-strap man, likes it hot and strong from the wood—always pays like a gentleman—never fights about three-pences, like some people I know," looking at Jemmy. "Pray, what rooms may ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... ill-starched? (By the by, from this circumstance we learn the antiquity of ruffs and starch. But thus he proceeds:) O wretched man of noble pedigree! who is obliged to administer cordials to his honor, in the midst of hunger and solitude, by playing the hypocrite with a toothpick, which he affects to use in the street, though he has eat nothing to require that act of cleanliness. Wretched he, I say, whose honor is ever apt to be startled, and thinks that everybody at a league's distance observes the patch upon his shoe, his greasy hat, and his threadbare ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... holding the letter in his hand, examining it critically. While he was speaking, he had taken a toothpick and was running it hastily over the words, carefully studying them. His face was wrinkled, as if he were in ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... twilight. There was a porcupine quill imbedded for nearly its entire length in his leg. Two more were slowly working their way into his body; and the shaft of another projected from the corner of his mouth like a toothpick. Whether he were a young owl and untaught, or whether, driven by hunger, he had thrown counsel to the winds and swooped at Unk Wunk, will never be known. That he should attack so large an animal as the porcupine would seem to indicate that, ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... is," said Mr. Heth, pushing back his chair, and producing his gold toothpick. "Everybody looking for somebody else's neck to hang on to. And makin' a lot of grafters out of our poor class. Look at this Labor Commissioner and his new-fangled nonsense. Nagging me to spend Lord knows how many thousands, making the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Darius had not told his troubles to a groom he would not have become king of Persia. It will be no great matter, therefore, for you to tell your affairs to a poor beggar, for there is not a twig so slender but it may serve for a toothpick." ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... astonishment, not unmixed with some confusion, appeared in the face of Sir Mulberry as he read the name; but he subdued it in an instant, and tossing the card to Lord Verisopht, who sat opposite, drew a toothpick from a glass before him, and very leisurely applied it ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... toothache indicates something seriously wrong with the teeth which can only be permanently corrected {276} by a dentist. In toothache if you can find a cavity, clean it out with a small piece of cotton or a toothpick. Then plug it with cotton, on which a drop of oil of cloves has been put if you have it. If no cavity is found, soak a piece of cotton in camphor and apply it to the outside of the gum. Hot cloths and hot bottles or bags will help in toothache, just as they ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... suffered most, perhaps, from the lack of tobacco, but even in the matter of cigarettes he could not bring himself to accept favors that he could not return. In the solitude of his richly appointed suite he collected a few cork-bound stumps, which he impaled on a toothpick in ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... Having a smack of the old blood in him, Eugene's manners were much more refined than those of the new-fangled dignitaries of the Emperor's Court, where (for my knife and fork were regularly laid at the Tuileries) I have seen my poor friend Murat repeatedly mistake a fork for a toothpick, and the gallant Massena devour pease by means of his knife, in a way more innocent than graceful. Talleyrand, Eugene, and I used often to laugh at these eccentricities of our brave friends; who certainly did not shine in the drawing-room, however brilliant they were ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "A—a miserable toothpick that I just dropped into my pocket when we ate that dinner at the restaurant!" groaned the wretched Bumpus, staring first at the offending object, and then turning a piteous face ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... toward his bug. It lacked not only top and side-curtains, but even windshield and running-board. It was a toy—a card-board box on toothpick axles. Strapped to the bulging back was a wicker suitcase partly covered by tarpaulin. From the seat peered a ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... twice the Greaser guard looked at the boys in what Dick and Nort both agreed, later, was a hungry style. The pot of coffee was much more than the boys needed, though they ate up all the food. And it was while feeling in his pockets for a toothpick that Nort's fingers touched something which played a very prominent ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... of benches and a tramp of feet announced the nearly simultaneous finishing of feeding at the men's tables. At the boss's table everyone seized an unabashed toothpick. Collins ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... of etiquette in the chapter on table manners the authors used to state that it was not polite to butter your bread with your thumb, to rub your greasy fingers on the bread you were about to eat, or to rise from the table with a toothpick in your mouth like a bird that is about to build her nest. We have never seen any one butter his bread with ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... who chews tobacco, generally puts a piece in his mouth immediately after eating. This is immediately moved from place to place, and not only performs, in some measure, the offices of a brush and toothpick, but produces a sudden flow of saliva; and in consequence of both of these causes combined, the teeth are effectually cleansed; and cleanliness is undoubtedly one of the most effectual preventives of decay in teeth ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... mine did some good," said he to himself, as he selected a toothpick and went in to read "Nicholas Nickleby" till bedtime. "They ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... betraying the least surprise, slowly got up, pulled a toothpick out of his pocket, and began to use it, while he looked down upon the Indian. "What's ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... man," remarked a third, wiping a toothpick on his thigh and putting it in his vest-pocket, as he stepped to the front, "don't know how to look fur work. There's one way fur a day-laborer to look fur work, and there's another way fur a gentleman to look fur work, and there's another way fur a—a—a man with money to look fur ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable |
