"Spick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the South. Small wonder that Depper—his name was William Kittle, a fact of which the neighbourhood made no practical use, which he himself only recalled with an effort—preferred to the dirt, untidiness and squalor of his own abode the spick-and-span cleanliness of Dinah Brome's. Small wonder that in this atmosphere of wholesomeness and comfort, he chose to spend the hours of the Sabbath during which the public-house was closed; and other hours. Small wonder, looking at the fine, capable figure of the woman, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... spick and span blue-checked bungalow apron, she stood at her window just as Dawn swept a brush of partially-hued color across the eastern horizon. Having had it in her mind when she went to bed the night before to arise early, she ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... mud, Where the divers of Bathos lie drowned in a heap, And Southey's last Pan has pillowed his sleep; That Felo de se who, half drunk with his Malmsey, Walked out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea, 10 Singing "Glory to God" in a spick and span stanza, The like (since Tom Sternhold was ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... itself in a remarkable talent for mortifying persons in a small way; by a gesture, an expression, a look, cloaked too very often with all the character of profound deference. The old nobility of Spain delighted to address each other only by their names, when in the presence of a spick-and-span grandee; calling each other, "Infantado," "Sidonia," "Ossuna," and then turning round with the most distinguished consideration, and appealing to the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... supper, a pipe full of tobacco and a restful evening, however, restored him, especially as Shismakoff made his appearance all spick and span after his day's work on the water. The recital of his adventures with a school of whale in mid-ocean, and the capture of one of them, occupied a good share of the evening. Eyllen's father ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... the room known as the library is on the ground floor in a wing of the main building. As rooms have a way of doing, it expresses unmistakably the character of its tenant. There is a book-case, with a few spick-and-span books standing in prim, cold rows behind the glass doors—which are always locked. The key is somewhere, no doubt. There are no pictures on the walls, save a fancy calendar—presented with the compliments of the ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... felt anything like the coarseness of those stockings as I drew them on. The shoes, too, were of the clumsiest make; they were large for me, which perhaps accounted for their extreme heaviness. I was a bit of a dandy; always priding myself upon my spick and span get-up. No doubt this made me critical, but certainly the tweed of which the clothes were made was the roughest thing of its kind I had ever handled. I got into them, however, without any comment, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... stairs he came in from the porch and met me on the landing, at the door of Miss Montmorency's best parlour— a spick-and-span apartment containing a cottage piano, some gilded furniture of the Second Empire fashion, a gaudy lithograph or two, and a carpet that had to be ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... these friezes is placed above a simple wainscot, the effect is charming. The paper for nurseries is usually waterproof, for a nursery must be absolutely spick and span. Another thing that gives much pleasure in a nursery is to build on one side of the room a platform about a yard wide and six inches high, and cover ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... a year! I find you're but a stranger here. The Dean was famous in his time, And had a kind of knack at rhyme. His way of writing now is past; The town has got a better taste; I keep no antiquated stuff, But spick and span I have enough. Pray do but give me leave to show 'em; Here's Colley Cibber's birth-day poem. This ode you never yet have seen, By Stephen Duck,[19] upon the queen. Then here's a letter finely penned Against the Craftsman and his friend: It clearly shows that ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... recommence;—the play, Will be the last of seven, and spick-span new— 'Tis usual here that number to present. A dilettante did the piece invent, And dilettanti will enact it too. Excuse me, gentlemen; to me's assign'd, As ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... can get it; if not, one that will stand a thorough examination; and I don't know that such a boat's to be got just now it's wanted. There are plenty of ramshackle old things lying about here, but I want everything spick-and-span ready for the extra fitting out I shall give her. Copper-fastened, quick-sailing, roomy, and with good cabin accommodation so that we can have a big workshop for the men who help us, and a sort of study and museum ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... with what ceremony, you shall see. From the steamer the emigrant is led to a dealer in frippery, where he is required to doff his baggy trousers and crimson cap, and put on a suit of linsey-woolsey and a hat of hispid felt: end of First Act; open the purse. From the dealer of frippery, spick and span from top to toe, he is taken to the hostelry, where he is detained a fortnight, sometimes a month, on the pretext of having to wait for the best steamer: end of Second Act; open the purse. From the hostelry at last to the steamship agent, where ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... neonatal [Med.], new-fashioned, new-fangled, new-fledged; of yesterday; just out, brand-new, up to date, up to the minute, with it, fashionable, in fashion; in, hip [Coll.]; vernal, renovated, sempervirent^, sempervirid^. fresh as a rose, fresh as a daisy, fresh as paint; spick and span. Adv. newly &c adj.; afresh, anew, lately, just now, only yesterday, the other day; latterly, of late. not long ago, a short time ago. Phr. di novello tutto par bello [It]; nullum est jam dictum quod non dictum est prius [Lat.]; una ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... decks was spick and span, and young Horatio gazed with wondering admiration at the neatness of the white decks continually scraped and holystoned until they fairly glistened in the sun, at the imposing size and length of the long lines of black cannon, ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... better. Her face was rosy, flushed prettily with the glow from the blazing oak wood. Packard's eyes brightened as he looked at her, making a comprehensive survey of the trim little form from the top of her bronze hair to the heels of her spick-and-span boots. About her throat, knotted loosely, was a flaming-red silken scarf. The thought struck him that the Temple fortunes, the Temple ranch, the Temple master, all were falling or had already fallen into varying states of decay, and that alone in the wreckage ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... Lillibridge's. The floor of the main room was bare and clean, and, in the middle, a round black stove radiated comfort on cold days. Along one side of the room ran three stalls, in which were placed tables for such patrons as might desire partial privacy. On the spick and span counter were set forth various condiments and plates of crackers. A card, tacked up on the wall, tempted the appetite with its list of ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... on the bottle of oil again. O for heaven's sake, pay him its price, dear boy; You'll get it for an obol, spick and span. ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... long-sustained patience also, the essential monotony of military life, even on a campaign. Peril, good-luck, promotion, the grotesque hardships which leave them smart as ever, (as if, so others observe, dust and mire wouldn't hold on them, so "spick and span" they were, more especially on days of any exceptional risk or effort) the great confidence reposed in them at last; all is noted, till, with a little quiet pride, he records a gun-shot wound which keeps him a month alone ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... rent of a thousand crowns, crammed with all the vulgar magnificence that money can buy, occupied the first floor of a fine old house between a courtyard and a garden. Everything was as spick-and-span as the beetles in an entomological case, for Crevel ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... displayed in its especial place, and each could have been displayed in no better place. Paint and varnish seemed to be kept somewhere out of sight, in constant readiness to obliterate stray finger-marks wherever any might become perceptible in Mr. Tartar's chambers. No man-of-war was ever kept more spick and span from careless touch. On this bright summer day, a neat awning was rigged over Mr. Tartar's flower-garden as only a sailor can rig it, and there was a sea- going air upon the whole effect, so delightfully complete, that the flower-garden might have appertained to stern-windows ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... ready for our trip. That will rest you. We'll get lunch at a tea-room, and shop all the afternoon. We'll go to a hotel for dinner, and stay all night. Then in the morning we can get up early, have our breakfast, and drive back here in time before the men come. Now isn't that perfectly spick-and-span for ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... Spick and span, cap-a-pie, pictures of splendid young manhood, the two captains rode one afternoon up to the great gate before the mansion house of the nation. Lewis looked about him at scenes once familiar; but in the three years and a half ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... d'you expect me t' ride a spick an' span, over-fed, highly decorated critter like that? My! I ain't entered for a horse show, Cully. I want a pony that can run without thinkin' of takin' prizes on points. And a dandy saddle with fancy ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... it would be profanation to eat anything in this spick-and-span bower, so as I'm tremendously hungry, I propose ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... with a laugh, "she sort o' got what she was wantin'. More'n she was lookin' for, I 'low. Seven o' them. An' all straight an' hearty. Ecod! sir, you never seed such a likely litter o' young uns. Spick an' span, ecod! from stem t' stern. Smellin' clean an' sweet; decks as white as snow; an' every nail an' knob polished 'til it made you blink t' see it. An' when I was down Thunder Arm way, last season, they ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... Something of impressiveness has recently been introduced into the interior by the artistic arrangement of old furniture which the house's present owner, Mr. Templeton Coolidge, has brought about. But the exterior is "spick-span" in modern yellow and ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... of scuppers by a little trough which ran all round the rim of the table, to catch any possible spillage. He was horrified to observe how inevitably callers came at the worst possible moment. Mr. and Mrs. Chow, for instance, drew up one afternoon in their spick-and-span coupe with their intolerably spotless only child sitting self-consciously beside them. Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers were just then filling the garden with horrid clamour. They had been quarrelling, and one had pushed the other two down the ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... room is, where it hangs. It hung up fronting my old cobwebby folios and batter'd furniture (the fruit piece has resum'd its place) and was much better than a spick and span one. But if your room be very neat and your other pictures bright with gilt, it should be so too. I can't judge, not having seen: but my dingy study ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... flowers, despite her rubbing against the walls of the galleries when she enters to take shelter and, above all, despite the brushing which she must often give herself with her feet to dust herself and keep spick and span. Hence no doubt the need for that curious apparatus which no standing or moving upon ordinary surfaces could explain, as was said above, when we were wondering what the shifting, swaying, dangerous body might be ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... ran forward and to their satisfaction were helped into Mr. Atkinson's boat with Mr. and Mrs. Dallas and Bubbles as fellow-passengers, Bubbles grinning from ear to ear and looking very spick and span in a clean pink calico frock and a white apron. A string of blue beads adorned her neck; she had added it as a ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... This was a spick-and-span little world for a perpetual honeymoon, and at the entrance of the streets there should have been signs, Angela thought, saying, "No one but brides and grooms need apply." It was all distractingly ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... twopence a day. They grow gray in battle and victory, and after thirty years of bloody service, a young gentleman of fifteen, fresh from a preparatory school, who can scarcely read, and came but yesterday with a pinafore in to papa's dessert—such a young gentleman, I say, arrives in a spick-and-span red coat, and calmly takes the command over our veteran, who obeys him as if God and nature had ordained that so throughout ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... swarming with men in uniform—French, English, Australian, Canadian, New Zealanders, colored French Colonials, a few Russians who, following the sudden collapse of their government, were now soldiers lacking a flag, Scotch Highlanders in their gaudy kilts, Japanese officers in spick uniforms not yet baptized in the mud of the trenches—a varied, colorful parade of young men bent on one great ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... tired with planning and thinking. It was out of his power; his fashionable life bore him far away from labour and thought. His work grew cold and colourless; and he betook himself with indifference to the reproduction of monotonous, well-worn forms. The eternally spick-and-span uniforms, and the so-to-speak buttoned-up faces of the government officials, soldiers, and statesmen, did not offer a wide field for his brush: it forgot how to render superb draperies and powerful emotion and passion. Of grouping, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... hawk's bill, his fangs or tusks like those of an overgrown brindled wild boar; his eyes were flaming like the jaws of hell, all covered with mortars interlaced with pestles, and nothing of his arms was to be seen but his clutches. His hutch, and that of the warren-cats his collaterals, was a long, spick-and-span new rack, a-top of which (as the mumper told us) some large stately mangers were fixed in the reverse. Over the chief seat was the picture of an old woman holding the case or scabbard of a sickle in her right hand, a pair of scales in her left, with spectacles ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... England' that kept the Empire safe while it was growing up. The guard of red-coated marines presented arms, and the hundreds of bluejackets were all in their places as the two commanders stepped on board. The naval officers on the quarter-deck were very spick and span in their black three-cornered hats, white wigs, long, bright blue, gold-laced coats, white waistcoats and breeches and stockings, and gold-buckled shoes. The idea of having naval uniforms of blue and white and gold—the same colours that are worn to-day—came from ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... traders ruined his digestion with too much champagne, and after several years he fell for the Gospel according to the Methodists, sent his people to church, and cleaned up the beach and the trading crowd so spick and span that he would not permit them to smoke a pipe out of doors on Sunday, and, fined one of the chief traders one hundred gold sovereigns for washing his schooner's decks on ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... of old, nor erred In substance, deeming that the life of man— (This is a new reflection, spick and span)— May be much influenced by the flight of birds. Our senate can no longer hold their house When culminates the evil star of grouse; And stoutest patriots will their shot-belts gird When first o'er stubble-field ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... and his habits in the use of his horses being fitful—sometimes, it would be midnight even, when he scoured from his home, seeking the comfort of desert as well as solitary places—it is not surprising if at times, going to the stable to saddle one, he should find its gear not in the spick-and-span condition alone to his mind. It might then well happen there was no one near to help him, and there be nothing for it but to put his own hands to the work: he was too just to rouse one who might be nowise to blame, or ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... off from hence twelve days ago accompanied by a cargo of Poesy directed to Mr. Hobhouse, all spick and span, and in MS.; you will see what it is like. I have given it to Master Southey, and he shall have more before I have done ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... eatables are all ready and found; and these two years that you've been there for your lessons, we've likewise effected at home a great saving in what would otherwise have been necessary for your eating and use. Something has been, it's true, economised; but you have further a liking for spick and span clothes. Besides, it's only through your being there to study, that you've come to know Mr. Hsueeh! that Mr. Hsueeh, who has even in one year given us so much pecuniary assistance as seventy and eighty taels! And ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... again a considerable squash in Noyon, and here St Andre was delighted to meet some spick-and-span young friends of his whom he affected to treat with great contempt, as not yet having seen a shot fired. Having to cross the railway line also delayed us still more, as a long supply-train was shunting and reshunting and keeping the ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... an old adage that "many hands make light work," and it is equally true that they turn off a lot of it, so at the end of half an hour the old peoples' wood pile was in apple pie order and the yard was in a spick and span condition. ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... given to boys of the Lower School who are too tall to wear with decency the short Eton jacket; he possessed a trouser-press; and his "bags" were perfectly creased and quite spotless. From tip to toe, at all seasons and in all weathers, he looked conspicuously spick and span. Chaff provoked the solemn retort: "One should be well groomed." He spoke impersonally, considering it bad form to use for first person singular. Amongst the small boys he ranked as the Petronius of ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... steeple-crowned hat—look at the smug, mean, insignificant dwarf of a meeting-house, sinking up to its knees in a narrow lane, and looking as blank as a wall, with a trap-door of a mouth, and a grating cast of eye. How yonder bridegroom, just cemented in an alliance that will not last out his lease of life, "spick and span new," all eyes, and a double row of buttons ornamenting his latticed waistcoat, looks at his adored opposite, who holds her Venetian parasol—sun shade—before her face, glowing like a red brick wall in the sun. Ah! his regards are attracted by a modest little nymph of the grove, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... found a couple of merchant captains, one asleep with his head on the table and little rings shining in his great red ears; the other very spick and span—of what they called the new school then. His name was Williams—Captain Williams of the Lion, which he part owned; a man of some note for the dinners he gave on board his ship. His eyes sparkled blue and very round in a ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... Manning's coming home again. Mrs. Kenney never let her tongue run riot more than in remembrances of you. Fanny expends herself in phrases that can only be justified by her romantic nature. Mary reserves a portion of your silk, not to be buried in (as the false nuncio asserts), but to make up spick and span into a bran-new gown to wear when you come. I am the same as when you knew me, almost to a surfeiting identity. This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely there must be ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... climb ended abruptly in a level sandy road running among birch trees. At a wayside tea-house a man was sitting on a low table. He wore white trousers, a coat of cornflower shade and a Panama hat—all very spick and span. It was ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... with the life of the people of the Piano di Sorrento is the famous dance known as the Tarantella, which may be witnessed by the curious at almost any time—for money. Even when performed by professional dancers, tricked out in spick and span stage-peasant finery, the Tarantella is a most graceful exhibition of movement, although the dance naturally gains in interest when it takes place in the days of vintage or on the popular festivals of the Church, without the presence of largesse-giving strangers. ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... damaged the countenances of his two previous owners, who had not the knack of preventing him tossing his head in their faces. The saddle—large and capacious—made on the principle of the impossibility of putting a round of beef upon a pudding plate—was "spick and span new," as was an enormous hunting-whip, whose iron-headed hammer he clenched in a way that would make the blood curdle in one's veins, to see such an instrument in the hands ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... an hour later the two girls, spick and span in their dainty dresses, and with fresh white bows on their hair, went together down the staircase. They found Mr. and Mrs. Farrington awaiting them, and soon Roger appeared, and they went to the dining-room for a ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... otherwise. Many vehicles came dashing down Tinplate Street: carriages, public and private, of every variety, from the rattletrap cab hired off the stand, or the decent coach from the livery stable, to the smart spick-and-span brougham, with its well-appointed horses and servants in neat livery. They all set down at the same door, and took up from it at any hour between midnight and dawn, waiting patiently in file in the wide street round the corner, till ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... along—it might put years on to his life to have a pull at the oars. You remember that old sailor we saw in charge of the engine back there at the government tank? You saw how he had the engine?—clean and bright as a new pin—everything spick-and-span and shipshape, and his hut fixed up like a ship's cabin. I believe he thinks he's at sea half his time, and shoving her through it, instead of pumping muddy water out of a hole in the baking scrubs for starving stock. Or maybe he ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... ripple when Eileen Lorimer walked into the ballroom that evening in the winsome attire of a Quaker maid, with Professor Hodgson, as Pierrot, on one side, and the tall, commanding figure of Peter the Brazen, in a spick-and-span white-and-gold uniform of the Pacific Mail Line, ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... style, in dainty ruffled frocks and necklaces and bright hair-ribbons, tripped gracefully in and advanced to meet Mrs. Morris, quite like grown ladies in their manners. Behind them came several boys, spick and span in fresh white linen waists and silk neckties ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... have only seven thousand apiece, but in China there has recently come a forward movement. A fund of twenty million dollars is to be spent in constructing a national system of telephone and telegraph. Peking is now pointing with wonder and delight to a new exchange, spick and span, with a couple of ten-thousand-wire switchboards. Others are being built in Canton, Hankow, and Tien-Tsin. Ultimately, the telephone will flourish in China, as it has done in the Chinese quarter in San Francisco. The Empress of China, after the siege ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... brought years before from New England; and how we brewed a waggish punch from the output of our rival's own distillery. You know how they were driven presently about our cleanly streets, every dooryard raked spick and span against their coming, and were brought at last to the mills. You know how the Red Jacket, pent to bursting from a providential thunder-storm of the night, blustered down through the race with the pride of a Danube; how the saws ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... again the Albanian coachman Shan, who had served me very faithfully on my previous visits. He took me to the house of his family. A striking contrast to the Montenegrin houses, it was spick and span and even pretty, for the Albanian has artistic instincts, whereas the Montenegrin has none. Left to ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... as quickly and decently as the place allowed of. Things were generally cleaned up, and by noon the little fort was as spick as if the sound of a rifle had never been heard within its walls. Lewis and Andover had the midday meal in a sort of gun-room which looked over the edge of the plateau to a valley in the hills. It had been arranged ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... forget the happy spick-and-span soldiers who sang as they stepped ashore from the troopships at Boulogne and Havre, eager to reach the fighting line. These men have fought valiantly, desperately, since then, but their spirits are as high as ever, and their ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... as spick and span as a new dollar, nattily dressed in a bifurcated riding skirt, from beneath which peeped a pair of ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... right-hand corner, the other eminent persons pictured being ex-Presidents Roosevelt, McKinley and Cleveland. The star illustration, however, is a "made up" picture, in which a photograph of Latta, looking spick-and-span, has been pasted onto what is very obviously a painted picture of a hall full of people in evening dress, all of them gazing at Latta, who stands upon the stage, dignified, suave, impressive, and all dressed-up ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... himself to the universe was in process of consummation. Physically, he had improved since his undergraduate days—he was still too thin but his shoulders had widened and his brunette face had lost the frightened look of his freshman year. He was secretly orderly and in person spick and span—his friends declared that they had never seen his hair rumpled. His nose was too sharp; his mouth was one of those unfortunate mirrors of mood inclined to droop perceptibly in moments of unhappiness, but his blue ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... spick about my cafe," she said to Miss Spencer, with her agreeable smile. "I should like it served in the garden under the ...
— Four Meetings • Henry James
... voice; then in an aside for Schmucke's benefit—"Always have to say that!—Here, little one," he continued, addressing his Lolotte, "this is M. Schmucke, poor M. Pons' friend. He does not know where to go, and he would like to live with us. I told him that we were not very spick-and-span up here, that we lived on the sixth floor, and had only the garret to offer him; but it was no use, he ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... broad highway across all the thrifty and energetic bumps up to Veneration (who knows how much it had had to do with mixing them in one common tingle of mutual and unceasing activity?) and down again from ear to ear. Inside the poor little house you would find all spick and span, the old floor white and sanded, the few tins and the pewter spoons shining upon the shelf, the brick hearth and jambs aglow with fresh "redding," table and chairs set back in rectangular ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... you have a right to dictate in the matter; but I tell you what, these darkies o' yours are a dreadful lazy set, specially that Suse; and it's mighty hard for folks that's been used to seein' things done up spick and span and smart to put ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... himself lying in bed, with Squire Lavington sitting by him. There was real sorrow in the old man's face, 'Come to himself!' and a great joyful oath rolled out. 'The boldest rider of them all! I wouldn't have lost him for a dozen ready-made spick ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... luxe with a most de-luxey vengeance! Here were three tents, or rather three canvas houses, with wooden half-walls; and they were spick-and-span inside and out, and had glass windows in them and doors and matched wooden floors. The one that was a bedroom had gay Navajo blankets on the floor, and a stove in it, and a little bureau, and a washstand with white towels and ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... like a real live house, that had a history, and had grown and grown as the world grew; and that it was only an upstart fellow who did not know who his own grandfather was, who would change it for some spick and span new Gothic or Elizabethan thing, which looked as if it had been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are. From which you may collect (if you have wit enough) that Sir John was a very sound-headed, sound-hearted ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... clean 'em," said Kitty Silver. "She say, she say she want 'em clean' up spick an' spang befo' Mista Sammerses git here to call an' see 'em." And she added morosely: "I ain't ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... hour later Drusie and Jim, having fed all the animals, were loitering on the sunny terrace together when Hal, looking very spick and span in a clean suit of flannels, came out with his bat ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... was waiting for Edith, spick, span and debonair as always (although during the war he had discarded his buttonhole). He was occupied, as he usually was in his leisure time, not in playing the piano or composing, but—in making ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... Fischer paused upon the threshold. Certainly, of all the people concerned, the two speculators themselves seemed the least moved by the excitement they were causing. Fischer was dressed with his usual spick-and-span neatness, and his appearance betrayed no sign of flurry or excitement. He ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... prose. Thus in prose we speak of "near and dear,'' "high and dry,'' "health and wealth.'' But the initial form of jingle is much more common—"safe and sound,'' "thick and thin,'' "weal or woe,'' "fair or foul,'' "spick and span,'' "fish, flesh, or fowl,'' "kith and kin.'' The poets of nearly all times and tongues have not been slow to seize upon the emphasis which ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and dreary it was too, with heavy clouds drifting across the moon, almost hiding its brightness; and it grew so late, past twelve, we began to think Mr. Reynard suspected us, and would not come. But he did, looking so sleek and shiny, with his coat all spick and span, being freshly ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... de blackbird' nes', De baby love' his mamy's bres', An' raggy-tag, aw spick-an'-span, De ladies loves de ladies' man. I loves to roll my eyes to de ladies! I loves to sympathize wid de ladies! As long as eveh I knows sugah f'om san' I's bound to be ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... sitting in front of their spread-out goods like waste-paper merchants. I put in a request to be put back into my regiment, and they said to me, 'Take your damned hook, and get busy with it.' I lit on a sergeant, a little chap with airs, spick as a daisy, with a gold-rimmed spy-glass—eye-glasses with a tape on them. He was young, but being a re-enlisted soldier, he had the right not to go to the front. I said to him, 'Sergeant!' But he didn't hear me, being busy slanging a secretary—it's unfortunate, mon garcon,' he ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... too and wit; Two things that seldom fail to hit. 390 Valour's a mouse-trap, wit a gin, Which women oft are taken in. Then, HUDIBRAS, why should'st thou fear To be, that art a conqueror? Fortune th' audacious doth juvare, 395 But lets the timidous miscarry. Then while the honour thou hast got Is spick and span new, piping hot, Strike her up bravely, thou hadst best, And trust thy fortune with the rest. 400 Such thoughts as these the Knight did keep, More than his bangs or fleas, from sleep. And as ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... They never gave him the same, and he could not get used to these 'spick-and-spandy' bedrooms with new furniture and grey-green carpets sprinkled all over with pink roses. He was wakeful and that wretched Habanera kept ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I wished they'd not delay. 'Twas a strain on the patience. I'd long wanted—an' I'd come far—t' see my godson. But bein' a bachelor-man I held my tongue for a bit: for, thinks I, they're washin' an' curlin' the child, an' they'll fetch un in when they're ready t' do so, all spick-an'-span an' polished like a door-knob, an' crowin', too, the little rooster! 'Twas a fair sight to see Mary Mull smilin' beyond the tea-pot. 'Twas good t' see what she had provided. Cod's-tongues an' bacon—with new ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... camp in a little more than three hours and found the adobe shack deserted. It was similar in size and construction to Las Vegas, but there all likeness ceased, for the interior was surprisingly comfortable and as spick-and-span as the Shoe-Bar line camp was cluttered and dirty. Everything was so immaculate, in fact, that Buck had a moment of hesitation about flicking his cigarette ashes on the floor, and banished his scruples mainly because he had never heard of ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... a spick and span and eminently youthful-looking naval lieutenant raised his cap to the three folk who stood eagerly awaiting his approach at ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... are those gentlemen seated on the veranda, looking so spick and span in their white duck yachting caps and trousers, and keeping the waiters ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... for the wild Sea Rovers who gather at Cowes and Southampton. The Rover may always be recognised on shore—and, by-the-way, he stays ashore a good deal—for his nautical clothing is spick and span new, the rake of his glossy cap is unspeakably jaunty, and the dignity of his gesture when he scans the offing with a trusty telescope is without parallel in history. When the Rover walks, you observe a slight roll which no doubt is acquired during long experience ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... which it would be even harder to guess is that of the word spruce. We now use this word to describe a kind of leather, a kind of ginger beer, and a variety of the fir tree, and also in the same sense as "spick and span." The word used to be ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... down at a very clean table. I notice that those whom the Devil has made his own are always spick and span, just as firemen who have to go into great furnaces have to keep all their gear highly polished. I sat down at it, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... his hand to the elderly woman who presided behind the nickel-plated American cash-register. The only thing that rang false about the place was that register, perked up there spick-span new. Hawkins insisted that it was a typewriter, and as we passed out he took a handful of matches (thinking them toothpicks) and asked the cashier to play a tune on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... conjoined with the care of the person. There is an excellent term for this, which, though borrowed from the stable, carries with it only sweet and wholesome suggestions. It is "well-groomed." A well-groomed woman is not only a well-gowned woman, but one who, like a favorite mare, is always spick and span in her person, and happy in her quiet consciousness of it. And every woman, whether she possesses a maid or not, indeed, whether she has fine gowns or not, may win the admiration of all her associates ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... do you Forsake your gayest hue And dress in viewless khaki spick and span? You charming little miss, It never can be this: To ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... stood fretfully debating, the door of the room again opened. There appeared an athletic, adventurous-looking officer in brilliant uniform who was smiling at something called after him from the antechamber. His blue coat was spick and span and very gay with double embroidery at the collar, coat-tails, and pockets. His white waistcoat and trousers were spotless; his netted sash of blue with its stars on the silver tassels had a look of studied elegance. The black three-cornered hat, broidered with gold, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ran to the brow of the bank. There, floating off their beach, was a freshly painted motor boat, its brasswork shining, and everything spick and span about it. A very commodious and handsome craft she was, with "Go-Ahead" painted on either side of her bow ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... a new sensation for me to be steaming down comfortably on a beautifully-kept steamer, as spick-and-span as a private yacht. Her captain and co-proprietor with Col. Brazil was Captain Macedo, a man who had spent much time in Europe, and was one of the most polished gentlemen I met ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... other, touching his cap, being in regular nautical rig now, as also was Teddy, who, clad in spick-and-span reefer costume, felt as proud ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... observed, he had noticed the altered style of the schoolmaster's costume; and it was to this transformation that his next speech alluded. "Why, Josh," said he, attempting an easy off-hand style of talk, "ye're bran new, spick span, from head to foot; ye look for all the world jest like one o' them ere cantin' critters o' preechers I often see prowlin' about Swampville. Durn it, man! what dodge air you up to now. You hain't got rileegun, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... harbour as she next morning swept past them, outward bound, shortly after nine o'clock in the morning of a glorious April day. Jack was on the navigating bridge with Milsom, and as the beautiful little ship, looking as spick and span as though just fresh from the stocks, and with all her brasswork gleaming and flashing like burnished gold in the brilliant morning sunlight, brought the lighthouse abeam and gaily plunged her keen, shapely bows into the heart of the ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... intelligent.... Walpole, in a fit of spleen, once called him 'a porcelain sphinx,' and the phrase sticks; but, indeed, there is more of the china-doll about him. He possesses the same too-perfect complexion, his blue eyes have the same spick-and-span vacuity; and the fact that the right orb is a trifle larger than its fellow gives his countenance, in repose, much the same expression of placid astonishment.... Very plump, very sleepy-looking, immaculate as ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... now crossed in a "coronet" over her head, she gave the ghost of a sigh. This morning she didn't want to wear her every-day bows; but dutifully she tied them on, a big brown cabbage above each ear. When she had scrambled into her checked gingham "sailor suit," all spick and span, Missy stood eying herself in the mirror for a wistful moment, wishing her tight braids might metamorphose into lovely, hanging curls like Kitty Allen's. They come often to a "strange child"—these moments of vague longing to overhear one's self termed a "pretty child"—especially on ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... Hetty Freeman was known as one of the best housekeepers in Brewster, and no one had ever seen her looking other than "spick and span," as her husband often admiringly declared. Rose always said that she could tell just what part of the big house Aunt Hetty was in because she could hear her starched skirts rattle; and she realized that Anne's untidy appearance was a real ...
— A Little Maid of Massachusetts Colony • Alice Turner Curtis
... Spick and span in his best checked suit, his hat tilted airily over one ear, he stepped briskly down the street. You wouldn't have known him, I am sure, with his walking-stick in one hand, his light spring overcoat over the other arm. A freshly cleaned pair of grey gloves, smelling ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... to think that over," muttered Jack, as he drew on a spick-and-span uniform blouse. "I don't know whether there'll be any use in trying to find that mulatto. I haven't the least idea where his place is. Even if I found it, it's ten to one I wouldn't find ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... in response to the doctor's telephone message, stood over the iron bed in the spick-and-span men's ward of St. Mary's, a wave of that intense feeling he had experienced at the accident swept over him. The farmer's beard was overgrown, and the eyes looked up at him as from caverns of suffering below the bandage. They were shrewd eyes, however, and proved that Mr. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill |
