"Flop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chuckling to themselves, 'that villain's got his dose at last, and serve him right too.' They want to enjoy his struggles, while the heroine stands grimly at the door taking care that he doesn't get away. Then when my fist comes down flop on the stage and they realise that I am indeed done for, the yell of triumph that goes up ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... hospitality, and, relinquishing all prospects of wearing the Muscovite diadem, returned to Paris and Dujarier. Her lover's influence secured her an engagement in La Biche au Bois at the Porte St. Martin Theatre; but, as had happened at the Academie Royale, she was a "flop." The critics said so with no uncertain voice; and the manager announced that he agreed with them. Clearly, then, the ballet was not ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... runs it in fifty,' says Joe, careless. 'I takes hold of him 'cause he's bad in front, 'n' he's likely to do a flop when he gets tired. So long, Bud!' Joe says to me, 'n' I takes the bird ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... I thought Cockney would flop at the big fellow's feet this time. But he recovered quickly enough when Newman turned away, without further words, and without offering to thump him. He slouched forward, and immediately became the hero of the hour with the gang. Aye; I was even a bit envious. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... chapel eaves. The Book inside, of which they almost make an idol, seemed to think the life of a sparrow—and possibly of a swallow—was of value; still it is good fun to see the callow young come down flop on the hard ground. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... are then broken by striking them with the blade or teeth of the tool. All weeds and trash should be covered during the operation. A common fault of beginners is to put the spade in the soil on a slant and only about half the length of the blade, and then flop the soil over in the hole from which it came, often covering the edge of the unspaded soil. The good spader works from side to side across his piece of ground, keeping a narrow trench or furrow between the spaded and unspaded soil, into which weeds and trash ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... they discovered us. Then for the first time, I suppose, they understood the nature of their disaster. We could not hear their cries, but we saw arms stretched out to us, fists frantically shaken, hands lifted in prayer. We saw Mr. Tubbs flop down upon his unaccustomed knees—it ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... had been given, and now only a poor, wounded Bob White lay in the path before them. "She's dead," said one of the boys. "No, she ain't, her wing's broke," cried the other, as he made a dive at her. But somehow, Mrs. Bob continued to flop the broken wing, and to elude them. Another futile dive, and the two tin buckets containing the reapers' dinners were thrown down and forgotten in the keen interest of chasing the wounded Bob White, who managed to flop and flutter just beyond their reach until she had ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... white petals beginning to unclose. But what slippery stalks they had. Aunt Emma held Milly, and father held Olly, while they dived their hands under the water and pulled hard. And some of the lilies came out with such short bits of stalk you could scarcely hold them, and sometimes, flop! out came a long green stalk, like a long green snake curling and twisting about in the boat. The children dabbled, and splashed, and pulled, to their hearts' content, till at last Mr. Norton told them they had got enough and now they must ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Forsytes, favouring herself, with the exception, perhaps, of Imogen. Her brother's "little girl" Fleur frankly puzzled Winifred. The child was as restless as any of these modern young women—"She's a small flame in a draught," Prosper Profond had said one day after dinner—but she did not flop, or talk at the top of her voice. The steady Forsyteism in Winifred's own character instinctively resented the feeling in the air, the modern girl's habits and her motto: "All's much of a muchness! Spend, to-morrow we shall be poor!" She found it a saving grace in Fleur that, having ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... farther up-stream, torn from the hook in anger because it was not a trout, and thrown back into the water, to survive or die as the water-fates should will. It turned on one side, revealing its white belly and torn gills; then, feeling itself washed ashore by the eddy, it gave one more feeble flop in the effort to regain the safe deeps. At this moment the raccoon, pouncing with a light splash into the shallows, seized it, and with a nip through the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... your soul?—how you spouted it. I know that you are gifted, child, but the world doesn't. If we fail, you at least can, after you pay proper respects to my remains, go back to that adorable aunt of yours and flop in the lap of luxury—but make the attempt to ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... sufficient protection against the talons of an eagle; and Fritz would very likely have lost one of his eyes, or perhaps both of them, had it not been for an arrow springing from the bow of the shikaree; which, transfixing the great bird right through the gizzard, brought it down with a "flop" upon ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... saw three tiny old females stumble forward, three very formerly and even once bonnets perched upon three wizened skulls, and flop clumsily before the priest, and take the wafer ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... comes a savage growl from within the tent. "Where is the old man? Give me a look at him!" and the scowling face of Rix makes its sudden appearance at the tent-flop, peering ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... would-be Erskines, Thurlows, or Eldons, at the least—might as well complain of the system that excludes them from the Woolsack, and take a building to turn it into a Court of Chancery on their own account, as that these luckless scribblers, all fancying the Elizabethan mantle has fallen flop upon their backs, should set themselves up for Shakspeares on their own account, and seize on a metropolitan theatre as a temple for the enshrinement of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... other, you single out the cur you are after, make proper advances, and when he comes sniffling and snuffling and all the time keeping at a safe distance, you drop the sheet-iron on the snow, the brute makes a dive, and you make a flop, you grab the nearest thing grabable—ear, leg, or bunch of hair—and do your best to catch his throat, after which, everything is easy. Slip the harness over the head, push the fore-paws through, and there you are, one dog hooked up and harnessed. ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... bridge opened and Roger climbed down the ladder to flop wearily in the pilot's seat in ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... jurors expressed their appreciation of his sympathy and one answered: "Tired o' talkin'! Wall, I reckon so. I'm jes' tireder an' dryer 'n if I'd been tailin' down beef steers all day. My ol' tongue's been a-floppin' till thar ain't nary 'nother flop left in her 'nless I could git to ile her up with a swaller o' red-eye, an—" regretfully—"I reckon thar ain't no sort o' ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... new puppy. Is not he a dear? I'll let you hold him,' and she attempted to deposit the fat, curly, satiny creature in Dolores's arms, which instantly hung down stiff, as she answered, half in fright, 'I hate dogs!' The puppy fell down with a flop, and began to squeak, while the girls, crying, 'Oh! Dolly, how could you!' and 'Poor little pup!' all crowded round in pity and indignation, and Wilfred observed, 'I told ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on our back'fence An' flop his arms an' nen commence To crow, like he's a hen; But when he failed off, like he done, He didn't fool us childern none, Ner didn't crow again. An' our Hired Man, as he come by, Says, "Tom can't crow, but ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... lower down—by his paddock, in front o' Parkmaze Pool. I was a-bearing across towards Bloom's End, and lo and behold, there was a man just brought out o' the Pool, dead; he had un'rayed for a dip, but not being able to pitch it just there had gone in flop over his head. Men looked at en; women looked at en; children looked at en; nobody knowed en. He was covered wi' a sheet; but I catched sight of his voot, just showing out as they carried en along. 'I don't care what name that man went by,' I said, in ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... Lady Wetherby, melting completely, 'when you get that yearning note in your voice I just flop and take ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... was close to mach 3, thirty-nine miles a minute. Then it checked swiftly. It came to a complete stop. Then it hurtled backward along the line it had followed. It wabbled momentarily as if it had done a flip-flop four miles above the ground. It dived. It stopped dead in mid-air for a full second and abruptly began to rise once more in an insane, corkscrew course which ended abruptly in a ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... mixture began to be seen. The smaller fish were affected first, and began to come to the top of the water, as if for air. Very soon they were followed by the larger ones, and soon the water seemed filled with them. They would come to the top of the water, turn on one side, flop about a little as if intoxicated, and then sink helplessly to the bottom, where, the water being nowhere very deep, it was easy to see them and capture them. The natives secured basket after basket full, getting ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... while he skinned; and then he held me while I skinned. It was very awkward. The tiny landscape almost directly beneath us was blue with the atmosphere of distance. A solitary raven discovered us, and began to circle and croak and flop. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... butterine," said another guest negligently and swore, softly and intensely, at a shoulder strap. "Oh, damn the thing! . . . Well—flop if you want to. I've got nothing ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... in the middle of the beck. Lydia, clinging with one hand to a stump of willow, caught up a stick lying on the bank with the other, and, hanging over the stream, tried to head back the truant. All that happened was that her foot slipping on a pebble went flop into the shallow water, and part ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... afore, de 'fliction am bobscure. You see de feet an' you see de han's, an' you tink dat dey kin go an' do like oder han's an' feet, but dey doesn't an' dey can't. Dere ain't no backbone runnin' up troo de min' an' wen dere ain't no backbone in de min' de pusson jest flop down yere an' flop down dar whareber dere's a com'fo'ble place to flop. Dere's 'flictions dat we kin pray agin an' pray out'n ob, an' dere's oders we jes got ter bar, an' we gits so kinder used to'm at las dat we'd be mo' mis'ble ef dey wuz tooken ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... undisguised suspicion, and turned their lanterns on him and followed him about, and this had such an effect upon him at last that he began to feel as if he really had done something, and he got to slinking down the by-streets and hiding in dark doorways when he heard the regulation flip-flop approaching. ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... changes of Margate, of those that were there, those that were not, and those that were coming, and adverted to the important topic of supper, Mr. Jorrocks took out his yellow and white spotted handkerchief and proceeded to flop his Hessian boots, while Mr. Creed, with his own hands, rubbed him over with a long billiard-table brush. Green, too, put himself in form by the aid of the looking-glass, and these preliminaries being adjusted, the trio sallied forth arm-in-arm, Mr. Jorrocks occupying the centre. It was a ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... I'll toe it!" growled the now irate farmer. "And don't whimper if I break a bone or two when I flop ye!" ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... "Truly. And flop from one to the other with lightning rapidity. We are too completely superior to reason to have any respect for or reliance on it. Do you think I try reason on my husband when he is in the wrong in his arguments with ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... flesh into long strips, he watched the lower trail. Ten days had gone by since he had fled across the Valley, but the danger of pursuit had not passed and, as he saw a great owl that was nesting down below rise up blindly and flop away he paused and reached ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant. I don't hold with a man everlastingly bothering the Almighty with his silly troubles. It seems such cheek. Anyhow, this morning I—I have never done any harm to any God's creature knowingly—I prayed. A sudden impulse—I went flop on my ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... one of her little people," continued Grandfather Frog, without paying the least attention to Peter's interruption. "Old Mr. Bat had wings; something no other animal had, but he found that he could no longer run and jump. He could just flop about on the ground, and was almost helpless. Of course that meant that he could very easily be caught, and so the ground was no longer a safe place for him. But he soon found that he was not safe ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... a certain part of the lake. He had been all over it and tried it before I got my skates on, but I forgot and went. A boy was with me, a skunky little rat, who, when he saw the ice was cracking, tried to pull me back, and then he let go my hand and flop I went in and flop came Billy behind me while the little Fur Coat stood off and bawled for help and said afterward he didn't know how to swim. Having on heavy clothes, I went down quick and was hard to get up, and I would be an angel ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... FLOP. A correspondent from the University of Vermont writes: "Any 'cute' performance by which a man is sold [deceived] is a good flop, and, by a phrase borrowed from the ball ground, is 'rightly played.' The discomfited individual declares that they 'are all on a side,' and gives up, or 'rolls ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... as, whenever the Assistant-Resident turned to any employee to ask how far such and such a place might be distant, or the tariff of carriages, etc., the person so addressed, no matter how engaged, would, before reply, immediately flop on to his knees. The Regent was also calling on the representative of the Government, and to him the Englishman was introduced. This native functionary was fat and well-looking, but did not seem to exactly ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... looking for work and not finding any. Times were desperate. For five cents a man could get a glass of beer and floor room to sleep on in a lodging-house for homeless men. This was called a "Five Cent Flop" house. My pals were not able at times to raise the five cents a day to buy sleeping quarters. It was late fall and too cold to sleep in the "jungle" down by the levee. The poor fellows were able to stave off starvation by visiting various free lunches during the day. Every night I arrived ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... setting forth on their journey from our floor. To start life with so many flipperties might lead to anything. Each time that we send a letter off we listen in a tremble of excitement for the final FLOP, and when it comes I think we both feel vaguely that we are still waiting for something. We are waiting to hear some magic letter go flipperty-flipperty-flipperty-flipperty ... and behold! there is no FLOP ... ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... in the water. The bags you can tell by a little pebble I will place on my mother's. You can pick my mother out by a small piece of grass which I will put in her hair, and you can pick me out from my cousins, for when we commence to dance, I will shake my head, flop my ears and switch my tail. You must choose quickly, as they will be very angry at your success, and if you lose any time they will make the excuse that you did not know, that they may have an excuse to trample ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... then soon's I've got The hang o' the thing, ez likely's not, I'll astonish the nation, And all creation, By flyin' over the celebration! Over their heads I'll sail like an eagle; I'll balance myself on my wings like a sea-gull; I'll dance on the chimbleys; I'll stan' on the steeple; I'll flop up to winders ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... won't bite me," Peggy returned confidently. "He knows I'm his friend, don't you, poor old fellow?" Hobo, realizing that the loved voice was addressing him, even though the trend of the question was beyond his comprehension, gave a feeble flop of his tail, and raised to Peggy's face eyes full of loyalty ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... rapid, head-first and head-on slide down the slanting wire by grasping it in his gloved hands, gave a "flip-flop" and stood up, bowing to the loud applause. Jim Tracy and some of the other circus ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... sad! oh, dire to tell!" (Said BAINES). "Be good enough to stop." And senseless on the floor he fell, With unpremeditated flop! ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... with a disproportionately large Knave of clubs at the end. When they have had a minute or so at the chief altar, they scramble up, and filing off to the chapel of the Madonna, or the sacrament, flop down again in the same order; so that if anybody did stumble against the master, a general and sudden overthrow of the whole line must ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... a total loss?" Bud argued. "Even if the recovery operation's a flop, the shot will still pay off in ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... her Friends pinned up their Garments and put Resin on their Hands and cut loose. They did the Grizzly Bear and the Mountain Goat and the Turkey Trot and the Bunny Hug and the Kangaroo Flop and the Duck Waddle and the Giraffe Jump and the Rhinoceros Roll and the Walrus Wiggle and the Crocodile Splash and the Apache and the Comanche and the Bowery Twist and the Hula ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... leaving her parasol, which she had again thrust into the ground, flopping in the breeze which had just sprung up, and each flop seemed to mock the discomfited Tom, who, greatly astonished but not at all out of conceit with himself, sat staring blankly after her, and with her head and shoulders more erect than usual, if possible, she went on almost upon a run until a turn in the road hid her from view. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... reculade^; retreat, withdrawal, retirement, remigration^; recession &c (motion from) 287; recess; crab-like motion. refluence^, reflux; backwater, regurgitation, ebb, return; resilience reflection, reflexion [Brit.] (recoil) 277; flip-flop, volte-face [Fr.]. counter motion, retrograde motion, backward movement, motion in reverse, counter movement, counter march; veering, tergiversation, recidivation^, backsliding, fall; deterioration &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... able to look at this dark beauty without fear, and as she sat there she heard an ever-increasing number of little sounds; they were caused by she knew not what: small creatures moving among the pine needles, night birds on the watch for prey, water rats, the flop of fish, the fall of some leaf over-ripe on the tree, her own slow breathing, the muffled ticking of her heart; and into this orchestra of tiny instruments there came slowly, and as if it grew out of ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... CROWS Whichever crow shall hereafter hop, fly, or flop into this field during the absence of Jimmy Scarecrow, and therefrom purloin, steal, or abstract corn, shall be instantly, in a twinkling and a trice, turned snow-white, and be ever after a disgrace, a byword and a reproach to his whole race. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... men abandon jealousy, forsake taking of tobacco, and cease to wear their beards so rudely long. Oh, to have a husband with a mouth continually smoking, with a bush of furs on the ridge of his chin, readie still to flop into his foaming chops, 'tis more than most intolerable;" and similar indications of dislike to smoking could be ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... very sorry to hear you have been doing your influenza also. It's a beastly thing, as I have it, no symptoms except going flop. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... gravity, which he had successfully defied, wreaked vengeance upon him; it suddenly reached forth and made him its vindictive toy. He pawed, he fought, he appeared to be climbing an invisible rope. With a mighty flop he landed flat upon his back, uttering a loud and dismayed grunt as his breath left him. When he had dug himself out he found that the girl, too, was breathless. She was rocking in silent ecstasy, she hugged herself ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... not say a word. He just jumped against Pinkie Whiskers with such force that the rod flew out of his hand and the little tadpole went flop back into ...
— Hazel Squirrel and Other Stories • Howard B. Famous
... him—gathers all up snug—no bobbin' of his head—no rollin' of his shoulders—no wabblin' of his hind parts, but steady as a pump bolt, and the motion all underneath. When he fairly lays himself to it, he trots like all vengeance. Then look at his ear—jist like rabbit's; none o' your flop-ears like them Amherst beasts, half horses, half pigs, but strait up and p'inted, and not too near at the tips; for that 'ere, I consait, always shows a horse ain't true to draw. There are only ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... he is very much the worse for his fall, only a little bit dazed by having the old lady come flop down upon him; but if he had not been there to break her fall, it is quite likely that she would have broken her neck," said the gentleman who had picked Rumple up, as he handed him over to the care ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... much encumbered for a curtsey, she pretended not to see him and his friend at all, and so passed, flip-flop, within three yards of them, onward down towards the village. The Vicar watched her slow transit in silence, and ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... her tea-pot, as she seemed, by her account, to get worse every time she drank any tea. So he examined the kettle, turned it upside down, and then, in old Betty's own words, "Out drop a big toad. He tarned the kittle up, and out ta fell flop." Some days before she had "deeved" her kettle into the snow instead of filling it at the pump, and had then got the toad in it, which had thus been slowly simmering into toad-broth. At Tannington also ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... can be, and the loo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the windows, and the all but naked compositors ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... own business, you know, but a sort of shock to the feelings and finances of the community all the same. Not that it affects me, or that many know of it, but the inner circle is disturbed—and, mind, I'm leading up to Edgington's flop." ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... sometimes before, the process of slow motions, rolling over loosely on one side should be practised,—remaining there until the weight all seems near the floor, and then giving way so that the force of gravity seems to "flop" it back (I use "flop" advisedly); so again resting on the other side. But one must go over by regular motions, raising the leg first heavily and letting it fall with its full weight over the other leg, so that the ankles are crossed. The arm on the same side must be raised ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... nodded Walter without resentment. "My mind does flop about like a kite. I think of everything but what I ought to. ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... price he had always to pay for bread or butter or jam. Finally, she gave him the bread and let him go. Down the back steps he came, running eagerly and calling Frank. Once more in the kitchen began the flop of the churn, once more rose the wail of ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... melodramatic quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps, and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat, and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the street was well blocked up, the drivers all swearing like demons in bad hats, and the chief actor's circulation decidedly quickened by every variety of kick, cuff, jerk, and haul. When the last breath seemed to have left ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... but 'twas a dead still night an' a clear run—you saw it—across the Theatre into the park, and I prayed she'd rise before she hit high timber. I set her all I dared for a quick lift. I told Mankeltow that if I gave her too much nose she'd be liable to up-end and flop. He didn't want another inquest on his estate. No, sir! So I had to fix her up in ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... I yells, jumpin' to my feet an' blushin' clear to my ears. "I ain't neither one o' your parents an' I ain't your teacher. If you want to know things you ask Melisse. If you don't put a curb on yourself I'm goin' to flop myself on Starlight an' streak for the Lion Head this very minute, an' I won't stop before ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... have hurt you. None of these flop-over Janes for me!... An' I'll give you a hunch, Pretty Eyes. You might have run acrost a fellar ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... lonely cries. A long file of pelicans, their wings outspread, sailed close to the surface of the ocean, undulating over the waves and into the hollows exactly paralleling, at a height of only a few feet, the restless contour of the sea. Occasionally they would all flop their wings two ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... the dressing-gown in a long, white, finely-shaped hand, bore it behind the screen. There was a slight rustle, and then a hollow "flop" as the wet garment fell on the floor; more rustling and rubbing, and a minute later she emerged wrapped from head to foot in the long Jaeger garment, which trailed on the floor behind her, though she was a tall woman. She was still shivering painfully, however. ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... sign of life but some carrion crows moving around in the blue without flop of a wing," he grumbled. "Who started the dope that mankind is the chosen of the Lord? Huh! we have to scratch gravel for all we rake in but the birds of the air have us beat for desert travel all ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... There was a flop in the water, and when Bumper turned he saw a queer looking fish swimming toward the shore, using his hind legs instead of fins to propel him along. He had big, staring eyes, and a green head, with ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... with a vicious flop that spattered more batter on the stove. He had been a father only a month or so, but that was long enough to learn many things about babies which he had never known before. He knew, for instance, that the baby wanted ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... having placed myself in such a dangerous position. I kept perfectly still, however, hardly daring even to blink my eyes: but the long-continued strain was telling on my nerves, and my feelings may be better imagined than described when about midnight suddenly something came flop and struck me on the back of the head. For a moment I was so terrified that I nearly fell off the plank, as I thought that the lion had sprung on me from behind. Regaining my senses in a second or two, I realised that I had been hit by nothing more formidable than an owl, which had doubtless ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... one, 'here it is! I say I saw the Devil himself fly off Drachenfels, and flop into Cologne. Fritz here, and Frankenbauch, saw him too. They'll swear to him: so 'll I. Hell's thunder! will we. Yonder fellows will have it 'twas a flash o' lightning, as if I didn't see him, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... on to him with string, clattering behind—making a beast of a row. Shouting wasn't any earthly. So I rushed in and grabbed him. 'Verney—drop it! What are you doing?' I said sternly; and he looked up at me like a sainted cherub. 'Flop, don't hinder me. I'm walkin' froo the valley of the shadow, an' goodness an' mercy are following me all the days of my life.' That's the fruits of teaching the Bible ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Fair, Smithfield. It was the custom for the mayors to call by the way on the Keeper of Newgate, and there partake on horseback of a "cool tankard" of wine, spiced with nutmeg and sweetened with sugar. In receiving the tankard Sir John let the lid flop down, his horse started, he was thrown violently, and died the next day. This custom ceased in the second mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood, 1817. Sir John was maternal grandfather of Horace Walpole. Sir John ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... out sharply—and Jimmie Dale flung himself flat in the bottom of the boat. The wharf edge seemed to open in little, crackling jets of flame, came the roar of reports like a miniature battery in action, then the FLOP, FLOP, FLOP, as the lead tore up the water around him, the duller thud as a bullet buried its nose in the boat's side, and the curious rip and squeak as a splinter flew. Then Mittel's voice, high-pitched, as ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... neck had time to lie down. They stood on end again once or twice in the afternoon, when we'd some more repairin' under fire to do; an' then to wind up the day they turned a maxim on just as we was comin' away from the post, an' we had to flop on our faces with the bullets zizz-izz-ipping just over us. We took a trench, I hear; an' the Jocks in front of us had thirty casualties, and the Guards on our left 'ad some more, 'cos I seed 'em comin' back to ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... Skeensboro, when I was baskin' in the sunshine of offishal life, and had a politikle ax to grind, MARIAR'S biled dinners used to fetch Polerticians to their milk, ekal to the way a big dinner at DELMONICO'S, N.Y., will flop over a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... and his sleeves rolled right up to his shoulders. "Hooray!" he cried; and forgetting all his dignity as second officer in command of Her Majesty's ship, he indulged in a kind of triumphal dance, which ended with a flop, caused by his bringing one foot down flat ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... 'Lord-a-massy, Jemmy,' says the boys, looking up out of the boat; 'whatever in the name of goodness are you doing there?' 'They're telling me,' says Jemmy, bobbing the gin-bottle up and down constant, flip-a-flop, flip-a-flop atop of the water; 'they're telling me,' says he, 'that poor ould Hughie is down yonder, and I'm thinking there isn't nothing in the island that'll fetch him up quicker ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... he did the loop himself, hardly conscious of Bland's presence. Bland turned his head, signalling, and did a flop, righted, and was flying straight in the opposite direction. Again, and flew southeast by the sun. They practised that manoeuver again and again before Johnny felt fairly sure of himself, but once he did it he was one proud ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... then fly up before it with a loud screech; but this chicken may have been overcome by the heat (it was a land breeze and it drew like the breath of a furnace over the hay-cocks and the clover), or it may have mistimed the wheel, which passed over its head and left it to flop a moment in the dust and then fall still. The poor little tragedy was sufficiently distressful to me, but I bore it well, compared with my driver. He could hardly stop lamenting it; and when presently we met a young farmer, he pulled up. "You goin' ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... rifle; and it was with a cold and deadly intent that he aimed and fired. The first Greaser huddled low, let his carbine go clattering down, and then crawled behind the rim. The second and third jerked back. The fourth seemed to flop up over the crest of lava. A dark arm reached for him, clutched his leg, tried to drag him up. It was in vain. Wildly grasping at the air the bandit fell, slid down a steep shelf, rolled over the rim, to go ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... 'a' knowed better'n that! Here I was under this ruf all the time. It come over on to me like a great bird, knocked me down with a flop of its wing,—mos' broke my shoulder, I believe; an' when I come to myself, and peeked through a crack, there was a crew knockin' the ruf o' the house to flinders. I was too weak to call very loud, but, if you'd ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... in the other," as the patter-song had it. At the moment of assisted entry his paternal dignity was always at its stateliest, and it was not till he had gravely hung his cocked hat upon an imaginary door-peg in the middle of the hall and seen it flop floorward that he lost his calm. "Blood and 'ouns, ye've the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Flop! The canoe's port rail was under water. She filled and sank, carrying a lot of excited high school boys down at the ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... from flop tents to locating agents boarded trains en route, trying to persuade the seekers to register at their respective towns. And all of them were bitter against the railroads, which were furnishing return accommodations every few hours, giving the ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... silly. But I am bitterly disappointed in you. I have taken so much pains over your social education. But you are like a girl in iron stays, the moment you remove the support (which is my guiding hand) you go flop! Now don't turn rusty, or cry," as tears of passion well into Eleanor's eyes. "I want you at my party—I want youth and beauty, for I have a reputation for producing lovely women, good-looking men, and distractingly sweet girls. Carol has promised to come early; ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... calculated to make one flop than a bullet," she laughed. Not yet did the tragedy of the broken kegs ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... beyond the doorway. Something touched the blanket as though seeking support. Then it slid down, its movement visible in the bulging of the drenched cloth. This was followed by a heavy, squelching flop. The body, whatever it was, had fallen into the streaming water pouring from within the hut. Then came a long-drawn, piteous moan that held the men gazing silently and ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... stamps and bright steel pens, has crawled out on the desk. Packages of folded missives are tucked in the pigeon-holes, winking at us from the back of the desk, and scores of half-opened letters, mixed with seedy brown envelopes, flop lazily about the table. Old papers lie gashed and mangled about his chair, the debris of a literary battle field. A clean towel hangs on a rack to his right. A bound copy of The Tribune Almanac, from 1838 to 1868, swings from a small chain fastened to a staple screwed ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... tremendous jump, and flounced right on to the deck of the fine steamer. Had I not been so utterly surprised, I should immediately have flounced back again to my ocean bed "quick shot," as I afterward heard a sailor say. But dear, deary me! I hesitated just a moment too long, and when I made a flop intending to bounce away, lo! a stout rope was about my body, and another about my tail, and I was ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... answered, "what's a bird! All this fuss about a dinky brown bird that can't do anything but flop its wings and squeal when you go near it. It was fun to see her ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... when the test of fighting comes five men out of that thousand cannot readjust their nerves to the prospect of a violent end by powder and ball from unseen sources. Under other circumstances any one of the five might face a peril greater than that which now confronts him. Conceivably he might flop into a swollen river to save a drowning puppy; might dive into a burning building after some stranger's pet tabby cat. But this prospect which lies before him of ambling across a field with death singing about his ears, is a thing which tears with clawing fingers at the tuggs ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... brought; too short and too narrow. A spoon; better, but still inadequate. An outsider suggested that all hands lay hold of the thing on one side and flop it over suddenly. But the jealous proprietors demurred, fearing that the movement might not be simultaneous and that thus a flap-jack rupture might ensue, followed by possible skedaddling of the shrewd operators bearing off the spoil. Meanwhile ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... Webster down here on this floor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, 'Flies, Dan'l, flies!' and quicker'n you could wink he'd spring straight up and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag'in as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any more'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... and he began to flop about in the wildest and most unreasonable manner. I threw him a board, but he did not seem to have sense enough to grasp it. I saw that he would be drowned in a moment more, unless he received more efficient help. I ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor, It's safest to let 'er alone: For 'er sentries we stand by the sea an' the land Wherever the bugles are blown. (Poor beggars!—an' don't we get blown!) Take 'old o' the Wings o' the Mornin', An' flop round the earth till you're dead; But you won't get away from the tune that they play To the bloomin' old rag over'ead. (Poor beggars!—it's 'ot over'ead!) Then 'ere's to the sons o' the Widow, Wherever, 'owever they roam. 'Ere's all they desire, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... at all, William. I have an excellent memory for figures. Four thousand, three hundred and fifteen. Ah-h! See how instinct inspires him to flop always toward the ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... this crude lab that spawned a dud. Their necks to Truman's ax uncurled Lo, the embattled savants stood, and fired the flop ...
— Trinity [Atomic Test] Site - The 50th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb • The National Atomic Museum
... the dip-net, swimming full. "Down!" We let it sag quickly to Clancy and Parsons, who were at the rail. "Hi-o!" they called cheerfully, and turned the dip-net inside out. Out and down it went again, "He-yew!" and up and in it came again. "Oy-hoo!" "Hi-o!" and flop! it was turned upside down and another barrel of fat, lusty fish flipped their length against the hard deck. Head and tail they flipped, each head and tail ten times a second seemingly, until it sounded—they ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... the brill with all her force at the head of Madame Taboureau's servant, who received it full in the face. The blood spurted from her nose, and the brill, after adhering for a moment to her cheeks, fell to the ground and burst with a flop like that of a wet clout. This brutal act threw Florent into a fury. The beautiful Norman felt frightened and recoiled, as he cried out: "I suspend you for a week, and I will have your licence ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... emphatically, utterly misunderstanding the other's tone and manner. "Don't you worry, my son. We'll kill that venomous bill right here in this chamber! We'll kill it so dead that it won't make one flop after the axe hits it. You and me and some others'll tend to that! Let her work that pretty face and those eyes of hers all she wants to! I'm keepin' a ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... heart of an intending occupant might well recoil. A plank, by way of flying drawbridge, joined it to the shore. And it was a dreary moment for Jimson when he pulled this after him and found himself alone on this unwholesome fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in the abhorred interior; the key cried among the wards like a thing in pain; the sitting-room was deep in dust, and smelt strong of bilge-water. It could not be called a cheerful spot, even for a composer absorbed in beloved toil; how much less for a young gentleman ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flickered and went out. In the blackness which followed, each stage of the Phoenix's descent could be heard as clearly as cannon shots: the twanging and snapping as it tumbled through the wires, a drawn-out squawk and the flop of wings in the air below, the crash into the hedge, the jarring thud against the ground. Broken wires began to sputter ominously and fire out sparks. A smell of singed feathers and burning ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... picking off rationing parties, and such-like. Every night our supports were heavily shelled; every road leading to the lines had a battery trained on it and every little while it was swept by shrapnel. We gradually got used to the danger, and if they started to shell the road we were on we would flop into a ditch or shell hole till the storm had passed. Speaking of this reminds me of something that happened in that first week. A party of us were carrying coke to the front line, and we had two sacks each; I had mine tied together and hung around my neck (the way I wore my red mittens ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... when ye took that flop, and stuck in the tree over yonder. What'd ye rush the guy for, anyways? Whyn't ye drill him from where ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... it so strong, I hadn't no sort of unbelief but what Hank was a corpse already. So I slams the trap door shut over that there cistern without looking in, fur I hearn Hank flopping around down in there. I hadn't never hearn a corpse flop before, and didn't know but what it might be somehow injurious to me, and I wasn't ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... certain, because I saw him flop over," replied the other; "and that yelp meant sudden pain, as sure as it stood for anything. But he managed to get off, though possibly he will fall ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... gracious sake don't talk that way. Oh, of course you've got me now, and I have to flop or be a brute. Yes, you've got me. You know I respect your good sense and love you, so what's the use of this wrangle. There, now, it's all right. I'll promise not to go near him if you say so. And I have made up my mind to attend ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... "Squat, Jacky. Don't flop off your base like that. Always keep a cool head. Look at me. If the ghost of my own dad was to pop out of that lamp chimbley there, noose and all, I wouldn't ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... and sank on a chair, letting her arms flop to her side. "Richard!" she ejaculated. ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... At the same moment a loud flop was heard on the quarter-deck. It was the forgotten mermaid, who, emerging from her stateroom, and ascending the companion-way at that moment, had fainted at the spectacle. The Pirate Prodigy rushed to her side ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... was sitting on the shady side of the bunk-house staring absently at the skyline, "There's a word uh praise I've been aiming to give yuh. I've seen riding, and I've done a trifle in that line myself, and learned some uh the tricks. But I want to say I never did see a man flop his horse any neater than you done that morning. I'll bet there ain't another man in the outfit got next your play. I couldn't uh done it better myself. Where did you learn that? ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... to know why not," retorted Bo, as she made the effort. She got one arm and shoulder up, only to flop back like a crippled thing. And she uttered the most piteous little moan. "I'm dead! ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... persisted Phillida, who was a zealous convert. "The dances are to make you graceful always. You so get into the poetry of motion that it's quite impossible for you ever to flop again!" ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... go in at first. He may have smiled at them, and coaxed, and hung back. It was a leg and an arm gripped then; a swing for Fionn, and out and away with him; plop and flop for him; down into chill deep death for him, and up with a splutter; with a sob; with a grasp at everything that caught nothing; with a wild flurry; with a raging despair; with a bubble and snort as he was hauled again down, and ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... never saw such a nice bass, and that it weighs at least six pounds, and just as you are reaching out with the landing net, to take him in, he gives one kick, chews off the line, you fall over backwards, and the bass disappears with a parting flop of the tail, and a man who is fishing a little ways off asks you what you had on your hook, and you say that it was nothing but a confounded dogfish, anyway, and you wind up your reel and go home, and you are so mad and hot that the leaves on the trees ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... another way. Fraeulein's lack not only of amatory complaisance but of social polish or even facility kept him dubious and disconcerted. She brusquely alternated between a sisterly tenderness of familiarity, almost exaggerated, only to follow it by a sudden, disquieting flop over on the side of a formality as stiff as buckram. She would be as distant as if they were two boarders having a tiff in a pension. These detachments were not because of anything Kirtley had done or said. They formed a natural example of Gothic undevelopedness in human ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... $1,200. Then the ball opened, and it was not more than half and hour before we had downed the party. Then the devil was to pay. One of the party said: "Look here; I must have my money back, or h—l will flop around here mighty quick." Then they all joined in and made a big kick; and as I saw fun brewing, I slipped into the baggage-car, changed hats and coats with the baggage-master, got his badge and my double-barrelled shotgun. ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... woke up by old Shoutnight the owl, who had been out mousing and lost his wife, and sat at last in the ivy-tod halloaing and hoo-hooing, till the gardener's wife threw her husband's old boot out of the window at him, when he went flop into the laurel bush, and banged and bounced about, hissing and snapping with his great bill, while his goggle eyes glowed so angrily that the blackbird's good lady popped off her nest in a hurry and broke one ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... counting the warder's steps along the passage with particular attention to variations of tread and so on. But as it is, I'm like an insect that's flown into a room of its own accord. I dash against the walls, dash against the windows, flop against the ceiling, do everything on God's earth, in fact, except fly out again. And all the while I'm thinking, like that moth, or that butterfly, or whatever it is, 'The shortness of life! The shortness of life!' I've only one night or one ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... wreckage, I ventured to swim back in search of something substantial enough to support my weight and that of Nobs as well. I had gotten well over the area of the wreck when not a half-dozen yards ahead of me a lifeboat shot bow foremost out of the ocean almost its entire length to flop down upon its keel with a mighty splash. It must have been carried far below, held to its mother ship by a single rope which finally parted to the enormous strain put upon it. In no other way can ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... standard of Astounding Stories. His initial effort in this magazine was dull and uninspired. It lacked the sustained interest and gripping action of your other stories. It was, to put it bluntly, a flop. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... let the stream from the hose flop overboard, where it ran out into a stream of bubbles which ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... those things," he denied meekly. "It's you that keeps on mentioning. I wish yuh wouldn't. I like to hear you talk, all right, and flop all those big words easy as roping a calf; but I wish you'd let me choose your subject for yuh. I could easy name one where you could use words just as high and wide and handsome, and a heap more pleasant than the brand you've got corralled. Try ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... at being called a shell-fish, because tortoises are not fish at all, and they feel insulted if you call them so. However, he was so glad to get a wife at last, that he said nothing, only presented his back for the Jackal to jump on. Flop! came the Jackal, so heavy by this time that it was all the Tortoise could do to get him across safely. If he was tired before, he was nearly dead now. But he swam across at last; and the Jackal ran off into the ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... wrong. I think I love you in my own way; but I thought I loved you in their way, and it is the only way that counts in this world of theirs. It does not seem to be my world. I was given wings, I think, but I am never to know that I have left the earth until I come flop upon it with an arrow through them. I crawl and wriggle here, and yet"—he laughed harshly—"I believe I am rather a fine fellow ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... Flop, flop, a great foolish-looking kangaroo comes through the house and peers round him. The cockatoo addresses a few remarks to him, which he takes no notice of, but goes blundering out into the garden, right over the contemplative magpie, who gives him two or three indignant pecks ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Her beautifully chiseled ivory features were fixed in an expression of nameless dread. A mass of red-gold hair tumbled in confusion about her face and shoulders and when the pilot smoothed this back his heart did a most peculiar flip-flop. Sort of jumped into his throat and stuck there. This Rulan maiden was a vision of feminine loveliness if there ever ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... bore, and we do not know what to do with him. He cannot be put on a shelf. He cannot be hung on a nail. He will not go out of the house. There is no escape from him, and he is always the same. A smile of a certain dimension, moustaches of this inevitable measurement, hands that waggle and flop like those of automata—these are his. He eats this way and he drinks that way, and he will continue to do so until he stiffens into the ultimate quietude. He snores on this note, he laughs on that, dissonant, unescapeable, unchanging. This ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... him stagger and then flop down all of a heap over the kidney-beans, whose props, giving way as ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... went at him rapidly, one after another. In spite of the volley the man still crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... flopper-ti flop, flopper-ti flop, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was not a soldier, he was a Boxer; and in place of the former ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... meal-times, when the water is lashed to froth by the darting, gleaming bodies—that is too greedy a business. But when a passer-by on a spring morning sees a pound fish fall back into the water with a meditative flop, he may pay the pond the compliment of wishing himself elsewhere. One accompaniment of a trout farm he may hope to escape—the sight of a dead kingfisher. Without wire netting, kingfishers find out the young fry only too ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... Flop! Fits struck the earthen floor rather heavily, the chair flying over the head of Dick Prescott ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... on, da'kies! But I flop my wings an' go Fu' de sheltah of de ve'y highest tree, Fu' dey 's too much close ertention—an' dey's too much fallin' snow— An' it's too nigh Chris'mus mo'nin' ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... "Brer Buzzud, he flop down, en he laugh en say he mighty glad, kaze he done git hongry up dar whar he bin. Den Brer Tarrypin tell Brer Buzzud fer ter creep in little ways en tas'e en see how he like um, w'iles he take his stan' on de outside en watch fer somebody. But no sooner is Brer ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... said Molly, in rabbit, and 'flop' she went into the pond and struck out for the sunken log in the middle. Rag flinched but plunged with a little 'ouch,' gasping and wobbling his nose very fast but still copying his mother. The same movements as on land sent him through the water, and ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... business of a minute fraction of a second. The effect of the New Accelerator passed like the drawing of a curtain, vanished in the movement of a hand. I heard Gibberne's voice in infinite alarm. "Sit down," he said, and flop, down upon the turf at the edge of the Leas I sat—scorching as I sat. There is a patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole stagnation seemed to wake up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the band rushed together ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... perhaps, Shang was nevertheless a cunning one. Several jurors expressed their appreciation of his sympathy and one answered: "Tired o' talkin'! Wall, I reckon so. I'm jes' tireder an' dryer 'n if I'd been tailin' down beef steers all day. My ol' tongue's been a-floppin' till thar ain't nary 'nother flop left in her 'nless I could git to ile her up with a swaller o' red-eye, an—" regretfully—"I reckon thar ain't no sort ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... foothills I came across the body of a large eagle suspended by one leg from the crotch of a limb. The bird's talon had missed its grip, probably on alighting, the tarsus had slipped through the crotch beyond the joint, the eagle had fallen forward, and had never been able to flop itself back to ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... mould as are its men. Sons of the open, deep-chested, tall and straight, they ride like conquerors and walk—like bears. Slow to anger and quick to act, they carry their strength and health easily and with a dignity which no worn trappings, faded shirt, or flop-brimmed hat may obscure. Speak to one of them and his level gaze will travel to your feet and back again to your eyes. He may not know what you are, but he assuredly knows what you are not. He will answer you quietly and to the point. ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... blowing, was he?" he said with a hard laugh, "the damn—darned fool!" he corrected, remembering Ophelia at his side. "Well, 'egg' him on—the higher he flies the worse he'll flop when he bu'sts ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... roofs of these are rather steep, and are mostly tiled, and have deep eaves, but do not as elsewhere form the cover of the veranda. While I was looking through the cactus screen of one of these houses, a man came out with a number of low caste, leggy, flop-eared, mangy dogs, who attacked me in a cowardly bullying fashion, yelping, barking, and making surreptitious snaps at my feet. Their owner called them off, however, and pelted them so successfully that some ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... happy little laugh, Natalie promptly seated herself upon the arm of Mrs. Howland's chair, but Juno hesitated a moment, looking doubtfully at the cushion. Juno was a very up-to-date young lady as to raiment. How could she flop down as Rosalie had done while wearing a skirt which measured no more than a yard around at the hem, and geared up in an undergarment which defied all laws of anatomy by precluding the possibility of bending at the waist line? She looked at Mrs. Harold and she looked at the ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson |
