"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... passed the bank where a hundred pounds lay ready for him, but it was still inconvenient for him to take them. Then duty sent him to a suburb not very far from Sawston. In the evening a man who was driving a trap asked him to hold it, and by mistake tipped him a sovereign. Stephen called after him; but the man had a woman with him and wanted to show off, and though he had meant to tip a shilling, and could not afford that, he shouted back that his sovereign was as good as any one's, and that if ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... complained of being surrounded by enemies, and announced that henceforth he would receive only one person at a time, who should lay down his arms before entering the hall now set apart for public audience. It was a chamber built over a vault, and entered by a sort of trap-door, only reached by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... legend about the place to the effect that there is a three hundred and sixty-sixth, which no one can find. Of course the inventory includes every roofed space between walls, from the dungeon at the top of the keep to the dark room under the trap-door in the last hall on this lower story. But you will be surprised, to-morrow, if you go over the place. It is much bigger than seems possible, because you can never really see it from outside unless you go ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... hour, and with such a companion as Edie Ochiltree. There is no road lies that way, and I do not conceive a mere passion for the picturesque would carry the German thither in such a night of storm and wind. Depend upon it, he has been about some roguery, and in all probability hath been caught in a trap of his own settingNec ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... buried the young man," said the chief of the village, "and have set a trap for the tiger, for he will be sure ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... was too easy?" he demanded between plaintiveness and fury. "I am no fool, my friends. I have eyes, me. And I see. I see an abandoned fort at the entrance of the lake, and nobody there to fire a gun at us when we came in. Then I suspect the trap. Who would not that had eyes and brain? Bah! we come on. What do we find? A city, abandoned like the fort; a city out of which the people have taken all things of value. Again I warn Captain Blood. It is a trap, I say. We are to come on; always to come on, without opposition, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... streets his joy increased. Nothing had mattered. Beneath all surface sensations there was the deep fundamental rapture: as of a wild animal that has been caught, and is now loose and free—a squirrel that has escaped from the trap, and, whisking and bounding through sunlight and shadow, understands that its four paws are still under it, and that only a little of its fur is left in those iron teeth. Security after peril—articulate man or dumb brute, can ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... quiet, Jerrold and Anne and Colin, as they set the booby-trap for Pinkney. Very quiet as they watched Pinkney's innocent approach. The sponge caught him—with a delightful, squelching flump—full and fair on the top of ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... her out and put her to his trap. Then, without a word, he gave her the rein, and they pushed on in the darkness. The road for five miles was as level as that table, and she went rapidly forward. Then a steep hill rose before them for about two miles, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... to the good sisters the absolute necessity of bringing up the child in the perfect path of sanctity. I had her dedicated to Joan, and special prayers were said by me and by the nuns that the evil one would not trap her into the sins of other Marquesan girls. Also she was observed diligently. For seven years we watched and prayed, and Monsieur, we succeeded. I will not say that it was a miracle, but it was a very striking triumph ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... should again enter the brain of the Captain, when he gained time to think over the extraordinary situation? Suppose, what was also likely, that General Yozarro should arrive while the bogus messenger was inside the Castle? He would be caught like a rat in a trap. ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... own verdict by a long course of behavior; austerity in the family begets fear; an affectation, whether of folly or resentment, is at last credited to nature; man is seldom allowed to escape from the trap of ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the press of civilization into the badlands and deserts, fought with poison, gun, and trap, the coyote had survived, adapting to new ways with all his legendary cunning. Those who had reviled him as vermin had unwillingly added to the folklore which surrounded him, telling their own tales of robbed traps, skillful escapes. ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... backs towards the sun.[3] The thus building of the temple, therefore, was a snare to idolaters, and a proof of the zeal of those that were the true worshippers; as also to this day the true gospel-instituted worship of Jesus Christ is. Hence he is said, to idolaters, to be a snare and trap, but to the godly a glory ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... cottages to act as fly-papers ("Insectivorous Plants," page 332).) I have observed during several years the manner in which this is effected, and the results produced in several species of Drosera, and in the wonderful American Dionoea, the leaves of which catch insects just like a steel rat-trap. Hence I was most anxious to learn how the Drosophyllum would act, so that the Director of the Royal Gardens at Kew wrote some years ago to Portugal to obtain specimens for me, but quite failed. So you see what a favour you have conferred ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... waste pipe and the trap," said the foreman; "but you don't know what that is, of course. They're putting in the pipe that the water runs through when it runs out ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... my meeting with Suzor in the express between York and King's Cross, the trap set for me at Stretton Street, and my astounding adventures afterwards, all flashed through my mind. Oswald De Gex was a most unscrupulous person who had climbed to fame and fortune over the ruined homes and bodies of his victims. I was ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... garden, then, and fetch A pumpkin, large and nice; Go to the pantry shelf, and from The mouse-traps get the mice; Rats you will find in the rat-trap; And, from the watering-pot, Or from under the big, flat garden stone, Six ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... what purpose I never could learn, four small reeds, about two feet from each other, in a line at right angles to the shore, where they remained for two or three days after. The old man before-mentioned, and two more, stood by these things, inviting us, by signs, to land; but I had not forgot the trap I was so near being caught in at the last island; and this looked something like it. We answered, by making signs for the two divisions to retire farther back, and give us more room. The old man seemed to desire them so to do, but no more regard was paid to him than to us. More were continually ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... o'clock arrived, and it was time to go, The carriage was announced, but decent SARAH answered "No! Upon my word, I'd rather sleep my everlasting nap, Than go and ride alone with MR. PETER in a trap." ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... possibly have got off, but it meant leaving his something camp for a whole day, and just at present he couldn't. Peter could get Pennell or anyone. Another time, perhaps, but not now. For thus can the devil trap his victims. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... my face, and aiming at some other part of it. I saw two other gentlemen by me, who were in the same ridiculous circumstances: these had made a foolish swap between a couple of thick bandy legs, and two long trap-sticks that had no ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... a servant who already loved the fair young huntsmen, and when he heard of the trap that was to be laid, he went straight to them and said, "The lion is going to prove to the King that you are maidens." Then he told them how he would seek to do this, and said, "Do your best to ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... hard to please, he fished, as it were, in troubled waters, went after the ugly ones and the pretty ones alike, was bold even to impudence, was not to be kept off by mistakes, nor anger, nor modesty, nor threats, though he sometimes fell into a trap and got a thrashing from some relative or jealous lover; he withstood all attempts to get hush-money out of him, and became only all the more enamored of vice and more ardent in his lures and pursuit of love affairs on ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Causeway and Bridge were safe. From the farther edge of the wood, in open fields, Federal camp fires were visible. It was a wonderful chance. Grover had stopped just short of the prize. Thirty minutes would have given him the wood and bridge, closing the trap on my force. Reilly, with his own and Vincent's regiments of horse and the two guns, came up. The guns were placed on the road near the Teche, with orders to stand fast. Reilly and Vincent dismounted their men, sent horses well to the rear, and formed line in the wood to the ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... fixing a mattress and pillows on the floor of a wagonette, and presently a man, who looked like a corpse, was carried out and lifted into the trap. ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... If they should set an nought, This trap tears their legs—O! so sad!" Said Billy to Tommy, "So you'd have been caught, A narrow escape ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... his tin box, accordingly did, as he rose to bait his gingerbread-trap for some other devoted infant. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... come into Ghent; there will be some Uhlans among them; and the Uhlans will certainly come into the Hotel Cecil, and they will get very drunk in the restaurant below; and you might as well be in a trap as in this den at the top of the slice up all these abominable little steep stairs. And you are very glad that ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... a gun was placed in position to bear upon them; and the gunner was blowing his match, when Sir Edward Bray galloped up, crying out that the "white coats," as the London men were called, were changing sides. The duke had fallen into a trap which Harper had laid for him. Turning round, he saw Brett, the London captain, with all his men, and with Harper at his side, advancing and shouting, "A Wyatt! a Wyatt! we are all Englishmen!" The first impulse was to turn the gun upon them; the second, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... at Christchurch," said the parson. "He and I were of the same par. He was Lord Mistletoe then. Dear me, that was a long time ago. I wonder whether he remembers being upset out of a trap with me one day after dinner. I suppose we had dined in earnest. He has gone his way, and I have gone mine, and I've never seen him since. Pray remember me to him." Lady Augustus said she would, and did entertain some little increased respect for the clergyman ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... strap but tugged in vain. The window refused to budge. Then it flashed across her mind that it was all part of a plan. She was to be trapped. The story of a Fleet marriage was a concoction to bait the trap. She flung herself in the corner, turned her back upon her captor and pulled her hood ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... word; but his wall-eyes flashed white firelight and his long jaws snapped like a spring trap as Jan rebounded from the bump against his buttress of a shoulder. When those same steel jaws parted again, as they did a moment later, an appreciable piece of Jan's left ear fell from them to the ground. Jan let out a cry, an exclamation of mingled ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... remember it in its dreary old age, standing alone on the moor, with its grim gables and its loupin'-on stane,—just the sort of place where, in the romances, the horrified traveller used to observe a trap-door in his bedroom floor, and at supper picked the finger of a murdered man out of a mutton-pie. There Rule arrived late at night seeking accommodation, but he could get none—the house was crammed. The only alternative was to ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... find a fish-trap in the outhouse. Jim regarded this discovery with great satisfaction. He chopped a hole in the river ice and, baiting the trap with a canned herring, managed to entice a "two-pounder" into the wicker basket. Angela's attempt to cook it was not entirely a failure, ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... says that if you do not open at once, he will knock the door down. They have torches, and a thousand things besides with them!" I answered: "Tell them that I am huddling my clothes on, and will come out to them in my shirt." Supposing it was a trap laid to murder me, as had before been done by Signor Pier Luigi, I seized an excellent dagger with my right hand, and with the left I took the safe-conduct; then I ran to the back-window, which looked out on gardens, and there I saw more than thirty constables; ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... suddenly tacked to windward of him, and Will was confronted with an ugly "lee shore." The trap he had fallen into was difficult, and he stood thinking. The dwarf had recovered himself, and his bland look of innocence returned to ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... girl defies prediction. She always did. One day, I think she will bring glory to us all; the next, I want to turn her out of my office. She is as smart as a steel trap; but she is as lawless as Allyn. It's in a different way. I blame them both; but I am sorry for him, while I want to shake Phebe. She could do anything she chose, but she never really chooses. Sometimes I think she is only playing with her study. The next day, she astonishes me by some ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... of Daniel, was a farmer. The vegetables in his garden had suffered considerably from the depredations of a woodchuck, which had his hole or habitation near the premises. Daniel, some ten or twelve years old, and his older brother Ezekiel, had set a trap, and finally succeeded in ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... cabin-boy. Most of the candidates, however, were reasonably expert in the art; and the captain soon came to the next requisite, which was, to say "Sir," in a tone, as Noah expressed it, somewhere between the snap of a steel-trap and the mendicant whine of a beggar. Fourteen were rejected for deficiencies on this score, the captain remarking that most of them "were the sa'ciest blackguards" he had ever fallen in with. When he had, at length, found one who could mix a tumbler of grog, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... at Maraucourt!" She kept repeating these words over and over again as she tramped along the roads over which William had driven her in the trap. ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... cargo below deck the schooner sailed even better than she had in ballast. She slipped out of the cove through the rather tortuous channel like an eel through the meshes of a broken trap. In the dawn, and with a fresh outside breeze just ruffling the sea into whitecaps, they broke out her upper sails and caught the very last breath of the gale the ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... insects.—Yellow, black-striped beetles appear in numbers and attack the plants as soon as they are up. Plant early squashes as a trap-crop around the field. Protect the vines with screens (Fig. 229) until they begin to run, or keep them covered with bordeaux mixture, thus making them ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... the Union traitors they discover to be in communication with the enemy. We have a Yankee member of Congress, Ely, taken at Manassas; he rode out to witness the sport of killing rebels as terriers kill rats, but was caught in the trap himself. He says his people were badly whipped; and he hopes they will give up the job of subjugation as a speculation that won't pay. Most of the prisoners speak ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... Everett, he's dead, and his body's in the watch-tower. They rushed our road-party last week, and got him and seven men. We've been besieged for five days. I suppose they let you through to make sure of you. The whole country's up. 'Strikes me you've walked into a first-class trap.' He grinned, but neither Tertius nor I could see where the deuce the fun was. We hadn't any grub for our men, and Stalky had only four days' whack for his. That came of dependin' upon your asinine Politicals, Pussy dear, who told us that the ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... balance and dumped it into the truck. This floor was filthy, yet they set Antanas with his mop slopping the "pickle" into a hole that connected with a sink, where it was caught and used over again forever; and if that were not enough, there was a trap in the pipe, where all the scraps of meat and odds and ends of refuse were caught, and every few days it was the old man's task to clean these out, and shovel their contents into one of the trucks with the rest of ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... was a matter of moment to every farmer, and every farmer's wife, which bride Frank should marry of those bespoken for him; Mary, namely, or Money. Every yokel about the place had been made to understand that, by some feminine sleight of hand, the doctor's niece had managed to trap Master Frank, and that Master Frank had been sent out of the way so that he might, if yet possible, break through the trapping. All this made ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... month was a small goat and a chicken hawk, and those I had to swallow wool, feathers and all. Then I got into fights with other eagles, and finally while I was looking for lunch in the forest I fell into a trap and was caught by some men who put me in a cage so that people ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... suit, forces his way into the gilded halls of the Duke's mansion, past the flunkeys, the head butler, and all the rest of the usual pampered menials. An audience that can accept this old-fashioned cheap-novel kind of clap-trap, and witness, without surprise, the marvellous departure of all the guests, supperless, for no assigned cause, or explicable reason, not even an alarm of fire having been given, will swallow a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... losing him—in good and evil. Supposing you, believing this, had given your life to God, and made your vow to him—had so proclaimed before men, had so lived and worked and striven! Supposing you thought a broken vow was death to your own soul and a trap to the souls of others—a baseness, a treason, a desertion—more cowardly than a soldier's flight—as base as a thief's purloining—meaning to you and those who had trusted you the death of good and the triumph ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... the count. "Yesterday, after having spoken to me of these cursed letters, Albert began to set a trap to discover the truth,—for he still had doubts, Noel Gerdy not having obtained the complete correspondence. An animated discussion arose between us. He declared his resolution to give way to Noel. I, on the other hand, ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... very wise, and she had taught her babies to run and hide when they saw the old cat coming. She had also taught them not to go near a trap. The little mice obeyed their mother, and they were happy in their home in ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... the criminal law. No prisoner was ever taken out of it for trial at all, but was conducted by an underground passage into the court-house itself—indeed, into the very heart of it, for a flight of steps, with a trap-door at the top, led straight into the dock, in which he made his appearance like a Jack-in-the-box, but much more to his own astonishment than to that ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... at him, Bertha, his aunt, and Mr. Stocks, and three people saw the same thing. His face had closed up like a steel trap. It was no longer the kindly, humorous face of the sportsman and good fellow, but the keen, resolute face of the fighter, the schemer, the man of daring. The lines about his chin and brow seemed to tighten and strengthen and steel, ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... throw a light into the kitchen, my father knelt upon the floor waiting for the bear to give him another chance. But Big Reuben was much too clever to do anything of the sort; he was not going to put himself into any such trap as that; and presently my mother from up-stairs called out that she could see ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... longer. Let the consequences be what they will, I must have a bite." God made the woman; he knew her weakness; and he must have known that the plan he devised to test her obedience was the most certain trap that could be invented. Jehovah played with poor Eve just as a cat plays with a mouse. She had free-will, say the theologians. Yes, and so has the mouse a free run. But the cat knows she can catch it again, and finish it off when she ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... out for Stockholm in the same way as I had come. To prepare the landlord for my setting out, I again resorted to my pencil. I made a drawing of the little gig and pony, with the sun rising, and the hour at which I wished to start. He understood it in a moment, and next morning the trap was at the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... a few things to do. One was to write a letter to your Uncle Jasper, telling him I had heard of another fire trap that ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... boulevard, which was crowded at this hour of twilight, men were driving themselves home in high carts, and through the windows of the broughams shone the luxuries of evening attire. Dresser's glance shifted from face to face, from one trap to another, sucking in the glitter of the showy scene. The flashing procession on the boulevard pricked his hungry senses, goaded his ambitions. The men and women in the carriages were the bait; the men and women on the street ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... startled me! [MARTA sets down the tray.] Oh! To be off and out of this old rat-trap. [He wipes his forehead with his black-bordered handkerchief.] I mean—our loss comes home to us so keenly here where we ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... diving-bell. Then there is the industrious Mason, which bores a hole in the earth, makes the walls of its little tunnel as smooth as if it worked with trowel and mortar, and then hangs them with delicate silken curtains of its own spinning and weaving; the Trap-door spider, so called because the mouth of its burrowed nest is fitted with a cleverly hinged door, which the owner of the nest can shut with its claw when it leaves home; the Pirate, which makes a leafy ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... have presentiments of evil; but, never having had one of them fulfilled, I am beginning to ignore them. I find that I have always walked straight, serenely imprescient, into whatever trap Fate has laid for me. When I think of any horrible thing that has befallen me, the horror is intensified by recollection of its suddenness. 'But a moment before, I had been quite happy, quite secure. A moment later—' I shudder. Why be thus at Fate's mercy always, when with a little ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... found themselves occupied only a part of the ground-floor of the building, being divided off from the larger portion by a wooden partition or bulkhead. On looking round he saw a ladder, which led through a trap-door ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... of this play, the king, who did not know the trap which was laid for him, was present, with his queen and the whole court: Hamlet sitting attentively near him to observe his looks. The play began with a conversation between Gonzago and his wife, in which the lady made many protestations of love, and of never marrying a second husband, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... it was not very restorative to a man sinking with fatigue. The countryman, who watched me narrowly, judged the truth of my story by my appetite, and presently (after having said that he plainly saw I was an honest, good—natured young man, and did not come to betray him) opened a little trap door by the side of his kitchen, went down, and returned a moment after with a good brown loaf of pure wheat, the remains of a well-flavored ham, and a bottle of wine, the sight of which rejoiced my heart ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... something which is more real than realism. He discovers the one indestructible thing. This material world on which such vast systems have been superimposed—this may mean anything. It may be a dream, it may be a joke, it may be a trap or temptation, it may be a charade, it may be the beatific vision: the only thing of which we are certain is this human soul. This human soul finds itself alone in a terrible world, afraid of the grass. It has brought ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... my brother, generous and noble as he seemed, when your trials were over, was a strange wicked young fellow; and happy it was for you both, that he was so cleverly caught in the trap he had laid for ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... flight, which led to the roof, the staircase had so greatly contracted its proportions, that fat Mr. Gregg could scarcely force himself up it, and he so completely obscured the light which peered down upon them from a small trap-door, opening upon the leads, that Flora, who followed him, found herself in a dim twilight, and expected every moment the panting mountain, which had come between her and the sky, would lose the centre of gravity, and suffocate her in ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... wondering at any rate, especially as lie will no doubt have heard the Dorking story from Paget. He pretended he saw you leave town the day you went to Ullerton, but I am half inclined to believe that was only a trap." ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... knew what it was to be angry—to stamp and shout in his rage. He had engaged in several pitched battles with the boys in the neighbourhood who had made fun of him. But his life—a life of freedom—had satisfied him. To hunt, to trap, to wander over hill, valley and forest was all that he asked for. He had never thought of anything higher, never dreamed of any life but the one his father led, hunting, and trapping in season and making a slight pretence of farming. Now, ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... books of travel, written by eye-witnesses, quite as palpably as the enormous bulk of the ancient chateau. It is a true "castle in Spain." Among the sights to be seen in the palace is the chamber of Mademoiselle de la Valliere, and the trap-door by which she was visited by Louis Quatorze. There are also the chamber and oratory of our James II., who died at Saint Germain, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... that first; it's not a great sight, I warn you—only a whitewashed, thatched cottage in a by-street. When we've seen that, we'll take a trap and ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... concerning the lively Judith: "Surely you remember her, Jeff. She used to come here selling blackberries when she was a kid—a little barefooted girl and as pert as you please even then. After old Dick Buck died she used to trap rabbits and bring them here for sale and sometimes fish. It always made me mad for Aunt Em'ly to encourage her by making Mother buy the things. I think poor persons should be taken care of all right but they ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... into his mother's room, his face flushed and his little fists clinched tight together: "My white rabbit lies all in a little dead heap in his house, and Mike, the gardener, says the weasel has killed him. He saw it prowling round the barn last night, and why he didn't set a trap and catch it I ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... she was not prepared for the storm that broke. She did not comprehend the tempest that raged within him until he had her by the shoulders, his fingers crushing into her soft flesh like the jaws of a trap, shaking her as a terrier might shake a rat, till the heavy coils of hair cascaded over her shoulders, and for a second fear tugged at her heart. For she thought he meant ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... humiliating moments in Chauvelin's career were associated with that silly rhyme, and now here it was, mocking him even when he knew that his bitter enemy lay fettered and helpless, caught in a trap, out of which there was no escape possible; even though he knew for a positive certainty that the mocking voice which had spoken those rhymes on that far-off day last September would soon be stilled ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... an act. Could he—the thought actually came to him—could he strike before the time set? But the thought was useless. Even if his friends could harbor him after such a deed, his enemies would find him, and his life would be forfeit to a certainty. His own trap was closing upon him. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... ice-creepers or crampons to adjust to the moccasins—terribly heavy, clumsy rat-trap affairs they looked, but they served us well on the higher reaches of the mountain and are, if not indispensable, at least most valuable where hard snow or ice is to be climbed. The snow-shoes, also, had to be rough-locked by lashing a wedge-shaped bar of hardwood underneath, ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... or two, but I am not certain. Most of the men must have escaped, but if they were drunk, as Gibson says, perhaps some have been caught like rats in a trap." ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... to do without sleep," said Forsyth, stepping down through the trap-door, "so I'll bid ye all ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... occasionally," he said. "For instance, instead of shooting the rabbit for supper, I'm going to try a figure-four trap." ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... into them. Early one morning, by some mischance, he got loose in the barn, and "going" for one of them frightened him so much that he also broke loose, and in trying to make his escape from the bull, backed into the barn-room. There was a large trap door in it, and the ox ventured on it, breaking it, and fell through. The bull was so close behind that he could not escape, and they dropped together into the little room below, the door of which was open. The ox escaped into the yard, and ran for dear life ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... beluga enjoys himself hugely. But Nemesis awaits him. His fish diet has a soporific effect; gorged with food he becomes stupid and is easily taken. Man's trap for him is simple and ingenious. A century and a half ago it was to be seen at Pointe au Pic and to-day it is in operation at Riviere Ouelle on the south side of the river. The weir or fishery for the beluga must be on a large scale and is expensive ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... light of the sky, I in my darkened lodge. But," he continued, turning swiftly upon the Commissioner, "I ask my father why these bad men who sell whiskey to the poor Indian are not shut up with my son. My son is young. He is like the hare in the woods. He falls easily into the trap. Why are not these bad men removed?" The old Chief's face trembled with ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... smart; Hat is smart. All is, a man never knows how to take her. But she's smart as a steel trap." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... sable countenance, which, although it savoured more of evil than of any other quality, had in it, nevertheless, a strong dash of ferocious jovialty, as if he were aware that he had got his enemies into a trap, and could amuse himself by playing with them as a cat ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... thousands of letters from women in all parts of America, desperate appeals to aid them to extricate themselves from the trap of compulsory maternity. Lest I be accused of bias and exaggeration in drawing my conclusions from these painful human documents, I prefer to present a number of typical cases recorded in the reports of the United States Government, and in the evidence of trained and impartial investigators ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... exploit of strength, dexterity, or speed, To him nor vanity nor joy could bring. His heart, from cruel sport estranged, would bleed To work the woe of any living thing, By trap, or net; by arrow, or by sling: Those he detested; those he scorn'd to wield; He wish'd to be the guardian, not the king, Tyrant far less, or traitor of the field. And sure the sylvan ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... tropical trees, rising beyond them. As we sailed on, threading the glass-like channels, the sun rose higher and higher, and shone down with intense heat on our heads, drawing forth, at the same time, a thin gauze-like mist over the whole scene. "This is a regular trap," observed Peter. "If a man once gets in here, I defy him to find his way out again, unless he was born and bred on the spot." The captain and Mr Gale were watching the progress of the vessel, and tried to look as unconcerned as possible; ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... thought of it in my solitude. The idea of having committed a murder, unintentionally, constantly presented itself to my mind. I also could not conceal from myself that the glitter of the gold had captivated my feelings, otherwise I should not have fallen blindly into the trap. Two hours after my arrest I was led out of my cell. I descended several steps until at last I reached a great hall. Around a long table draped in black were seated twelve men, mostly old men. There were benches along the sides of the hall, filled with the most ...
— The Severed Hand - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Wilhelm Hauff
... her hands away] Oh, this is abominable. You set a trap for me, and my vanity made me ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... adieu of Mr. Sinclair, and descended to the street. She walked for a few yards, and then turned sharply to the left. A hansom, into which she stepped at once, was waiting there. She wrapped herself hastily in a long fur coat which lay upon the seat, and thrust her hand through the trap door. ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... eye For all the mockeries of life, Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem, Lest even that tragic irony, Which you discern in this our mortal strife, Trick you and trap you, also, ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... to take ship, and not be too long in doing so. This other, barely a mile from the To[u]kyo[u]-Yokohama railway, is contemporary record of Nitta Yoshioka, who carved his bloody protest on the Ashikaga before he killed himself in the trap set by their treachery at this spot. Here behind the Ko[u]raiji near Oiso is a very shabby and tiny shrine nestled at the foot of the cliff. This had better be avoided. It is dedicated to the smallpox god. But more than history is neglected in the indifference and contempt shown these minor ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... himself Ronicky smiled. "Lady," he said, "if a rat was in a trap d'you think he'd stop very long between a chance of getting clear and a chance to tell how he come to get into ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... telegraph had been at work, and we were not four hours at sea before we ran against the gunboat that had been sent down the coast to look for us and that would have caught us behind the island like a beast in a trap. It was a night of driving cloud that gave intermittent gleams of moonlight; the wind and sea were strong and we were rolling along through a drift of rails and mist. Suddenly the world was white with moonshine. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... in thinking that it would cause too much uproar to attack the 'Molly Bawn.' He congratulated me on my success in laying a trap for the people, and promising to meet me at the Cove, he ordered a car, and drove off in the direction of the Norfolk's boat. Early next morning I started to reconnoitre the ground and organize my plan of operations. I found Phil Doolan's ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... the last Indian had left. "They were afraid to sit down. They thought they had been caught in their own trap. It's a pity to let them off ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... that was set on a dunghill. The sparrow saw it and said, 'Brother, what dost thou here?' The trap answered, 'I am fasting and praying.' The sparrow said, 'And what is that piece of wood by thee?' The trap said, 'My staff upon which I lean when I pray.' 'And what is that in thy mouth?' 'It is a little food for hungry wayfarers.' Then said the sparrow, 'I am hungry and a wayfarer.' ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... play the very devil with us. It irks me to set a trap. By all the whiskers of all the pussies that have mewed plaintively, or amorously, since the days of Whittington, it is not fair. 'Tis telling a lie. 'Tis as if you said, "Here is a bit of toasted cheese; come little mice! I invite you!" when, oh, foul breach of the rites of hospitality! ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... capital friends; but we are obliged to keep our traps set on both sides of the wall; we could not possibly keep on friendly terms without them, and our spring guns. The worst of it is, we are both clever fellows enough; and there's never a day passes that we don't find out a new trap, or a new gun-barrel, or something; we spend about fifteen millions a year each in our traps, take it altogether; and I don't see how we're to do with less." A highly comic state of life for two private gentlemen! but for two nations, it seems to me, not wholly ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... say: He isn't like a mole To dig himself a hole; Them little legs he's got They can't go far, trot, trot, They can't go far, run run, Oh no, it is his fun; I'm sure he's near, He must be here A-skulking round the house Just like a little mouse. I'll get a mouse-trap in a minute, And bait with cheese that's smelly To bring him helter-skelly— That little empty belly, And then I'll have him in it. Where have he hid, That little kid, That good old Jacob was so kind to? And when a rest I am ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... he failed to capture the forts or any part of the garrison. On the first intelligence of Forrest's raid I telegraphed Sherman to send all his cavalry against him, and not to let him get out of the trap he had put himself into. Sherman had anticipated me by sending troops against him ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... all this. Her cheeks burned, her eyes shone, and she kept saying there were a million lions and tigers in the bed; and where was the rat-trap? ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... Miss Mills, "I won't be long driving you to the Rectory. It is rather important for you to be there, and as the trap only holds two, perhaps ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... he did not fancy such a summary proceeding. He firmly believed that using the different members of the gang as a bait to trap the others was the most efficient method ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... they found the trap-door; the stranger lifted it, and Isabella descended to some stone steps below. The stranger was about to follow, when the voice of Manfred was heard in the distance. "Make haste or we are ruined!" cried Isabella. But the door slipped out of his hands and fell with a crash. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... was over to Franceschetto. Rome, during the latter part of this pontificate, swarmed with licensed and unlicensed assassins; the factions, which Sixtus had begun to put down, were again as active as ever; the Pope, well guarded in the Vatican, was satisfied with now and then laying a trap, in which a wealthy misdoer was occasionally caught. For Franceschetto the chief point was to know by what means, when the Pope died, he could escape with well-filled coffers. He betrayed himself at last, on the occasion of a false report ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... gardener, "I take it that we have the thief at last. I fancy that the fellow whose footsteps I traced, and who has been at my morello cherry-tree every night, has been caught in the trap. I hope his leg is not broke, though!-This ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... confusion as to King Finn's dwelling. As doctors differ, we may be allowed to claim that it was the Denghoog, close to Wenningstedt, if only because we descended into that remarkable dwelling. Externally merely a swelling green mound, like so many others in Sylt, entrance is gained by a trap-door in the roof, and decending a steep ladder, one finds himself in a subterranean chamber, some seventeen by ten feet in size, the walls of which are twelve huge blocks of Swedish granite; the height of the roof varies from five feet to six feet. The original entrance appears to have been a ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... making that answer, wondered whether he were falling into a trap. It was so humiliating to lie to these people that he probably could not have said no. "He mentioned to me once," he added, as if making an effort of memory, "a house of that sort. He used to visit some ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... await a decisive conflict. As Napoleon rode upon a height and surveyed his foes, caught in an elbow of the river, he said energetically, "We have not a moment to lose. One does not twice catch an enemy in such a trap." He immediately communicated to his aides his plan of attack. Grasping the arm of Ney, he pointed to the dense masses of the Russians clustered before the town of ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... sickness passed, and my mind quieted. I struggled into wakefulness. As I opened my eyes, the face of the old Jivro gaped with its noseless, bulging eyes not a foot away, the thin, wide lips and mouth hanging open like a trap, the ridges across the mouth like a fish, white ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... absolute madness, dear," she said, but her eyes were sparkling with the joy of recklessness. Away went the trap and the two light hearts. Mrs. Gray turned from a window in the house with tears in her eyes. To her troubled mind they were driving ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... the trap, the interpreter assuring him that the natives would not dream of attempting any mischief. Were not some of the young women still on board? he asked, which was a proof of the amicable intentions of the old chief and his people. Furthermore, he added, ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... door was left on the latch, forgetting that that could not be of much use, if the door in the basement was kept locked with the crooked key. But the whole suggested something true about my own heart and that of my fellows, if not about the church: Revelation is not enough, the open trap-door is not enough, if the door of the heart is not ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... consisting, as already stated, of fine open grassy downs, sprinkled with Acacia pendula and other shrubs. One or two knolls projected, however, and resembled islands in a sea of grass. I rode to one and found it consisted wholly of trap-rock in nodules. This was the first trap I had seen during the journey beyond the Barwan, and from their aspect I thought that other minor features of the mountains Bindango and Bindyego, which I had not leisure to examine then, also consisted of ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... the order slowly and to Richard's hypersensitive ears it held a threat of real and imminent danger. It sounded as the burial service must sound to a man who stands upon a trap with a knotted cord around ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... me alone. I will be with Juventus anon, And that, ere he be ware; And, i-wis, if he walk not straight, I will use such a sleight, That shall trap him in a snare. How shall I bring this gear to pass? I can tell now, by the mass, Without any more advisement: I will infect him with wicked company, Whose conversation shall be so fleshly, Yea, able to overcome an innocent. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... her that I should write to Count Giraldi. She laughed. "Your Count Giraldi will be out of Florence. Do you think him a child? His one desire is to get rid of you. No, no. You must disguise yourself. This is a trap." ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... a common practice among the natives of South Africa to trap the elephant in these twin pitfalls; as the animals, too hastily avoiding the one, run the risk of dropping into ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... mean time, all the venal will have become associated with them, and will give them a majority sufficient to keep them in place, and to enable them to eject the heterogeneous friends by whose aid they get again into power. I cannot believe any portion of real republicans will enter into this trap; and if they do, I do not believe they can carry with them the mass of their States, advancing so steadily as we see them, to an union of principle with their brethren. It will be found in this, as in all other similar cases, that crooked schemes will end by overwhelming their authors ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... number of squirrels ran out. Several jumped to the ground. One perched on top of the box. Another sprang on Betty's shoulder. "I fasten them up every night, for I'm afraid the weasels and foxes will get them. The white squirrel is the only albino we have seen around here. It took Jonathan weeks to trap him, but once captured he soon grew tame. Is he ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... shall," said Dick, with a grin, "unless you'd like to pull the trap. The horse is in the stable, and we can tip the fellow to put ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... grey, into which leaps young Oversea the shipbroker—a comfortable, cushioned four-wheel drawn by a pair of bay ponies, into which old Discount climbs heavily, followed perhaps by his two daughters, bound on a shopping-visit to the city—and a spicy-looking, rattling trap, with a pawing horse, which has a decided objection to standing still, for Mr Goadall, the wealthy cattle-drover. These, with other vehicles of less note, all roll off the ground by a quarter after ten o'clock or so; and the ladies and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... a couple of sentinels armed to the teeth; and this arrangement was repeated three times, so rigorous was the vigilance employed. At the second of the gates, where the bearer of a forged ticket would have found himself in a sort of trap, with absolutely no possibility of escape, every individual of each successive party presented his card of admission, and, fortunately for the convenience of the company, in consequence of the particular precaution used, one moment's inspection sufficed. The cards had been issued to the parties ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... one but myself," he uttered in a bluff tone. "An old bird like me should not have allowed himself to be caught in a pigeon-trap. I am inexcusable. But we want to get rich. It's slow work getting rich by working, and it's so much easier to get the money already made out of our neighbor's pockets! I have been unable to resist the temptation myself. It's ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... didn't have much time for pokin' into things. When I did git room to turn around, I went through that whole house pretendin' to take inventories. I didn't find a thing that looked out of place, or faky. Not a scrap of notes on sitters, not a trap, not a slate, not a thread of silk mull, not a spark of phosphorus. I wasn't fool enough to break the rule about coming downstairs when she had sitters. Let her catch me spyin', and the bird's gone. But last Sunday night I had a fair chance. I knew it would come ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... have blundered into the trap in the corner of the bay, the sea-eagle demands a share of the easily-gotten spoil. Perched on the tallest stake, he faithfully indicates the presence of food that he cannot obtain unless by goodwill; yet who would deny the bird of his right? Having fulfilled his duty as sentinel, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... with the startling news. He said it was nothing remarkable; birds frequently lost their tails. He explained how a bird in close quarters has power to relax its muscles, and let its tail go in order to save its body, when under the paw of a cat, or caught in a trap. ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of the large Ottoman house already mentioned is a trap-door. One is let down over a rickety ladder about four feet to the top of four high stone steps, which descend on the left to a platform about three and one-half feet square which projects without railing over the water. Thence fourteen steps, also without railing, conduct ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace |
