"Scruff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what the old fellow meant, and he could not speak to him. But the poor creature clung to his feet, holding them to prevent him from taking another step; so Toonie just stooped down, and (for he was so little and light) picked him up by the scruff, and carried him by his waistband, so that his arms and legs trailed together along ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... forward, an' the nixt I knew was the sole av my boot flappin' like a cavalry gydon an' the - funny-bone av my toes tinglin'. 'Twas a clane-cut shot - a slug - that niver touched sock or hide, but set me bare-fut on the rocks. At that I tuk Love-o'- Women by the scruff an' threw him under a bowlder, an' whin I sat down I heard the bullets patterin' on that ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... his face Jan Cuxson had bent and lifted the pup by the scruff of its neck, and upon the piteous appeal put it squirming and wriggling ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... discriminating cluster of bifurcated, viviparous idiots," said Van in visibly disturbing scorn. "You fellows would have to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck and kicked into Eden, I reckon, even if the snake was killed and flung over the fence, and the fruit offered up on silver platters. The man who hasn't eaten one of Algy's dinners isn't fit to live. The man who refuses to eat one ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... would all have been beseeching him not to till now, if I had not taken him by the scruff of the neck and dropped him ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... beyond it, towered the figure of the Archdeacon. He was the question, he the centre of the drama. There were a hundred different stories running around the town as to what exactly had happened to him during those Jubilee days. Was it true that he had taken Miss Milton by the scruff of her long neck and thrown her out of the house? Was it true that he had taken his coat off in the Cloisters and given Ronder two black eyes? (The only drawback to this story was that Ronder showed no sign of bruises.) Had he and Mrs. Brandon fought up and down the house for the ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... explosion causing the victim to shout "Good God!" from sheer surprise). For three months this winsome game went undetected until one day her mother—Kia-oopoo—discovered her creeping in at her grandmother's door with a basket full of "ouliaries." Catching her daughter by the scruff of the neck she proceeded to administer several sharp slaps with great precision—the while murmuring "Ah! Ah!" in tones of rebuke. And thus, we are informed, was originated a name that was destined to be handed down to every reigning queen of the Rude Islands until the devastating ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... more than enough;— Twenty impatient hands and rough, By arm, and leg, and neck, and scruff, Apron, 'kerchief, gown of stuff— Cap, and pinner, sleeve, and cuff— Are clutching the Witch wherever they can, With the spite of Woman and fury of Man; And then—but first they kill her cat, And murder her dog ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... fightin' no more'n two boys that had got at it. All them Russians and them little Japs—we couldn't 'a' stopped 'em fightin'—the whole of us couldn't hev stopped 'em—not unless we'd 'a' took 'em by the scruff o' the neck and thrown 'em down and set on 'em—one apiece. And I dunno's that'd be much better'n ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... out of the water unceremoniously by the scruff of his neck. As he rose, ropy tentacles twined about him, and he saw what had saved him. He was being cradled, gently but firmly, by the nonapus, which had Judge Ray in another set of tentacles. And the nonapus, it became apparent, ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw
... both leaped forward. I took Nick Tresidder by the scruff of the neck, while George gripped Buddle ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... till nearly eleven o'clock, and then Bill set off home 'olding the unfortunit Peter by the scruff o' the neck, and wondering out loud whether 'e ought to pay 'im a bit more or not. Afore 'e could make up 'is mind, however, he turned sleepy, and, throwing 'imself down on the bed which was meant for the two of 'em, fell ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... came back, with his fingers singed, in December 1680, and late in the black night, my lady was from home. He came into the house at his alighting, with a riding-rod yet in his hand; and, on the servant-maid telling him, caught her by the scruff of the neck, beat her violently, flung her down in the passageway, and went upstairs to his bed fasting and without a light. It was three in the morning when my lady returned from that conventicle, and, hearing of the assault (because the maid had sat up for her, weeping), ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... advice, young man," Cap'n Abe said, with sternness, "and belay that sort o' talk afore Cap'n Am'zon when he does come. He's lived a rough sort o' life. He's nobody's tame cat. Doubt his word and he's jest as like as not to take ye by the scruff of the neck and duck ye in ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... he was immediately surrounded by them, taken by the scruff of the neck and so violently shaken, that he tumbled on his knees. Gunfire was roaring from the mountains, shadows of soldiers flitted past him, the wounded Cossacks groaned in the snow. Young, well-nourished looking ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... up a bamboo stick and took the creatures stealthily in the rear; and when the old foxes took to flight, they surrounded them and beat them with the stick, so that they ran away as fast as their legs could carry them; but two of the boys held down the cub, and, seizing it by the scruff of the neck, went off in ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... whom? Let us pass a hundred possible points on which no Council bothered its head, and on which consequently it has left no decision. Who's the man, anywhere, to take you by the scruff of the neck and chastise you for ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to own, trying to sit behind a newspaper. They pulled Burtis aboard, too, and in the scuffle he fell all over Howard, knocked his hat off, and I knew the face in a second, and when I came off that car he came with me, by the scruff of his neck, swearing and protesting and denying that he was Howard, and threatening to have the law on me and appealing to the cattlemen for rescue. By Jupiter, if it wasn't that I had been with them long enough to make a favorable impression they would have rescued him, too. They didn't half ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... behind and was forgotten while Casey told the story of his wrongs. In no particular, according to his version, had he been other than law-abiding. Nobody, he declaimed heatedly, had ever taken HIM by the scruff of the neck and shaken him like a pup, and got away with it, and nobody ever would. Casey was Irish and his father had been Irish, and the Ryan never lived that took sass ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... pleasure, Craig, to take you by the scruff of your neck and drop you overboard. But as you say, what's been done can't be remedied by bashing in a man's head. Well, here you are, since you ask. If you speak to me, if I catch you playing cards or auctioneering a pool, if you make yourself ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... there was nothing else to do. He could joyfully have taken his friend Julius by the scruff of his neck and hurled him out into the night, if by some miracle he could suddenly have become that young man's superior in strength. But social training prevailed over natural brute instinct, and it was with entire politeness that he made ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... fetch him, and it did. He comes at me wide open, with a guard like a soft-shell crab. I slips down the state-room passage, out of sight of Sir Peter, catches Danvers by the scruff, chucks him into a berth, and ties him up with the sheets, as careful as if he was to go ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... had died without hope of the decent concealment which our life has had, and therefore our death longs for; they took on their shoulders, or on cane wattles, the many who had made up their minds to die, and were in much doubt about having done it, and they roused up and worked up by the scruff of their loose places the few who could get along on their own legs. And so, with great spirit, and still greater patience, they managed to save quite ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the scruff of his neck?" said Jerry. Boscobel again bobbed his head. "I didn't think Nokes was the sort of fellow to ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope
... know how I caught that darky stealing our chickens last winter? I set a trap for him, and gave him such a scare that he just crouched in a corner of the coop with all the hens cackling like mad, till father went out and got him by the scruff ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... Lord cared He could take Black Jock by the scruff o' the neck an' fling him into hell oot o' the road. It's Black Jock that's at the bottom o' this, an' I could twist his ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... slander him just as unscrupulously, if the interests of the Lancedale Plan were at stake. "I have Mongery just like this." He made a clutching and lifting gesture, as though he were picking up some small animal by the scruff of the neck. "So, as soon as I got word of it, I started getting this thing together. It isn't the kind of a job a Literate semanticist would do, but it's all honest Illiterate thinking, in Illiterate language. Turn it on, and tell me ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... equally pronounced tones replied: "Yes, Barney Ghegan, I will, and I'll be a good and faithful one, too. It's yeself that's been batin' round the bush. Did ye think a woman was a-goin' to chase ye over hill and down dale and catch ye by the scruff of the neck? What ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... old Burton, lugging himself into the game by the scruff of his pants, showed more real man than I did. Yet, he couldn't accomplish anything; so there you are, if you ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... within him. He tried to consider it all as a coincidence, which would pass without infringing his manner of life. He felt himself in the position of a puppy, when its master, taking it by the scruff of its neck, rubs its nose in the mess it has made. The puppy whines, draws back and wants to get away as far as possible from the effects of its misdeed, but the pitiless master ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... down! Enough, enough! Soo-Ti's screaming; seize his scruff. Soo-Ti's having fearful fits; Duke is tearing us to bits. One will trip us, one will throw us— But, the darlings, don't ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... lad, with my hind legs tied in a knot round a big bough; and I keep on trying to get hold of you by the scruff, but ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... short of money and management. Irishmen are not financiers. They are always getting into holes, and waiting for somebody to get them out. They have no self-reliance. You may hold them up by the scruff of the neck for years and years, and the moment you drop them they hate you like poison. Many shooting cases would show this if impartially looked into. Pity the English do not come over here more than they do. The people get along famously with individual Englishmen, and sometimes they wonder ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... open end of the veranda; and with a final spring, a tall man in silk pyjamas, his gray beard flying over either shoulder, hurled himself upon both bushrangers at once. With outspread fingers he clutched the scruff of each neck at the self-same second, crash came the two heads together, and over went the table with the three ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... side of the coffin-table, Hume would urge him on, leerin' and grinnin' like Satan himself, and making all manner of game of him. Bedad, me gorge rose at it more than once, and it was all I could do to keep from takin' him by the scruff of the neck and ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... religions and governments and plutocracies and all the other devices of the kingdom of the fears of the unheroic. As fast as Mimmy makes swords, Siegfried Bakoonin smashes them, and then takes the poor old swordsmith by the scruff of the neck and chastises him wrathfully. The particular day on which the curtain rises begins with one of these trying domestic incidents. Mimmy has just done his best with a new sword of surpassing excellence. Siegfried returns home in rare spirits with a wild bear, ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... sudden blaze of passion, the inspector took the man by the scruff and hove him bodily down into the darkness, and he went downward, screaming. The inspector followed him instantly, with his lantern and the gun; and I after the inspector, with the bayonet ready. Behind me, I ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... said he, "have been at you to interfere. They have persuaded you that her model should be persona non grata in the best studios. They have, in short, begged you to take me by the scruff of the neck and kick me out into the gutter where I belong. Well, kick me. You know as well as I do, that ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... line and swarmed up wet, but subdued in spirit, casting an appealing glance at his late assailant. Muata, in the mean time, reached the half-drowned jackal, held it by the scruff of the neck with one hand, and, turning over on his back, waited for the rope. This flung and seized, he also climbed on board, but there was nothing abject in his appearance. Standing with his head thrown back and his nostrils quivering, he glared a moment at the group of natives; then, seizing ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... hand on the scruff of his neck. He was quite limp, and my fingers sank into the flesh on either side of the vertebrae. Digging them deeper, I dragged him out into the middle of the hall and pulled the front door open ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of a faith in the country, he returns with a wife to share with him in that faith, and incidentally in his hardships. This but serves to show the innate selfishness of man. It also brings us to the trouble of 'Scruff' Mackenzie, which occurred in the old days, before the country was stampeded and staked by a tidal-wave of the che-cha-quas, and when the Klondike's only claim to notice ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... enough; - Twenty impatient hands and rough, By arm and leg, and neck and scruff, Apron, 'kerchief, gown of stuff - Cap and pinner, sleeve and cuff - Are clutching the Witch wherever they can, With the spite of woman and fury of man; And then—but first they kill her cat, And murder her dog on the very mat - And crush the infernal Trumpet flat; - And then ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... far end of it, on which he had been accustomed to lord it over the fell groups he had treated out of Poole's purse. One of the biggest and most redoubted of the Black Family was now in that seat of dignity, and refusing surlily to yield it at Jasper's rude summons, was seized by the scruff of the neck, and literally hurled on the table in front, coming down with clatter and clash amongst mugs and glasses. Jasper seated himself coolly, while the hubbub began to swell—and roared for drink. An old man, who served as drawer to these cavaliers, went out to obey the order; and when ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Attley came over to see me, and before his car stopped Malachi let me know that Bettina was sitting beside the chauffeur. He greeted her by the scruff of the neck as she hopped down; and I greeted Mrs. Godfrey, Attley, ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... to breathe freely, when Doctor Richard Geddes came over one afternoon, and, finding me in our living-room with only the Black family to keep me company, flung himself into an arm-chair, seized Sir Thomas More Black by the scruff, and pulled his whiskers and rubbed his fur the wrong way until Sir Thomas More ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... you please, and he seized the merchant by the scruff of his neck, and dragged him into the Park, and shut the ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... crime, almost amounts to a virtue, under certain circumstances, with all these African savages; and I must confess that I have noticed one or two little things that, to me, seemed to bear rather a sinister significance. But what can we do? We cannot take 'Msusa by the scruff of the neck and insist upon his becoming ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... held the goat by the scruff of his neck and fastened a halter about him. The other end was secured to a stake allowing the kid to run about in a circle of ten feet ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson
... more of a struggle than ever to wash and dress her. Indeed at one time nothing but holding her by the scruff prevented her from getting away from him, but at last he achieved his object and she was washed, brushed, scented and dressed, although to be sure this left him better pleased than her, for she regarded ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... speculator was at home, and on learning of the arrival of the former owner, who had been transformed into a tramp, he gave orders that he was not to be admitted into the house, and that in case of need he was to be flung out by the scruff of the neck. Misha declared that he would not enter the house, defiled as it was by the presence of a scoundrel; that he would allow no one to throw him out; but that he was on his way to the churchyard to salute the dust of his ancestors. This ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Tom, catch him by the scruff of the neck, hold him, howk him, hump him, hurry him, hit him, poke him, pull him, pinch him, pound him, put him in the corner, shake him, slap him, set him on a cold stone to reconsider himself, and ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... been watching every movement of the speaker's face, suddenly sprang forward, making for the door. But Mr. Lott had foreseen this; with astonishing alertness and vigour he intercepted the fugitive seized him by the scruff of the neck, and, after a moment's struggle, pinned him face downwards across the end of the table. His stick he had thrown aside; the riding-whip he held between his teeth. So brief was this conflict ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... of the window. In a moment he returned holding General Serano's official spy by the scruff of the neck. The interpreter's genial smile had given place to a look of terror and he trembled with fear. O'Connor swung him around so that he ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... youth's note was fierce. Then he took poor Tim by the scruff of his neck, and observed that he had been teaching the pup to swim because he was water-shy, and that it was good for all kinds of pups to know how to swim. Then he pushed Tim into the water after ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... the deevil's wark or for his ain, which is ae thing and the same. Oot he maun gang, gin we tak' him by the scruff o' the neck and the doup o' ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... outstretched paw. The dog sprang up with a howl of pain, the school stopped its singing, and the angry teacher left the rostrum and advanced toward the little girl. The next moment he dragged the dog from under the bench by the scruff of the neck and hurled him out of the door; the next, he shook an admonishing finger in the very face of the ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... money and its loss is his funeral. Go and report to him and try to understand the meaning of the word 'loyalty.' Our party doesn't care a tinker's dam who has had, now has, or will have that envelope. And if you want to get thrown out by the scruff of the neck just try going to headquarters with ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... my advice—learn to swim as fast as you can for I have a strong notion that one day or other I shall take you by the scruff of the neck, and send you to look after ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the words are persistent. They remain in the memory. And it was a thrilling scene they fitted into. One must never forge that: The little hospital transport lying in the Channel in a choppy sea that ran streaks of foam; the grim turret and the long whaleback of a U-boat in the foam scruff; and the sun lying on the scrubbed deck of the ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... he is!" Jennie exclaimed, energetically. "Disgraced, indade, I only wish I had him by the scruff of his neck, if he thinks anything can disgrace you, or make you less a lady. Them smells, and they are awful sometimes, when half the folks is sick, can't ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... for'ard are bussed up comfortably like fowls for cooking. No one has been hurt; Malie's men simply picked the mongrels up by the scruff of their necks and then tied them up. The ship ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... among the exempt would be men with wives dependent on them and cogently he had reflected that if he married that would be his case precisely. At the same time he could not take a possible bride by the scruff of the neck and drag her off to a clergyman. Though it be to save your hide, such things are not done. Even in war-time there are wearisome preliminaries and these preliminaries, which a broken engagement abridged, the neuralgia of a possible bride prolonged. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... don't, fatty,' said the big New Zealander, and catching the man by the scruff of the neck, gave him a tremendous push which sent him flying over into the trench. Roy sprang down after him, and a moment later, Dave and Ken ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... grave, which, I gathered, was at Manor Park. While on Tuesday I have listened, blood chilled, to the recital of her intentions should she ever again enjoy the luxury of getting her fingers near the scruff of ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... to witness the dismay in Mr. Close's face when Aubrey returned, bringing him, mentally, by the scruff of the neck. I have seen terriers yanked back to look at things they have "worried" in much the same manner that Mr. Close was fetched to ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... bloomin' 'all" with him, and making it respectable; and, metaphorically speaking, that is what she did. Her tongue hit him between the eyes, and knocked him down and trampled on him. It curled round and round him like a whip, and then it uncurled and wound the other way. It seized him by the scruff of his neck, and tossed him up into the air, and caught him as he descended, and flung him to the ground, and rolled him on it. It played around him like forked lightning, and blinded him. It danced and shrieked about him like a host of whirling fiends, and he tried to remember a prayer, ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... the scruff of his neck, he flung that amazed and dignified person with scant ceremony into the study, and shut the door; then, judging by the direction of the sound, hurried out to the front verandah, snatching up a heavy stick as he ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... his threats, and already had my fist in the air; but to my intense amazement, with one pull he tugged the kerchief off the peasant's elbows, took him by the scruff of the neck, thrust his cap over his eyes, opened the door, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... an age of communication; we can send a bit of news half way round the world in a few seconds, we can make it known to a whole city in a few hours. And so it was with this "prophet fresh from God"; in spite of himself, he was seized by the scruff of the neck and flung up to the pinnacle of fame! He had all the marvels of a lifetime crowded into one day—enough to fill a whole newspaper ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... eggs fifty years old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it no yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat the scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course aristocrats, then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea to keep up ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... scruff of the neck, and though the dog growled threateningly, dragged him to one side and replaced Sol-leks. The old dog did not like it, and showed plainly that he was afraid of Buck. Francois was obdurate, but when he turned his back Buck again displaced Sol-leks, who ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... accepted them as proofs of the steady development of industrious principles in the writer. Mr. Clare took his own characteristically opposite view. "These London men," said the philosopher, "are not to be tri fled with by louts. They ha ve got Frank by the scruff of the neck—he can't wriggle himself free—and he makes a merit of ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Whiskey! Tete Noire! Pilot! Michinass! Coffee! Bull! Brandie! Caribou!" shouted the men. A few of the dogs answered to their names and came to harness while some holding back were tugged forward by the scruff of the neck. Others were still in hiding. The men searched among the mounds and bushes. Every now and then the crack of a whip and the yelp of a dog announced the finding of a truant. Two trackers on large snowshoes ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... fat, but Johnnie was rather drunk, and George was tough and exceedingly strong. In almost less time that it takes to write it he grasped the abominable Johnnie by the scruff of the neck and had with a mighty jerk hauled him over the sofa so that he lay face downwards thereon. By the door quite convenient to his hand stood George's ground ash stick, a peculiarly good and well-grown one which he had cut himself in Honham wood. He seized it. "Now, boar," he said, "I'll ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... everlastin' rain, and awful slippy; up go your heels, and down goes stranger on the broad of his back, slippin' and slidin' and coastin' right down the bank, slap over the light mud-earth bed, and crushin' the flowers as flat as a pancake, and you yaller ochered all over, clean away from the scruff of your neck, down to the tip eend of your heel. The galls larf, the helps larf, and the, bed-room maid larfs; and who the plague can blame them? Old Marm don't larf though, because she is too perlite, and besides, she's ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... mother. Then he called Miki and tied the end of a worn rope around his neck, after which he fastened the other end of this rope around the neck of Neewa. Thus he had the cub and the pup on the same yard-long halter. Taking each of the twain by the scruff of the neck he carried them to the canoe and placed them in the nest he had made of ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... time on his forehead. Drew forced his eyes open. Memory stirred, too dim to be more than a teasing uneasiness. Action was necessary, important action. He focused his eyes on a brown face bearing a scruff of ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... teach me wise conversation, I prefer to be dumb and dull. Whenever I set eyes on you, I recognise as ill-done everything you do; whether I watch you stand, or waggle and walk, ducking, nidnodding, blinking with your eyes, my impulse is to catch the nidnodder by the scruff of the neck, to hurl out of the way for good and all the odious blinker! That is my manner, Mime, of being fond of you. Now, if you are wise, help me to know a thing which I have vainly reflected upon: I run into the woods to be rid of you; how does it happen ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... cried Frank, his eyes fired with enthusiasm. "Thank heaven, there's not one among us we can call a slacker. We've all enlisted without waiting to be hauled into it by the scruff of the neck—we—we——," his eyes happened to fall upon Will as he sat regarding him steadily from a chair near the window, and as though at a signal, his enthusiasm died and ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... Dyckman's temper to its throne. He seized Connery by the scruff of his coat, jerked him to his ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... and steamed bolognas, and the effect of this on the weak stomachs of those who happened to be in that vicinity can be better imagined than described. If John Tener had not happened along and grabbed that waiter by the scruff of the neck and the slack of his pants, hustling him out of sight, there is no telling what might have happened, but I am inclined to think that murder ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... with the one hand and him by the scruff of the neck with the other; and says I to him, 'Little man, ye'll not be getting this back till ye've fetched me a dinner fit for a tinker.' 'Well, and good,' says he, 'but ye can't find that this side of the King's Hotel, Dublin; and that will take time.' 'Take the time,' says I, 'but get the ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... the river in a position which claimed attention, respect, and profanity from every craft which passed, its master having been only saved from the traditional death of the devoted shipmaster by the unpardonable conduct of the mate, who tore him from his craft by the scruff of his neck and the seat of ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... no more. With a seemingly gentle motion of his hand he thrust me aside, pushing me on to the bosom of a buxom flower-girl who, laughing boisterously, wound a pair of sturdy red arms round me. Then he stepped forward, and seizing Phineas by the scruff of the neck shook him as a dog shakes a rat. To what more violence he would have proceeded I do not know; for suddenly from above us, out of a window of the Cock and Pie, came a voice which sent a ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... quail," said he, "but it's hard to get a sight of 'em. But you were overcome by curiosity, weren't you, old girl? You came out to have a look at the big white giant and he caught you with his thumb and forefinger by the scruff of the neck—so you couldn't bite him—and ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris |
