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More "Hold water" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... might have expected you to do,' said Mr Prosser, unkindly. 'Young man, I begin to believe that there may be something in this. You haven't got a ghost of a proof that would hold water in a court of law, of course; but still, I'm inclined to believe you. For one thing, you haven't the intelligence ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... opened at all. We don't have a northeast rain-storm very often, and that's the only window that ever leaks—except the skylight and the round one in the west gable which is hung at the top to swing inward and couldn't be expected to hold water." ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... large, round baskets, each one with a capacity of half a dozen gallons. They were made in conformity to the general type of basket of the Southern California aborigine, but with the distinctive marks peculiar to the tribe to which belonged the dwellers within, and woven so tightly as to hold water without permitting a drop to pass through. In the bottom of one of these baskets was scattered a little ground meal of the acorn, a staple article of food with all the Indians of California. The other basket, similar to the first in shape and size, ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... wedlock, a sacrament, but many forms. Never before did I marry two lovers with the Sword and the Bible—the form of matrimony for fugitive slaves: out of that fact perhaps Mr. Attorney can frame an indictment that will hold water. "If it only resists law and obstructs its officers," quoth he, "it is treason, and he who risks it must ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... little smartly, I fear.—Two men are walking by the polyphloesboean ocean, one of them having a small tin cup with which he can scoop up a gill of sea-water when he will, and the other nothing but his hands, which will hardly hold water at all, —and you call the tin cup a miraculous possession! It is the ocean that is the miracle, my infant apostle! Nothing is clearer than that all things are in all things, and that just according to the intensity and extension ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... aberrations; I know too little about painting to judge for myself. But the list, made complete, would still not be over-long, and few of its items would be important. Huneker, like the rest of us, has sinned his sins, but his judgments, in the overwhelming main, hold water. He has resisted the lure of all the wild movements of the generation; the tornadoes of doctrine have never knocked him over. Nine times out of ten, in estimating a new man in music or letters, he has come curiously close ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... away your birthright—to this contract and lease. You did it with no intention of giving your land and flume and flume site away, that's true. If one of the men would be willing to confess to a conspiracy, it would hold water in court. Otherwise not. You've been bunked, and your signature is as legal and as binding as though you had read that contract and lease-form a hundred times over. So I don't see anything to do but to swallow your medicine with as little of a ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... sure. Why should you?... But your theory doesn't hold water, because I won't permit my publishers to print my picture, and, besides, reviews of such stupid books generally appear in profound ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... and bolted door, the entrance is only closed by a mat, having nothing to be stolen; and for bedsteads they have only a few billets covered by a mat; yet some have hangings of mats, especially about their beds. Their furniture consists of two or three earthen pots to hold water, and to boil such provisions as they can get; a gourd or two for palm-wine; half a gourd to serve as a drinking cup; a few earthen dishes for their loblolly or pottage; a basket for the maria [wife], to gather ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... he said. 'Besides, I promised Jerningham, and such an excuse would never hold water. She is ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... labours; and whatever a master may have done to incense you, complete your work, for your own glory, and not to oblige him. But what success can you expect, if you are thus continually crossed by your evil genius? You see he compels you every moment to change your tone; you may as well hold water in a sieve as try to stop that resistless torrent, which in a moment overturns the most beautiful structures raised by your art. Well, once more, out of kindness, and whatever may happen, let us take some ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... pounded on the floor as I walked around the gymnasium, while the lodge, headed by my chum, sung, 'We won't go home till morning' I stopped in front of the ice water tank, and said, 'Grand Worthy Duke, I bring before you a pilgrim who has drank of the dregs until his stomach won't hold water, and who desires to swear off.' The Grand Mogul asked me if he was worthy and well qualified, and I told him that he had been drunk more or less since the reunion last summer, which ought to qualify him. Then the Grand Mogul made Pa repeat the most blood-curdling oath, in ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... watchword of democratic freedom led only to insecurity, indiscipline, and at length to the downfall and destruction of all authority. Our opponents' objection that we, too, once made use of these rights, will not hold water; for we made use of an unreasonable right, which was part and parcel of an unreasonable system, in order to overthrow the unreason of ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... street. There was no use of appealing again to the business folk of the provincial towns; the tone of their letters was all too decisive. The great plans he had made would come to nothing after all. His proposition simply did not hold water. ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... in an empty flat. (The jarring down of the soil should precede the firming with the thumbs, as this will compact the soil more evenly within the pot.) This should leave the soil a little below the rim of the pot, making a space to hold water when watering; and the cutting should be so firmly embedded that it cannot be moved without ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... Captain, triumphant at getting the better of his opponent. "Of course I am! Your argument, Hellyer, won't hold water. Besides, should one of those spiteful little inventions succeed in getting near an ironclad without being seen and sunk, the torpedo nets of the ship would prevent the infernal machine, as these new- fashioned fallals were called in the old days, from exploding against ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... you what I'll do. I will have the canoe drawn up, and gently, but firmly, slit it with my knife. One of the men can mend it in ten minutes. Then I can look even the official from Quebec in the face, and tell him truly that the canoe will not hold water. I suppose as long as my story will hold water you and ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... destroy entirely parts of the valves or, when they heal, leave scars which shorten and twist the valves out of shape, so that they can no longer close the openings. When this has happened, the heart is in the condition of a pump which will not hold water, because the leather valve in its bucket is broken or warped; and we say that the patient has valvular or organic ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... such a fine piece of forgery, would never ask another person to spell the name of an Australian town. Do you suppose he sent it to England to get an accomplice to spell 'Hobart' right for him? No—no, Hawtrey, your theory won't hold water." ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... and could not stay ourselves—many midriff-shaken even to tears, as springs gush out after earthquakes—but from those, as I said before, there may come a conflagration—tho', to keep the figure moist and make it hold water, I should say rather, the lacrymation of a lamentation; but look if Thomas have not flung himself at the King's feet. They have made it ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Jameson very much in her relations with Lady Byron. I never thought theirs a real attachment, but a connection made up of all sorts of motives, which was sure not to hold water long, and never to hold it after it had once begun to leak. It was an instance of one of those relationships which are made to wear out, and as it always appeared so to me, I have no great sympathy with either party in this ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... said Ketchum. "That section will hold water or nothing will. Give me the names of your witnesses, and we will set the mill a grinding. I suppose," he added, carelessly, "you have no objection to bringing ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... pitcher-plants. Some are shorter and broader than others; but they are all green like true leaves, and hold water as securely as a jug or glass. They grow in Borneo and Sumatra, hot islands in the East. The one shown in the drawing ...
— The Nursery, September 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 3 • Various
... them hideous. I am still wondering why? For after all, his study was one mass of lumber, of old smoky pictures; statuettes I blushed to look at, chipped antiquities of all kinds, good for nothing; vases that would not hold water, odd cups, chandeliers covered ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... travelled forty miles from Mount Udor, but no signs of a creek or any place likely to produce or hold water had been found. The only difference in the country was that it was now more open, though the spinifex was ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... expressed it, "into buzzard food." And Hervey would be praised for the act! Oliver Jordan, owing the preservation of his daughter from a luckless marriage to the vigilance of his foreman, could never regret the life-contract which he had drawn up. No doubt that contract, as it stood, could never hold water in the law. But Jordan's gratitude would make it proof. Last of all, and best of all, when Perris was disposed of, Marianne would never be able to remain on the ranch. She would go to forget her sorrow among her school friends in the East. And Hervey, undisputed lord and master of the ranch, ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... command," said Uncle Ben. "You hain't heard it before; but it is often needed to keep you from runnin' into a boat, a wharf, a rock, or anything else. The command is, 'Starn all!' When you get it, you must pull backwards. It comes arter 'Hold water!' as you are doin' now. All ready! The ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... doubt of this in the child, is the father's first ground for hoping that the child with his new needs will find for himself the same well of life—to draw from it with a new bucket, it may be, because the old will hold water no longer: its staves may be good, but its hoops are worn asunder; or, rather, it will be but a new rope it needs, which he has to twist from the hemp growing in his own garden. The son who was healed might have many questions to ask which the father ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... the manner which they had built, after the instructions of the Lord. And they were small, and they were light upon the water, like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water; and they were built like unto a manner that they were exceeding tight, even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish, and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree; and the door thereof when it was shut was tight like unto a dish. And it came ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... leave them with me, and I will go over them as critically as if they were the figures of somebody I was deeply suspicious of, I hope they will hold water; but if they do not, I will point out to you where the ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... looks, too. Then Cap'n Mike said he didn't drink, so his statement that he was under the influence of liquor wouldn't hold water, either. What's ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... and she held out something toward him, and again he adjusted his views to fit the companion whom he was growing to know. She had spoiled a very beautiful and expensive cloak, but of it she had improvised something intended to hold water. Not for very long, perhaps; but long enough for the journey here from the creek, if a man did not loiter on the way. With the ancient sacrificial knife she had hacked at a stringy, fibrous bit of vegetation ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... stepped forward, and with hats and anything that would hold water they began to wet the old rookeries. But the fiery storm swooped steadily down on them, and their efforts were as futile as if they had tried to beat back the wind. Suddenly a mass of flame leaped upon the buildings, and in a moment they were ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... explain the puzzling facts by claiming that the well-known bravery and tenacity of the Turk on defense, shown all through his history and never more evident than in the Gallipoli campaign, was, for some unknown reason, totally lacking at Erzerum. Such claims, however, do not hold water. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... We know his powers, we appreciate his genius. It is safe to say that a cask made in accordance with his directions, after he had served a short apprenticeship, would not only be fair to see and easy to handle, but would also hold water. This is more than we should venture to affirm of the plot of any of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... every ship he came across: and he did—though from the first he met with no encouragement. "Ship, ahoy!" he shouted, coming down with a rush upon the stern-windows of the first and calling to all to hold water. ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not my will. I've had nothing to do with it; so kindly keep your hair on. As a matter of fact, she must have drawn it up herself. It's not drawn properly at all, but it's witnessed all right, and it'll hold water, just as well as if the blooming Lord Chancellor had fixed it up ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... me, Abe," he said, a little thickly. "All this talk of yours don't hold water—no, nor spirit either," he laughed. "Say, I'm goin' to get married, and so ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... got to do with it?" snarled Eggleston. "They will pay sometime. As to your honor: That's the cheap sentiment you Southern men are always shouting. Your kind of honor won't hold water here! It was your honor when you tried to hold on to your niggers; and it's your honor when you murder each other ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... all bad men. You have no likes of them gangs out heah. If they didn't get wiped out by Rangers or cowboys, why they jest naturally wiped out themselves. Thet's a law I recognize in relation to gangs like them. An' as for yours—why, Anson, it wouldn't hold water against one real gun-slinger." ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... know what the sensation is of having one arm-bone shivered, and the dead limb swinging helplessly about in your sleeve, whilst a great miserable sensation comes over you that you are of no more use—that you are only a cracked pitcher, fit to hold water no more, but only to be broken up to mend the road with. There were all those women and children wanting my help, and the help of hundreds more such as me, and instead of being of use, I knew that I must be a miserable burden to everybody, ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... the king's palace. The King had said he would give much gold to any man who could fell the oak, but no one was man enough to do it, for as soon as one chip of the oak's trunk flew off, two grew in its stead. The King wished also to have a well dug which was to hold water for the whole year. All his neighbors had wells, but he had none, and he thought ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... do I know I cannot forbear to read, and so Teares my drink and all my content gone. But let me remember there was here and there a word where he hath writ tenderly of his poor Wife, and when I did see him weep my heart did pity him. But what hope or help, for a Jar mended may hold water, but yet the Cracks remain, and the worth gone for ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... that'll hold water, and look sharp. If you boys work well now, I'll overlook a lot that's been done. If you don't, I'll give you fits. Try and get below, some of you, and pull away what's burning. Probably you'll find some of ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
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