"Ferret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but each made a secret resolution to ferret out Miriam's suspected treachery if it were the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... go and ferret out this old man instantly," said Robin, buttoning up his coat, as if about to ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... know what to do with. I am not a multi-millionaire, but I have quite enough to enable me to gratify all my cravings, of which the predominant ones are exploration and hunting. I also have a hankering to ferret out secrets; and the secret, which has haunted me for years is that connected with the city of Manoa. Did or did it not exist? That is what I want to find out. For years I have been digging and delving after ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... together with Frau Willmers take their departure. In a humorous monologue Gertrude decides to accept the Burgomaster. She is interrupted in her soliloquy by Lampe, the Beadle, who is a regular old Paul Pry, and boasts to the widow of his smartness and sagacity. According to himself he can ferret out anything, or any one, from a defrauder of the revenue to a thief, an anarchist or a murderer. Then he goes on to say that he intended to serve notice of distraint on Frau Willmers, but had found her door locked. Suddenly he ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... first time that an Egyptian manuscript has been found to contain anything else than hieratic formulae. I am bound to decipher it, even if it costs me my sight, even if my beard grows thrice around my desk. Yes, I shall ferret out your secret, mysterious Egypt! Yes, I shall learn your story, you lovely dead; for that papyrus pressed close to your heart by your lovely arm surely contains it. And I shall be covered with glory, become the equal of Champollion, and ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... of the gathered harvest? The stakes were high, but the game was worth the playing, and Rosselot played it with spirit and energy unto the last card. His appearance in court is ever memorable, and as his ferret eyes glinted through glass at the President, he seemed the villain of some Middle Age Romance. His head, poised upon a lean, bony frame, was embellished with a nose thin and sharp as the blade of ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... is the gist of what you have already told me," said the commissioner. "Muller, Miss Graumann believes her nephew innocent, contrary to the opinion of the local authorities in G—. She has come to ask for some one from here who could ferret out the truth of this matter. You are free now, and if we find that it can be done without ...
— The Case of the Registered Letter • Augusta Groner
... destroyers down yonder, off Miami, can ferret out Hade's yacht and lay it by the heels, in no time," explained Brice. "His house is watched, always, lately. And every port and railroad will be watched, too. The chief reason I want to get hold of ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... 7 A.M. saw strange sail, hauled up for her and spoke the Ferret, Whaler, last from Norfolk Island ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... revelations of a remarkably inventive Santa Claus were greeted, while Polly held her climbing excitement in check until the hour should be ripe for greater things. But when, at last, just as the sun was peeping in at the kitchen window, Dan's ferret fingers penetrated the extreme toe of his sock, she grew so agitated that she quite forgot to make a certain witty observation she had been saving up for that particular moment. And so it came about that an unwonted silence reigned as the unsuspecting Dan drew forth a small flat parcel ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... you felt yourself in the character of a ferret if you intend to go out on a still hunt for all unacknowledged paternity, even in dear, simple, little old Goodloets," Nickols further jeered as we came up the steps of the Morgan house from where the others were just going ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and of the conversation many times before he left London next evening. He was rather an adept at the discovery of small mysteries; he liked to draw conclusions from a series of small events, and to ferret out other people's secrets. He thought that he was now upon the track of some design of Vivian's, and he became exceedingly curious about it. If it had been possible to open the box without disturbing the seals upon it, he would certainly have done so; but, this being ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... it was noticed that the funnels of the steamers were missing, having, as we afterwards learned, been blown away by the violent wind and heavy sea. It was about this period that a small vessel—a gunboat, I think it was—the "Ferret," was driven on the rocks in front of the Castle, and dashed to pieces. The crew managed to get off by the boats. For a time it was believed that a boy on the boat had been lost, but he was subsequently rescued. After much delay the two steamers were able to land the ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... very fine Jaffa oranges," he said hurriedly, pointing to a corner where they were stored, behind a high rampart of biscuit tins. There was evidently more in the remark than met the ear. The boy flew at the oranges with the enthusiasm of a ferret finding a rabbit family at home after a long day of fruitless subterranean research. Almost at the same moment the bearded stranger stalked into the shop, and flung an order for a pound of dates and a tin of the ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... ago. The daughters had been reared here; but, even as enmity had arisen on the tilled slips of garden outside Eden, so there had always been strife between the daughters of the lonely manse—on the one side rebellion and the resentment of restraint, on the other tale-bearing and ferret-eyed spying. ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... more fortunate with a strange animal which, hunted by men, cats and dogs, has fled toward the unoccupied country, and is fast disappearing from the fauna of New Zealand. Robert, searching like a ferret, came upon a nest made of interwoven roots, and in it a pair of birds destitute of wings and tail, with four toes, a long snipe-like beak, and a covering of white feathers over the whole body, singular creatures, which seemed ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... and his head; and the head was one of the strangest ever seen, for there was not a hair upon it; he was bald as an egg, and his head was the shape of an egg, and the colour of an Easter egg, a pretty pink all over. The eyes were like a ferret's, small and restless and watery, a long nose and a straight drooping chin, and a thick provincial ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... pole-cat. It may be seen swimming about the lakes, preferring generally the still waters in autumn to the more rapidly-flowing currents of spring. It somewhat resembles the otter, and differs in shape slightly from the marten or ferret. Its teeth, however, are more like those of the pole-cat than the otter; while its tail does not possess the muscular ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... wonder pitcher, believe me!" piped in Pete Stevens. He was a stocky youth with small ferret-like eyes. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... coarse, sensuous lips, and hair elaborately and carefully powdered; the other pale and thin-lipped, with the keen eyes of a ferret and a high intellectual forehead, from which the sleek brown hair was smoothly ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... upper part of the ermine being brown in summer, but, like most animals in or near the arctic zone, changing into a pure white in winter, with the exception of the tail, which remains black as in summer. The ermine is but little larger than the English ferret, while the sable and marten are the size of large polecats. When the Ostjaks came up with them they either knocked them on the head with a club or shot them through the head. They were then carefully skinned, the bodies being thrown to the dogs ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... out of bounds. This did not affect the bulk of the school, for most of the shops to which any one ever thought of going were in the High Street. But there were certain inquiring minds who liked to ferret about ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... soror, generosa foemina et supra sexum ambitiosa, a fratre proximisque neglectam, cum inultam manere impatientissime ferret, Balagnio se ultorem profitente, spretis suorum monitis in matrimonium cum ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... Kent bit savagely at his cigar as a slight vent to his feelings. "'Killed by a dose of aconitine by a person or persons unknown,' was the jury's verdict, and a nice tangle they have left me to ferret out.'' ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... to sit up for?" pursued my father, keen and sharp as a ferret at a field-rat's hole, or a barrister hunting a witness in those courts of law that were never used by, though often used ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... by an old man peered out. He had the restless eyes of a ferret, and a white beard that was very long. He too was looking toward the palace. Now and then he muttered inaudibly in Aramaic to himself. In the shadow of a neighboring house a woman appeared; he shook at the lattice as an ape does at the ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... have lots of the girls in the afternoon," said Eric. "I do hope that big ferret isn't making his way out. He is a stunner, sir; why, he killed—Ermie, keep your legs away—he has teeth like razors, sir, and once he catches on, he never lets go. He'll suck you to death as likely as not. ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or some one, and the Baptis' preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any hint of ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... fire-place, on which a charcoal fire is brightly burning, and here Mr. Vartarian's private kahvay-jee is kept busily employed in brewing tiny cups of strong black coffee; another servant constantly visits the fire to ferret out pieces of glowing charcoal with small pipe-lighting tongs, with which he circulates among the guests, supplying a light to the various smokers of cigarettes. A third youth is kept pretty tolerably busy performing the same office for Mr. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... certainly not; but Blee 's a ferret when a thing 's hid. A detective mind theer is to Billy. How would it do to tell un right away an' put un 'pon ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... the personal charms of Mrs Nicholas Forster at the time of their union, she had, at the period of our narrative, but few to boast of, being a thin, sharp-nosed, ferret-eyed little woman, teeming with suspicion, jealousy, and bad humours of every description: her whole employment (we may say, her whole delight) was in finding fault: her shrill voice was to be heard from the other side of the street from morning until night. The one servant ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... disarranged. The longer Richard contemplated Inspector Val the more he felt his whalebone sort. The slim form and sleepy eyes began to suggest that activity and ferocious genius for pursuit which are the first qualities of a ferret. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... regimental funds; again I will spare Madame the details; but certain of them which should have passed through Bertin's hands had not arrived at their destination. Clerks from a bank came to work upon the accounts; strange, cool young men, who hunted figures through ledgers as a ferret traces a rat under a floor. You must understand that for the regiment it was a monstrous matter, an affair to hide sedulously; it touched our intimate honor. There was a meeting of the rest of us to consider the thing; finally, it was I that ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... I don't like," Julian acknowledged. "Fenn's practically the corner stone of this affair. It was he who met Freistner in Amsterdam and started these negotiations, and I'm damned if I like Fenn, or trust him. Did you see the way he looked at Stenson out of the corners of his eyes, like a little ferret? Stenson was at his best, too. I never admired the ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... clade notavi; Discite mortales non temerare fidem: Me nisi Pontifices jussissent rumpere foedus Non ferret Scythicum ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... the ferret on the prowl," was the enigmatic reply. Whereupon the voice speaking in more natural ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... far different story if it should ferret out my grave and see my name blazoned above it; and as long as its poisonous tongues continue to speak slightingly of me, it must never know aught about me. So do as I bid you; promise that you will obey ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... woman!" scolded Dukovski, going out of the house. "It is clear she knows something, and is concealing it! And the chambermaid has a queer expression too! Wait, you wretches! We'll ferret ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... the man I did not like. But that, too, I will see about. At all events, something shall be forthcoming to prevent your thinking that I have been absolutely idle. I am quite delighted to hear what you tell me about Publius; pray ferret out the whole story, and bring it to me when you come, and meanwhile write anything you may make out or suspect, and especially as to what he is going to do about the legation. For my part, before reading your letter, I was anxious ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the disk, as if there were a band of stronger light there, I saw a white animal under a heap of poles by the wayside, near the great hedge I have mentioned. It immediately concealed itself, but, thinking that it was a ferret gone astray, I waited, and presently the head ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... was a fool who dreamed the high dream of the pure scientist, and who lived only to ferret out the secrets of nature, and harness them for his fellow men. He studied and worked and thought, and in time came to concentrate on the manipulation of the atom, especially the possibility of contracting and expanding it—a thing of greatest potential ...
— A Scientist Rises • Desmond Winter Hall
... and confined it to details of little importance. He would allow no comments which unsettled the minds of readers. In no country was the censorship of the Press more inexorable than in Austria and its dependent States. All that spies and a secret police and priests could do to ferret out associations which had in view a greater liberty, was done; all that soldiers could do to suppress popular insurrection was effected,—and all in the name of religion, since he looked upon free inquiry as logically leading to scepticism, and scepticism ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... to stay, if only to ferret out the mystery of this rascally fake!" he thought "But—oh, hang it! this rascally fake is the very breath of life to Dad and Mother. No, Peter Boots, it can't be done! You're out of it all and out of it all ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... when the town grew inquisitive, and the critics were compelled to ferret out his antecedents, that the new actor had already attained middle age,—that he had been vegetating for years in that obscurest and most miserable of all dramatic positions, the low comedian of a country-theatre,—that he had come timidly to London and accepted at a low ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... president of Groveton Bank, was certain. He would ask, among other things, why Mr. Duncan had not informed him of the loss by cable, and no satisfactory explanation could be given. He would ask, furthermore, why detectives had not been employed to ferret out the mystery, and here again no satisfactory explanation could be given. Prince Duncan knew very well that he had a reason, but it was not one ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... the nineteenth century? It appears that there is no security for life in our capital. Mr. Fouche, if such crimes can be committed with impunity, there is an end of all things; and if you cannot ferret out the perpetrators of such atrocities as these, it is time for you to vacate your position. I must appoint a ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... remembrance, I should say. ... Start away with the money you have in hand, and see if you ken't make some more for yourself. There's another thing! You can write to me in a year from now, and tell me where you are, and what you have been about. I'll ferret into every single thing, and if it's straight, I'll help you again; I'll go on helping you! You need never say after this that you cheat because you're obliged. Live straight, and work hard, and I'll see to it that ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Young ferret, detective, said: "I'll show you where To track the bold rabbit right into his lair." Then he never saw bunny right under his eyes, But went swaggering off looking ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... is it, sir?" asks Madge. "Anything in rings? What kind?" "Oh, just plain rings," says the man with a great show of indifference, while his eyes ferret among the trinkets on the counter. And then, very calmly: "Oh, these will do, I guess." Two wedding rings, and he spent twenty cents. Madge follows him with her eyes. "That's it," she whispers, "usually the men buy two. One for themselves and one for the girl. Or if it's the girl that's buying ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Ecclesiae, si in eam pro hominibus admitterentur asini et omnibus asinis stolidiores. Instabant ii quibus hinc aliquid emolumenti metitur, ut moderaretur sententiam, reputans hoc seculum non 20 gignere Paulos aut Hieronymos, sed tales recipiendos quales ea ferret aetas. Perstitit episcopus, negans se requirere Paulos ac Hieronymos, sed asinos pro hominibus non admissurum. Hic confugiendum erat ad extremam machinam. Admota est. Quaenam? 'Si qua 25 coepisti' inquiunt 'visum ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus
... saturnine features, the manner and general bearing all loudly proclaimed his Gallic nationality. His smooth shaven face showed a firm mouth with bloodless lips so thin as to be hardly perceptible. His eyes, when they could be seen at all, were greenish in color, and small and restless as those of a ferret. He advanced into the room with the obsequious deferential manner which in all well-trained servants becomes second nature, moving across the thickly carpeted floor with the rapidity and ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... the English brig-of-war Ferret. Our captain went on board, and was told that she had been engaged with a large slaver, four days ago. Previous to the action, the slave-ship went to Gallenas, where the Ferret's pinnace was at anchor. ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... too, and true, that if the woman at the next desk finds that she is annoying our friend, unconsciously she seems to ferret out her most sensitive places and rub them raw with her sharp, ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... CLERK of Joel Burns, sent here by him to ferret out and punish your rascalities. Stay,' continued Hiram—perceiving Joslin was about to break forth in some violent demonstrations. 'Sit down, sir, and hear me through quietly. It is your best course. It is your ONLY course. Now listen. You have undertaken to cheat my ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... you're going to do something. I know; we'll go back and make Magg lend us his ferret, and then we'll try for ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... "I am almost certain that she took this path, and I fancy that the man's voice sounded like that of Ravonino. Nothing more natural than that he should ferret her out. Yet it seems to ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... less than that there is a secret gang of thieves and villains of all kinds, whose head quarters are somewhere in this region of country, and that I intend to ferret ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... Cinderella, Navy Meteor, Crocodile, Watersprite, Thetis, Dolphin, Wizard, Escape, and Dragon-all vessels with rising floors and round bilges, and the coefficient of performance was found to be 1430. The fourth set of experiments was made in 1834, upon the vessels Magnet, Dart, Eclipse, Flamer, Firefly, Ferret, and Monarch, when the coefficient of performance was found to be 1580. The fifth set of experiments was made upon the Red Rover, City of Canterbury, Herne, Queen, and Prince of Wales, and in the case of those vessels the coefficient rose ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... her current expenses; for Alec's requirements at college were heavier this year than they had been before; so that, much to her annoyance, she had been compelled to delay the last half-yearly payment of Bruce's interest. Nor could she easily bear to recall the expression upon his keen ferret-like face when she informed him that it would be more convenient to pay the money a month hence. That month had passed, and another, before she had been able to do so. For although the home-expenses upon a farm in Scotland are very small, yet in the midst ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... fourteenth year before he was pronounced, by all the neighbourhood, to be a "wicked dog, the wickedest dog in the street!" Nay, one old gentleman, in a claret-coloured coat, with a thin red face, and ferret eyes, went so far as to assure Dame Heyliger, that her son would, one day or ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... as he gave her this friendly caution, and emphasized it with a nodding of his head; but finding it uncomfortable to encounter the yellow face with its grotesque action, and the ferret eyes with their keen old wintry gaze, so close to his own, he looked down uneasily and sat skulking in his chair, as if he were trying to bring hImself to a sullen declaration that he would answer no more questions. The old woman, still holding him as before, took ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Cousin Benedict believed that he was going to lose sight of it. But, to his great surprise, the passage was at least two feet high, and the mole-hill formed a gallery where his long, thin body could enter. Besides, he put the ardor of a ferret into his pursuit, and did not even perceive that in "earthing" himself thus, he was ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... about every few moments and scowled through the trees at the flood racing down the lawn to the lake. His thin mouth was a trifle relaxed, his clothes hung loose upon him; but the eyes, black and sharp as a ferret's, glittered undimmed. ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... of it, because it is written in a language that we don't understand. One must read in the different strata, in the pebble-stones, for each separate period. Yes, it is a romance, a very wonderful romance, and we all have our place in it. We grope and ferret about, and yet remain where we are; but the ball keeps turning, without emptying the ocean over us; the clod on which we move about, holds, and does not let us through. And then it's a story that has been acting for thousands upon thousands of years and is still going on. My best thanks for the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... him down he lay where he fell, dazed by the blow, and blinking up at me with his small ferret eyes. I knew him to be one Edward Sharpless, and I knew no good of him. He had been a lawyer in England. He lay on the very brink of the stream, with one arm touching the water. Flesh and blood could not resist it, so, assisted by the toe of my boot, he took a cold bath to ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... the counter at the Emporium could not be farther prolonged, she had even stopped on her way home at Mrs. Ferret's, and told her about Albert, though she did not much like to talk to her—she looked so penetratingly at her out of her round, near-sighted eyes, which seemed always keeping a watch on the tip of her nose. And Mrs. Ferret, with her jerky voice, and a smile that was meant ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... guiltiest beast resign, A sacrifice to wrath divine. Perhaps this offering, truly small, May gain the life and health of all. By history we find it noted That lives have been just so devoted. Then let us all turn eyes within, And ferret out the hidden sin. Himself let no one spare nor flatter, But make clean conscience in the matter. For me, my appetite has play'd the glutton Too much and often upon mutton. What harm had e'er my victims done? I answer, truly, None. Perhaps, sometimes, ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... thinking how curious he looked in those surroundings—his tall, bony frame clothed in semi-military garments, his wooden face perfectly shaved, his iron-grey hair neatly parted and plastered down upon his head with pomade or some equivalent after the old private soldier fashion, and his sharp ferret-like grey eyes ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... station; hence there were many Christians, and these evening gatherings were blessed by God, and made profitable to all. We had on board one whose destination was the prison at Bermuda, not to become a prisoner, by the way, but a warder. This man, at 4 a.m. every morning, would ferret out all the boys in the ship, sending them to the upper deck to undergo a salt water bath, which to us all, at that untimely hour, ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... somebody ready to question her. In every town and city she was called upon for an interview before she had time to brush off the dust of travel. One of the New York papers detailed a reporter to follow her from point to point, catch every word she uttered, ferret out all she said to her friends and in some way extort what was wanted. She often remarked that "in this case men proved themselves the champion gossips ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... telling me that just as Harry was slipping round into the Bay of Houton, thinking, no doubt, that everything was clear for the landin' o' his cargo, the revenue boat came out from behind the Holm, like a hawk on a ferret. Ye may be sure, Jack, that Harry and his crew didna give in without a fight for it; but the navy lads had the upper hand at last, and, what was more to their purpose, they found in Ewan's lugger five gallant casks o' whisky, not to speak o' half a dozen rolls o' tobacco, ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... later he took it to a very private market of his own, the breakfast-room of a sunny and secluded house far uptown, where lived, in an aroma of the domestic virtues, a benevolent-looking old gentleman who combined the attributes of the ferret, the leech, and the vulture in his capacity as editor of that famous weekly publication, The Searchlight. Ives did not sell in that mart; he traded for other information. This time he wanted something about Judge Willis Enderby, for ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... trance"—Hedrick was bubbling with good spirits, and when he left his office for politics he could get out in his shirt-sleeves at a primary and peddle tickets, or nose up and down the street like a fat ferret looking for votes. So when Abner Handy announced that he desired to go to the State Senate, to fill an unexpired term for two years, he had Hedrick behind him to give strength and respectability to his candidacy. Between the two Handy ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... most desponding, perhaps because he had the most at stake, having a young wife and two children who adored him. "I do not believe it. I have seen Dubois in England. I have talked with him; his face is like a ferret's, licking his lips when thirsty. Dubois is thirsty, and we are taken. Dubois's thirst will be slaked ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... make out," pursued his friend sarcastically, "is why you haven't tried to smell the chaps out by means of Smiley. Now, if you let Smiley have a good sniff of that bit of rope on your watch-chain, and then turn him out into the square, he'd ferret them out for you." ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... live-stock as white mice, guinea-pigs, and ferrets. Pixie had many farewells to bid in this quarter, and elaborate instructions to give as to the care to be lavished on her favourites during her absence. The ferret was boarded out to Pat, who had no idea of doing anything for nothing, but was willing to keep the creature supplied with the unsavoury morsels, in which its soul delighted, for the fee of a halfpenny a week, to be paid "some time," an happy O'Shaughnessy fashion. The white mice looked ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... office of the adjutant-general and their desks. Some powerful but subdued excitement pervaded the building. Watchers of the strikers had noted the increasing number of officers in civilian dress long after the usual business hours, and Elmendorf, quick to take the alarm, had hastened thither to ferret out the cause. Vain his effort to communicate with his one victim. He was at his desk, and a vigilant ex-sergeant-major of cavalry scowled at the would-be intruder and told him visitors could not enter the clerks' ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... conceited in his opinion of himself, as well as mean and underhand, to look at. According to his own account, he leaves his old trade and joins ours of his own free will and preference. You will no more believe that than I do. My notion is, that he has managed to ferret out some private information in connection with the affairs of one of his master's clients, which makes him rather an awkward customer to keep in the office for the future, and which, at the same time, gives him hold ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... sells at a prodigious price, and is thought a fit present for a sovereign prince, from its rarity and exquisite beauty[4]. The other creature, found in no other country, is called by the Dutch the Stinkbungsen, or Stinking-Badger. This is of the size of an ordinary dog, but is shaped like a ferret. When pursued by man or beast, it retreats but slowly, and when its enemy draws near, discharges backwards a so intolerably fetid wind, that dogs tear up the ground and hide their noses in it, to avoid the smell. When killed, it stinks so abominably that there is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... 'ere little fellow from being corrupted. You sees he is just of a size to be useful to these bad karakters. If they took to burglary, he would be a treasure to them—slip him through a pane of glass like a ferret, sir." ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... curious to note that in "Sir Launcelot Greaves," we find a character, Ferret, who frankly poses as a strugforlifeur. M. Daudet's strugforlifeur had heard of Darwin. Mr. Ferret had read Hobbes, learned that man was in a state of nature, and inferred that we ought to prey upon each other, as a pike eats trout. Miss ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... dry man, with a face like a ferret, forty-five years old, and one of the celebrities of the prisons he had successively lived in since the age of nineteen, knew Jacques Collin well, how and why ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... I will do so: but looke you Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesars brow, And all the rest, looke like a chidden Traine; Calphurnia's Cheeke is pale, and Cicero Lookes with such Ferret, and such fiery eyes As we haue seene him in the Capitoll Being crost in Conference, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Doctor's practice ranged over a wide district, and as a rule (good easy man) he let the ailments of Polpier accumulate for a while before dealing with them. Then he would descend on the town and work through it from door to door—as Un' Benny Rowett put it, "like a cross between a ferret an' a Passover Angel." Thus the child and his temperature might have waited for thirty-six hours—the mothers of Polpier being skilled in febrifuges, from quinine to rum-and-honey, treacle posset, elder tea—to be dealt with ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... to ferret out and discuss all the psychological problems that are concealed behind these bland tables. Their general parallelism is obvious. Indeed we might say that to-day the English and German forms resemble each other more than does either set the West Germanic prototypes from which each is independently ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... little boy," he said. "He cannot be concealed by this wretched woman as the baby was; he is too old for that. The police will ferret him out. But I am greatly concerned for Mr. Hall. That child is the bond which holds him at safe anchorage. Break this bond, and he may drift to sea again. ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... was nice," put in old man Adams, his bleary, red rimmed ferret eyes gimleting at the stage driver. "But you ain't said who ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... him with all the pleasure in life. His awful guardedness made me feel as if I were an inquisitive little journalist trying to ferret out some unsavoury scandal. And he had been the first person to point the general suspicion a few minutes earlier, by his inquiry about the motor. I decided to turn the tables on him, if I ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... grasp at the amenities of the occasion. It was the only heaviness. To the other contest between them he brought an amazing sureness, a suppleness, power, and audacity beyond praise. He directed his battle, and at his elbow Tom Mocket, sandy-haired and ferret-eyed, did ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... and opened the garden door, standing for a moment with the taper flickering in the rush of cold air that poured in from outside. When he stepped back and closed the door, there stood beside him another man, clean-shaven, lean, sharp-nosed and ferret-eyed, whose footstep was almost as light as that of the Swami himself. Neither of them spoke until they reached the smaller room and the ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... devil. His cap had gone, and his fiery red hair was smeared with mud. Moreover, his nose had been broken on a cobble stone, and blood from it poured all over him, while his little red eyes glared like a ferret's, and his face turned a dirty white with pain and rage. Howling out something in Scotch, of a sudden he drew his sword and rushed straight at his ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... saw that a crowd had gathered, and quickened his pace, for a crowd in Cardigan Street generally meant a fight. Jonah elbowed his way through the ring, and found a young policeman, new to this beat, struggling with an undersized man with the face of a ferret. Jonah's first thought was to effect a rescue, as his practised eye took in the details of the scene. Let them get away from the light of the street lamp, and with a sudden rush the thing would be done. He looked round for the Push and remembered that they were scattered. Then he saw that the ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... chauffeur. "I'd understood yesterday as she was going to the openin' of a bazaar this afternoon—openin' by royalty; but I got my orders this morning to fill up the tank and come along at once, 'cos she was going out into the country. 'Ow's that ferret of mine going on?" ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... owed to those ferret searching eyes, and those subtly poisonous tongues! But such miseries lurked in the dull shadows of the past. Standing now in the bright sunshine of the present, she forgave the sisters with all her heart, and thought compassionately of their great age, their increasing infirmities, their feeble ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... negro took the pad, the top sheet having been torn off and placed in Kennedy's pocket. He also took a small fee of two dollars. A few minutes later we were ushered into the awful presence of the "Veiled Prophet," a tall, ferret-eyed man in a robe that looked suspiciously like a brocaded dressing-gown much too large ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... yet but imperfectly comprehend. That he had been the unconscious instrument of it all the gray-eyed lady had already told him; but Uncle Noah, busy with numberless culinary problems in the kitchen, had not as yet had time to ferret it out. ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... closed lips, "you wish to meddle in my affairs, to have for yourself and your friends the credit and glory of snatching the golden prize from the clutches of these murderous brutes. Well, we shall see! We shall see which is the wiliest—the French ferret or the ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... match for this crisply sarcastic governess, and had to be the whole time on her guard. For Miss Snodgrass was not only a great talker, but had also a very inquiring mind, and seemed always trying to ferret out just those things you did not care to tell—such as the size of your home, or the social position you occupied in the township where ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... triangle for him—no. He had the eye of a hawk, the ear of a hare, and his own nose. He would have the chickens, and he would not get himself into trouble. The women complained to me of the fox. I turned a ferret loose into the rabbit-hutch, and in half a minute there was as nice a young rabbit dead as ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... to expect any luck in the way of information from the gentleman behind the counter. However, when a man has devoted his life to ferreting out information, the habit of ferreting is apt to be very strong upon him; so I pass the time of day to my fancy-stationer, and then begins to ferret. 'Madame Durski, at Hilton House yonder, is an uncommonly handsome woman,' I throw out, by way of an opening. 'Uncommonly,' replies my fancy-stationer, by which I perceive he knows her. 'A customer of yours, perhaps?' I throw out, promiscuous. 'Yes,' answers my fancy-stationer. 'A good one, too, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... skermi. Fencing skermo. Fence palisaro. Fend defendi. Fender fajrgardo. Fennel fenkolo. Ferment fermenti. Ferment (disturbance) tumulto. Fern filiko. Ferocious kruelega. Ferocity kruelego, kruelegeco. Ferret cxasputoro. Ferry prami. Ferry-boat pramo. Fertile fruktodona. Fertilize fruktigi. Fervency fervoreco. Fervent fervora. Fervour fervoro. Festal festa. Fester ulcerigxi. Festival festo. Festoon festono. Fetch alporti. Fetich feticxo. Fetichism ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... is important, young sir. If you should take the field, you will find that your comfort greatly depends upon it. A sharp, active knave, who will ferret out good quarters for you, turn you out a good meal from anything he can get hold of, bring your horse up well groomed in the morning, and your armour brightly polished; who will not lie to you overmuch, or rob you overmuch, ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... fail to accomplish your end," he said. "Elsie will never marry without her father's consent, and that you will find it utterly impossible to gain. Horace is too sharp to be hoodwinked or deceived, even by you. He will ferret out your whole past, lay bare the whole black record of your rascalities and hypocrisies, and forbid his daughter ever again to hold the slightest communication with you. And she will obey if it kills ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... undoubtedly show signs of increased sexual activity at some times more than at others, are not known to have anything of the nature of a regularly recurrent rutting season. Nothing of the kind is known in the Dog, nor, so far as we are aware, in the males of the domestic Cat, or the Ferret, all of which seem to be capable of copulation at any time of the year. On the other hand, the males of Seals appear to have a rutting season at the same time as the sexual season of the female." (Marshall and Jolly, "Contributions to the Physiology of Mammalian ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... explained. It remained to decide which inn the doctor had spoken of: an easy piece of work for a Ganimard, a professional ferret, a patient old stager of the police. The number of inns is limited and this one, given the condition of the wounded man, could only be one quite close to Ambrumesy. Ganimard and Sergeant Quevillon set ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... taking place Bacon was leading an army through the woods and swamps of upper Gloucester and Middlesex. He had good reason to believe that it was the Pamunkeys who had made some recent incursions, and he was determined to ferret them out. But it proved a difficult task. His men, tired of wandering here and there, soaked by drenching rains, and half-starved, began to waver. But their dauntless young leader, after permitting many to return, resumed the search with ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker
... enough. Screw looked at him for a moment or two in silence, and then turned his eyes away. There was the faintest reflection of a smile on his yellow face, and the expression became him well. Screw was astute, sharp as a ferret, relentless as a steel-corkscrew, crushing its cruel way through the creaking cork; but Screw was an honest man, as the times go. That was the difference between him and Barker. Screw's smile was his best expression, Barker's smile was of the devil, and very wily. Screw ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... useless. Probably no matter what he contrived, the police would ferret her out. There was just one chance though which, properly taken, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... importance, in which the value of the microscope has again and again been demonstrated. On several occasions have we been enabled to clear the path for justice to ferret out the work of the contract falsifier, and shield the innocent from the unjust accusations of interested rogues. The range of observations in investigations of written documents with the microscope is a broad one. We may begin with ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... than like a man. He was remarkably tall and thin; a very shadow; with a white shadow of a face, and a nose that might have served as a model for a mask in a carnival of guys. A sharp nose, twice the length and half the breadth of any ordinary nose—a very ferret of a nose; its sharp tip standing straight out into the air. People said, with such a nose Mr. Gum ought to have a great deal of curiosity. And they were right; he had a great deal in a ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... have been Peter Fishwick if he had not presently felt the stirrings of curiosity, or, thus incited, failed to be on the move between the stairs and the landing when Sir George came in and passed up. The attorney's ears were as sharp as a ferret's nose, and he was notably long in lighting his humble dip at a candle which by chance stood outside Sir George's door. Hence it happened that Soane—who after dismissing his servant had gone for a moment into the adjacent chamber—heard a slight noise in the ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Therese), Two couriers out of place, One Yankee, with a face Like a ferret's: And three youths in scarlet caps Drinking chocolate and schnapps - A diet which perhaps Has ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... at home; and I had had to be civil to old Peters at Eltham, and behave myself for five hours running whenever he asked me to tea at his house; and now, just as I felt the free air blowing about me up at Heathbridge, I was to ferret out another minister, and I should perhaps have to be catechized by him, or else asked to tea at his house. Besides, I did not like pushing myself upon strangers, who perhaps had never heard of my mother's name, and such an odd name as it was—Moneypenny; and if ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... applicants come to the employment department in the natural course of events, others come as the result of advertisements; still others because the employment supervisor and his assistant take means to ferret them out and send for them. Promising young men in schools and colleges and in the employ, perhaps, of other organizations are kept under careful observation. Data in regard to them is listed in the reserve file, and their records, as they come in ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... to ferret into this yere myst'ry, we finds thar's a sharp come up from Dallas who claims that Cimmaron's got to pay him what Glidden owes. This yere Dallas party puts said indebtednesses ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... behaviour, that Rats knew how to conduct business. (Cheers.) They lived in strange times. A barbarous suggestion had been made to evict them—to turn them out of house and home, by means of what he might call Emergency Ferrets. (Groans, and cries of "Boycott them!") He feared that boycotting a ferret would not do much good. (A squeak—"Why not try rattening?"—and laughter.) Arbitration seemed to him the most politic course under the circumstances. (Cheers.) They were accused of eating young moor-chicks. Well, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... upward a moment with his ferret eyes, then turned his head aside and spat. "If there's any of my way of thinkin' they don't like him—But they're all fools! Crept down through the swamp a little ago an' heard it! 'Colonel, get us across, somehow, won't you? We'll ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... wits for the happy termination of the adventure to which they had led him. He had gone no further in the matter than he had always intended. Brush whiskey was the commodity that addressed itself most to his sense of speculation. For this he had always expected to ferret out some way of safely negotiating. He had gone no further than he should have done, at all events, a little later. He even began mentally to "figger on the price" down to which he should be able to bring the distillers, as he accepted a proffered ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... "Yes; look him up; ferret him out; tell him a bit of my mind. I'll thank you to pass the bottle. D—— me doctor; I mean to know how things ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... outspread blankets. His face was turned towards the stove, and his head was supported upon one hand. He looked none the worse for his adventure in the storm. He was a small, dark man of the superior French half-breed class. He had a narrow, ferret face which was quite good looking in a mean small way. He was clean shaven, and wore his straight black hair rather long. His clothes, now he had discarded his furs, showed to be of orthodox type, and quite unlike those of his hosts. He ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... economics. I have been trying to ferret out more nearly your chances of a post, and here are my results (which, I need not tell you, must ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... then he would understand all; she would die of very shame at it. She thought, too, she was not looking well, but wearied by the hurried work. She would have done anything to be hidden away under the reeds or in one of the ferret-holes. ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... Fullerton would talk about philosophy and science, often of the most abstruse and entrancing kind. His children were devoted to him. During these expeditions, they always vied with one another to ferret out the most absurd story to tell him, he being held as conqueror who made their father laugh most heartily. Sometimes they all went in a body, armed with wild stories; and occasionally, across the open fields, a row of eccentric-looking figures might be seen, struggling in the grip of hilarious ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... upon the taking advantage of a fellow-man, which leads to the degradation of a woman or to the unhappiness of a child. Everything which is opposed to the idea of human brotherhood. That which produces scrofulous kings, and lying priests, and greasy millionaires, and powdered prostitutes, and ferret-faced thieves. That which makes the honest man a pauper and a beggar, and sets the clever swindler in parliament. That which makes you what you are at 24, a man without a home, with hardly a future. That which tries to condemn those who protest to ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... crystal-pure. No mere woman had a voice like that. There was something celestial about it, and it came from other worlds. He could scarcely hear what it said, so ravished was he, though he controlled his face, for he knew that Mr. Higginbotham's ferret ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... from his finger a massy ring. A little ferret-eyed monk, a transcriber of saints' legends and Saxon chronicles, was immediately called. He pronounced the writing heathenish, and of the Runic form. A sort of free translation may ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... he fussed about for some time among what seemed the cookery arrangements, and at length drew from a chest that stood firmly fixed under an old deal table near a spacious fire-place, in which was a monster back-log, from behind which the ferret eyes of three mischievous urchins peered curious and comical, his judicial suit. Again from the chest the Squire drew forth a large steel chain, and a very mysterious-looking book, and began decorating himself in ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... group of young Conservatives pay the costs of Cecil Chesterton's defence. When a Parliamentary Committee is appointed to enquire into the alleged corruption, the story of every session becomes one of a Conservative minority trying hard to ferret out the truth and a ministerial majority determined to prevent their succeeding. Finally the leading Conservative Commissioner, Lord Robert Cecil, issues a restrained but most damning report which is, as a matter of course, rejected ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... in his nervous annoyance at once vented the hasty conclusion at which he arrived in the words: "I see; this is a trap, and you are a modern highwayman whose stunt will make good Sunday reading in cold print." He wore a sarcastic smile, and his sharp eyes gleamed like a ferret's. ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Horrocks, or, as he was better known amongst his comrades, "the Ferret," was hot upon the trail of the lost cattle. Horrocks bristled with energy at every point, and his men, working with him, had reason to be aware of the fact. It was an old saying amongst them that when "the Ferret" was let loose there was no chance of bits rusting. In other ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... a bootless oath thereto, and aroused Dolon to go. And straightway he cast on his shoulders his crooked bow, and did on thereover the skin of a grey wolf, and on his head a helm of ferret-skin, and took a sharp javelin, and went on his way to the ships from the host. But he was not like to come back from the ships ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... things. I consider myself much the most desperate wicked of the family. Your little pains is only pin-pricks compared to mine. It would relieve me to tell, but I love Paulie too much, so I won't. We have all got to hold our tongues for the present. Now good-night. I am not a mouse, nor a rat, nor a ferret. But I mean what I say. You ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... little body to pieces? Well, you used to be just like that, a slender, eager thing with a wild delight inside you. That is how I remembered you. And I come back and find you—a bitter woman. This is a perfect ferret fight here; you live by biting and being bitten. Can't you remember what life used to be? Can't you remember that old delight? I've never forgotten it, or known its like, on land ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... people's hearts and homes and lives is one of the primeval instincts. In that curiosity all the sciences are rooted; and it is a scientific impulse that makes us hanker to get back of faces into brains, to push through words into thoughts, and to ferret out of silences the emotions ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... ferret, as had been proven many times during his boyhood. At one time the jewelry store in which he worked as a shipping clerk lost a valuable necklace, and after the police of Chicago had failed to find a clew, James' special ability was reported and he was given a ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... sensible as I think you are, you won't mind that when you come to think it over. The only thing I am ashamed of is my money, because I didn't earn it for myself. You can live in palaces still, if you want to, and if you want to be a queen I'll ferret out a kingdom somewhere and buy it, but I am afraid you'll have to be Mrs. Lane behind it all, ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Paris, and was there during the St. Bartholomew massacre, and was afterwards appointed one of Queen Elizabeth's Secretaries of State; he was an insidious inquisitor, and had numerous spies in his pay, whom he employed to ferret out evidence to her ruin against Mary, Queen of Scots, and he had the audacity to sit as one of the Commissioners at ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... persecuted; in the Bluff region the natural enemy of the rabbit is honored, and his person is sacred. The rabbit's natural enemy in England is the poacher, in Bluff its natural enemy is the stoat, the weasel, the ferret, the cat, and the mongoose. In England any person below the Heir who is caught with a rabbit in his possession must satisfactorily explain how it got there, or he will suffer fine and imprisonment, together with extinction of his peerage; in Bluff, the cat found with a rabbit in its possession ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the letter couldn't have been there. I'll be drawn and quartered if I ever signed it. That's flat.' Dolly was intent on going to his father at once, on going to Melmotte at once, on going to Bideawhile's at once, and making there 'no end of a row,'—but Squercum stopped him. 'We'll just ferret this thing out quietly,' said Squercum, who perhaps thought that there would be high honour in discovering the peccadillos of so great a man as Mr Melmotte. Mr Longestaffe, the father, had heard nothing of the matter till the Saturday after his last interview with ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... that the Courtly lover compares the skin of his mistress to ivory and her eyes to Cupid's torches, he is quite capable of filling up the gap by saying that the girl is as white as a turnip and as bright-eyed as a ferret. As with details of description and metaphors, so also with the emotional and social parts of the business. The peasant has not been brought up in the idea that the way to gain a woman's affection is to stick her glove on a helmet ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... is true," said Amedee thoughtfully. "No one can deny it; it is a French name." He rested the tray upon a stump near by and scratched his head. "I do not understand how that can be," he continued slowly. "Jean Ferret, who is chief gardener at the chateau, is an acquaintance of mine. We sometimes have a cup of cider at Pere Baudry's, a kilometre down the road from here; and Jean Ferret has told me that she is an American. And yet, as you say, monsieur, the name is French. ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... winked to himself. 'A plaguy high stomach, too, by Jove. I bet you fifty, if he stays here three months, he'll be at swords or pistols with some of our hot bloods. And whatever his secret is—and I dare say 'tisn't worth knowing—the people here will ferret it out at last, I warrant you. There's small good in making all the fuss he does about it; if he knew but all, there's no such thing as a secret here—hang the one have I, I know, just because there's no use in trying. The whole ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... years after, I can recall the anguish of it, and how I stood with ears pricked up, eyes starting, and a clammy sweat upon my face, waiting for those speakers to come. It was the anguish of the rabbit at the end of his burrow, with the ferret's eyes gleaming in the dark, and gun and lurcher waiting at the mouth of the hole. I was caught in a trap, and knew beside that contraband-men had a way of sealing prying eyes and stilling babbling tongues; and I remembered poor Cracky Jones found dead in the churchyard, and how men said ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... and laughter the bottles passed about, and a woman at the foot of the bed raised her glass with a flourish and drank to the sick man. 'You're game, boy,' she cried; 'you finish like a ferret!' ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... author who is trying to develop his narrative sense may find unending exercise in the endeavor to ferret out the various series of events which lie entangled in the confused and apparently unrelated successions of incidents which pass before his observation. When he sees something happen in the street, he will not ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... a shadow, a smiling, sober citizen, plainly but neatly clad, with a downcast humble eye. A milder, meeker face no pastoral poet could assign to Corydon or Thyrsis,—why did the crowd shrink and hold their breath? As the ferret in a burrow crept that slight form amongst the larger and rougher creatures that huddled and pressed back on each other as he passed. A wink of his stealthy eye, and the huge Jacobins left the passage clear, without sound or question. On he went to the apartment of ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and small, lean as with fasting or with a wasting hunger not of this world, and his hands were as small and slender as a woman's. But his eyes! They were cunning and trustless, narrow- slitted and heavy-lidded, at one and the same time as sharp as a ferret's and as indolent as ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... clothes, seeming a very elegant young gentleman indeed, but his two companions were of grosser type, as far as appearances went: one, Dacey, thin and wiry, with a ferret face; the other, Chicago Red, a brawny ruffian, whose stolid features nevertheless exhibited something of ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... panic, gave over their attempts to retrieve the tubes. They dove for various hiding places—under benches, behind retorts, anywhere to get away from the terror running amuck in their midst. And after them sprang Dex, mad with his sudden miraculous success, to ferret them out one by one and blow them into hell with their own ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst |
