"Snapping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exploits which the Hero has to pass through. The monster Scylla is here to be noted, with its six necks and heads, three on each side of the body, wherein again the triple is duplicated, though the body is certainly one. It was this monster which did most harm to Ulysses, snapping up six of ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... loading and firing among the wolverines until they had slain over a dozen. But instead of diminishing, the number continued to increase till there must have been nearly two-score growling, snapping and snarling ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... he sent out the signal of distress. He followed this with their location, also in code. Three times he repeated the message. Then snapping on his receiver, he strained ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... bordering the river, hurtled across the swollen Rio Grande itself, and so on up the gentle rise of ground to the town, where they swung through the streets in ruthless strides—banging signs, ripping up roofings, snapping off branches—and then lurched out over the mesa to the east. Here, as if in glee over their escape from city confines, they redoubled in fury and tore down to earth—and enveloped Felipe Montoya, a young and good-looking Mexican, and his team of scrawny horses plodding ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... for Belle's snapping eyes and brusque ways were beginning to interest him. "Oh, I forgot that you American working-women are all ladies. I am told that you speak of certain of your ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... "Do!" said Legree, snapping his fingers, scornfully. "I'd like to see you doing it. Where you going to get witnesses?—how you going to ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... at almost a snapping point, Henry moved on behind the fourth man. He was horribly afraid, he wanted to break from the line and run, it didn't matter where, any place to get away from that steady, steely light in front of him. He had seen three men step into it, ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... upon him, snapping his revolver as he ran; but, all the chambers having been already emptied, no shot followed. Brandishing his cutlass, he uttered ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... infinitely disturbing element, had struck them and driven them forth. Then after patterning everywhere the violet velvet of the evening air, abruptly soothed, they would return and be absorbed in the tower, deadly no longer but benignant, some perching here and there (not seeming to move, but snapping, perhaps, and swallowing some passing insect) on the points of turrets, as a seagull perches, with an angler's immobility, on the crest of a wave. Without quite knowing why, my grandmother found in the steeple of Saint-Hilaire that absence of vulgarity, pretension, and meanness which ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... across for the glass which I had emptied, took it up gingerly between thumb and forefinger, and tossed it with a crash on to the hearthstone. He then did the same to my pipe, after first snapping the stem into halves. This done, he blew out one candle, and with great gravity led the way down the staircase. I shouldered the tools and followed, while my heart hated him with a fiercer spite ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... first he had been filled with hope. That first glimpse of the sun they had seen through the little window on the morning that Billy left for Fort Churchill had come just in time to keep reason from snapping in his head. For three days after that he looked through the window at the same hour and prayed moaningly for another glimpse of that paradise in the southern sky. But the storm through which Isobel had struggled across the Barren gathered over his head and ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... rear of Anderson's brigade as it marched to the pike in rear of Cheat Mountain camp. When Captain Coons reached the Rosecrans house he found evidence of troops having been there recently, and soon discovered smoke and heard the snapping of caps on a mountain spur towards Elk Water camp. He concluded, however, that he was near a Union picket post from that camp, and sent forward five men to ascertain who his neighbors were. As these men ascended ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... bloody, who sought out my destruction where I lay powerless to resist her will. Low she bent above me, her dusky hair a cloud that choked me, and through this cloud the glitter of her eyes, red lips that curled back from snapping teeth, fingers clawed to rend and tear; then as I gazed, in horror, these eyes grew soft and languorous, these vivid lips trembled to wistful smile, these cruel hands clasped, soft-clinging, and drew me near and ever nearer towards ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... in a low voice and cut himself short when the Indian approached. Howland seated himself in the middle of the six-foot toboggan, waved his hand to Gregson, then with a wild halloo and a snapping of his long caribou-gut whip Jackpine started his dogs on a trot down the street, running close beside the sledge. Howland had lighted a cigar, and leaning back in a soft mass of furs began to enjoy his new experience hugely. Day was just fairly breaking ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... careless disregard of the remarks which Mr. Wragg occasionally launched at them. Twice a ball had whizzed past him; and a small but select party, with a tip-cat of huge dimensions and awesome points, played just out of reach. Mr. Wragg, snapping his ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... different Elsie's tone was from her usual one. There was no snapping up or ridiculing her little brother. She spoke more as if she were trying to persuade herself of the ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... turning her pretty face towards him, her black eyes snapping with fun, "that if conceit was consumption, there'd be another little green grave in the cemetery with O. Strout ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... the devil. If you were an able-bodied man, I'd get you, too—just to have a pair of you. Yelping, snapping curs, both of you." He played the dog as a fisherman plays ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... been told of a Newfoundland that, when annoyed by some small dog that persisted in barking and snapping at him, he would finally seize it by the back of the neck, carry it to the river, and drop it into the water. After watching the struggles of the little dog, which seldom was able to swim, the Newfoundland would plunge in and rescue him. After that you may be sure ...
— Stories Pictures Tell - Book Four • Flora L. Carpenter
... essentially wrangling quality to which a life without enemies seems dull and objectless,—the nature, in short, of a litigant, or a policeman. If it had not been for the presence of the sheriff's officer, he would have seized Tonsard and the bundle of wood at the Grand-I-Vert, snapping his fingers at the law on the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... singly, mostly on the right, and fell an easy prey to Dermott and the Admiral. But presently a great pack got up comparatively near the butts, and fairly "rushed" us. I brought off an easy right and left straight in front of me, and then, snapping out my cartridges and slipping another in, I swung round and just managed to bring down a third bird with a "stern chaser"—a feat which I regretted to observe no one else noticed, for there was a perfect fusilade all along the line ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... glorious idleness letting the earth cradle and the sun soak into him. Doubts and disturbances of last night melted in daylight to an almost ludicrous nothingness and self-confidence reigned; so that he declared the world a super-excellent place, snapping his fingers at problems and mysteries. A spark of curiosity pricked him still, it is true, concerning the origin of certain undeniably queer aural phenomena. He meant to satisfy that curiosity presently; but the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... lad, "I only wished to ask you to be so good as to let me have back that meal you took from me on the safe steps, for we haven't much to live on; and if you're to go on snapping up the morsel we have there'll be nothing ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... that direction to ascertain what this new disturbance might portend, we saw that the water was literally alive with hundreds of sharks, distinctly visible by the phosphorescent glow which shone from their bodies, which were tearing and snapping at the floating corpses of the pirates, rending them limb from limb, and rushing off in all directions with the dismembered fragments as the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... down. It's that neck of land that separates the two continents." He picked up the microphone, and started punching buttons and snapping orders. In twenty seconds we were rushing, at maximum atmospheric speed, toward the scene of what, Artur had told us, was already ...
— The God in the Box • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... his signals, the Brimfield forwards were poising themselves for the assault, and Clint, hands on the ground, feet apart, head up, was watching every movement of his opponent. And, simultaneously with the snapping of the ball, he was lunging upward and forward with both hands, all the muscles of his tense body behind that quick thrust, and the Claflin opponent, caught unawares, spun sideways and crashed into his guard, while Harris, the ball clutched to his stomach, smashed ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was essentially a three-phase material—with the vacuum of space acting as the third phase. With a tensile strength above a hundred million pounds per square inch, a half inch cable could easily apply more pressure to that anchor than it could take. There was a need for that strong cable: a snapping cable that is suddenly released from a tension of many millions of pounds can be dangerous in the extreme, forming a writhing whip that can lash through a spacesuit as though it did not exist. What damage it did to flesh and bone after that was of minor importance; a man who loses ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett
... called mucknas in India, that is, tuskless males—not one in a hundred, according to Sir Emerson Tennent, being found with tusks; nearly all, however, are provided with tushes. These, he says, he has observed them "to use in loosening earth, stripping off bark, and snapping asunder small branches and climbing plants, and hence tushes are seldom seen without a groove worn into them near their extremities." Sir Samuel Baker says that the African elephant uses his tusks in ploughing up ground in search of edible roots, and that whole acres may be seen ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... not born to be shot in that manner. As he felt that grip on his throat, he suddenly realized his strength, and with one great wrench he tore himself free, snapping and snarling in true savage fashion, and showing his fang-like teeth in an appalling manner. He would have sprung straight at the throat of his master, but that at that moment there was a flash of fire, a terrific bang, and Jinks, scared out of his wits, fled, ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... the corner that gives them a good view of the blaze, fluttering great puffs of flame, and hear the steady crackle and snapping, as it were, of a great popper full of pop-corn, they, too, catch the infection, and run with a loud swashing and slatting of skirts, giggling and squealing about their ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... gave the corpse a violent push seaward, and the three made a simultaneous scramble for the safety of the ledge. Jake was up first, and extended his hand to Roger, while behind them they heard the clashing and snapping of jaws, and the sudden rushing wash of water, as the body of Gomez was torn to pieces ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... remember one severe contest Mr. Lewis had with my mother. For some slight offence Mrs. Lewis became offended and was tartly and loudly reprimanding her, when Mr. L. came in and rashly felled her to the floor with his fist. But his wife was constantly pulling our ears, snapping us with her thimble, rapping us on the head and sides of it. It appeared impossible to please her. When we first went to Mr. L.'s they had a cowhide which she used to inflict on a little slave girl she previously owned, nearly every night. This was done to learn ...
— The Story of Mattie J. Jackson • L. S. Thompson
... at us. I put down my knife and fork and went out of doors; for in this strange land I, with my German tongue, seemed to have sunk down fathoms deep into the sea, where all sorts of unfamiliar, crawling creatures were gliding about me, peopling the solitude and glaring and snapping at me. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... boot, saw Anse beat him to that action by a scant second or two. But the newcomers were already drawing rein, bringing their foam-lathered horses to a pawing stop. A buckskin-clad man mounted on a powerful grulla gelding faced Fenner, his whole tense body and snapping eyes backing ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... again, snapping viciously, and before he could draw back, a huge alligator had seized his left forearm between his great jaws. The conical teeth sank deep in ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... violent, till she whirled in ever-widening circles round about the roofless palace chamber, athwart which flurried bats swirled noiselessly through the gathering twilight. Hither and thither she glided, no sooner completing the circle in one direction than, snapping her fingers with a passionate cry, she wheeled round in an opposite course, sometimes clapping her hands together and catching up snatches of my own melody, sometimes waving aloft or pressing to her bosom the red kerchief ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... pocket and strained his credit to the snapping point, Ferdinand was over at the Forge with Tubby a couple of days afterward and beheld something in a store window that he thought ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... warriors and magicians tried to get possession of this precious talisman, but were destroyed by the poisoned fangs of its defenders. Finally, one more inventive than the rest hit upon the bright idea of encasing himself in leather, and by this device marched unharmed through the hissing and snapping court, tore off the shining jewel, and bore it in triumph to his nation. They preserved it with religious care, brought it forth on state occasions with solemn ceremony, and about the middle of the last century, ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... trod the dark with him, Crushed the live leaves, reached out white hands And closed her eyes, the better to see The priests with claws, the lovers with hooves, The fire-lit rock, the sarabands. I am here! she said. The bough he broke— Was it the snapping bough that spoke? I am here! she said. The white thigh gleamed Cold in starlight among dark leaves, The head thrown backward as he had dreamed, The shadowy red deep jasper mouth; And the lifted hands, ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... mistaken for a dance of demons or hobgoblins. But as we drew near we saw, as we had surmised, that they were Indians. Some of them were performing a wild dance in couples, holding their arms above their heads and snapping their fingers; while others were seated on the ground ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... he said, his voice snapping with impatience as he brushed the full page aside and began sowing his thoughts on another. 'Warn our readers. Tell 'em to wear brass collars with spikes in 'em till we get ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... who has so cleansed it by His own blood, that the very Light of God can detect no stain of sin upon it, even though it be the chief of sinners. So amid the ruins of this earthly tabernacle may the triumphant song ascend above the snapping of cords, the breaking of golden bowls and pitchers, the very crash of nature's citadel: "Oh, death, where is thy sting? Oh, grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... said Agnetta carelessly, snapping off some blossoms. "He's allays mucking at it in his spare time—not that he's got much, there's so much to ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... himself in snapping off several pictures, posing his chums so that they would enter into his views of the flood as seen from the river bridge. In this interesting work he forgot the peril he was running; while Max ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... only the more complacent and superior. But I shall menace their money-bags. That will shake them to the roots of their primitive natures. If you can come, you will see the cave-man, in evening dress, snarling and snapping over a bone. I promise you a great caterwauling and an illuminating insight into the nature of ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... his way to the head of the class, and so into the more noble "tenpenny," which he entered before he was six. The operation of "trapping" was simply performed. When a mistake was made in pronunciation, repetition, or spelling, any pupil further down the class held out his hand, snapping the finger and thumb like a pop-gun Nordenfeldt. The master's pointer skimmed rapidly down the line, and if no one in higher position answered, the "trapper," providing always that his emendation was accepted, was instantly promoted to the place of the "trapped." The master's "taws" were a wholesome ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... head and let it go with all his raging strength straight at the white, frightened face across the room ... then a thick, impenetrable darkness came down upon him and blotted out thought, rage, and madness together—with almost a tangible snapping sound the face of the world changed ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... well as of all the relations of civil law. It becomes obvious what an advantage it is to know little, and to have forgotten very much of that little. I never love to mingle in the wrangles of the day, but I cannot forego the delight of quietly snapping my fingers at them. I trust that the small leaf inclosed may win a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... her feet and snapping her fingers. "That is ingenious! That will give me trouble! I didn't credit Calvaster with that much sense. I never thought of anyone looking askance at my relations with Quintus. I've never taken any precautions as to when I was with him or how long or ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... purple, and his parents were scared stiff. The Old Man hobbled to the door in the midst of the uproar and asked them acrimoniously why they didn't make that doggoned Kid stop his howling; and when Chip, his nerves already strained to the snapping point, told him bluntly to get out and mind his own business, he hobbled away again muttering anathemas against the ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... a quick, furious snapping, like the noise of a miniature fusillade. A score of the matches had been ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... trail through the bluff, picking her way among the holes and rotting stumps, and as she rode out the horse plunged. After calming the startled animal she saw a dirty handkerchief snapping in the wind at the top of a stick. Close by a team cropped the grass and the end of a big plow projected from the back of a wagon. There seemed to be nobody about, but after riding on a few yards she saw a man lying among ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... unappeased by the blood and the flesh of their fellows, To the cold wind their muzzles they raised, and the trail to the oak-tree they followed. Round and round it they howled for the prey, madly leaping and snarling and snapping; But the brave maiden's keen arrows slay, till the dead number more than the living. All the long, dreary night-time, at bay, in the oak sat the shivering Winona; But the sun gleamed at last, and away skulked the gray cowards [c] down through the forest. Then down ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... a manger, and by his growling and snapping prevented the oxen from eating the hay which had been placed for them. "What a selfish Dog!" said one of them to his companions; "he cannot eat the hay himself, and yet refuses to allow ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... sirs," interposed de Retz, as the Chancellor looked up with anger in his eye; "have out your quarrels as you will—after the snapping of the trap. Remember that this which we do is a matter of life or death ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... supper-time we were more or less even-minded again, and almost jolly. I only noticed that there was an undercurrent of what is best described as "jumpiness," and that the merest snapping of a twig, or plop of a fish in the lagoon, was sufficient to make us start and look over our shoulders. Pauses were rare in our talk, and the fire was never for one instant allowed to get low. The wind and rain had ceased, but the dripping of the branches still kept up an excellent ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... one even more tragic, even more thrilling. To the dazed, half-fainting young hunter it seemed but another instant before the pack overhauled the old bull. He saw the doomed monster turn, in the stillness heard the snapping of jaws, the snarling of hunger-crazed animals, and a sound that might have been a great, heaving moan or a dying bellow. In Wabi's veins the blood danced with the excitement that stirred his forefathers to battle. Not a line of the tragedy that was being ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... into the garden. I saw a flowering branch bend and snap as though a hand had broken it—but no hand was there! Saw then another and another bend and break, a little tree sway and fall—and closer and closer to us came the trail of snapping boughs while down into the garden poured the silvery light revealing—nothing! Now a great ewer beside a pillar rose swiftly in air and hurled itself crashing at my feet. Cushions close to us swirled about as though in the vortex of ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... to his height in the bow of his canoe, and began to speak rapidly in a low voice. Immediately the animal bobbed into sight again, his wicked little eyes snapping with intelligence. It took him some moments to determine what these motionless, bright-coloured objects might be. Then he turned toward the land, but stopped short as his awakened senses brought him the reek of the young men who had hemmed in his shoreward escape. He was not yet thoroughly alarmed, ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... my mind. I grasped my stick and drew close to the wall. The hairy whirlwind, if I may so call it, came wildly on, but instead of passing me, or snapping at my legs as I had expected, it stopped and crawled towards me in a piteous; supplicating manner that at once disarmed me. If the creature had lain still, I should have been unable to distinguish its head from its tail; but as one end of him whined, and ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... relations with a growl! Don't you know we have to keep the peace all summer?" laughed Julie, snapping her fingers to ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... propose to draw upon from time to time, not with the expectation of making high-toned thieves ashamed of themselves and thereby effecting their reformation, but to keep their newspaper panders and potwallopers snarling and snapping until general attention is attracted to the consummate meanness of their masters and thereby curtail somewhat their powers of despoilation. The old line life insurance fake is the most colossal scheme of predacity known to human history. Enough money is ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... snapping the many levers and switches on the control panel in proper sequence, keeping a wary eye on the astral chronometer over his head as one of its red hands ticked ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... towards which I guided the mare, for though I could not check, I was in some measure able to direct, her course. This time, however, she either did not see the impediment in her way, or despised it, as, without abating her speed, she literally rushed through the gate, snapping into shivers with her chest the upper bar, which was luckily rotten, and clearing the lower ones in her stride. The blow, and the splintered wood flying about her ears, appeared to frighten her afresh, and she tore up the opposite ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the theatre behind him ended with a curious snapping sound, followed by the heavy roaring of a rising crowd and the interlaced clatter of many voices. The ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... are the red capsicums? and why are they poking, snapping, starting, crawling, tumbling wildly over each other, rattling about the huge mahogany cockles, as big as a child's two fists, out of which they are protruded? Mark them well, for you will perhaps never see them again. They are a Mediterranean species, or rather three species, left behind upon these ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... leisurely conducting him to one of the Indian towns. He watched the supple figure before him, wondering at the quick step, light as the fall of a leaf, and tried to walk as softly. He found, however, that where the Indian readily avoided the sticks and brush, he was unable to move without snapping twigs. Now and then he would look up and study the lay of the land ahead; and as he came nearer to certain rocks and trees he scrutinized them closely, in order to remember their shape and general appearance. He believed he was blazing out in his mind this woodland trail, so that ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... Then a blue jay came chattering to ascertain what all the fuss was about, and the Harvester carried on a conversation that called up the remainder of the feathered tribe. A brilliant cardinal came tearing through the thicket, his beady black eyes snapping, and demanded to know if any one were harming his mate, brooding under a wild grape leaf in a scrub elm on the river embankment. A brown thrush silently slipped like a snake between shrubs and trees, and catching the universal excitement, began to flirt ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... into the stiff, starchy holes too small for them and of the pigtails so stubborn at the ends; and Toby was remembering the little shoes that had once needed to be laced in the cold, dark mornings, and the strings that were always snapping. ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... broke in the open air, by snapping off a little of the small stem with my fingers, others by crushing it with a small pair of Plyers; which I had no sooner done, then the whole bulk of the drop flew violently, with a very brisk noise, into multitudes of small pieces, some of which were as small as dust, though ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... fell under the limitations of his trade. Though the detective in real life is as little as may be like the Inspector Buckets and the Javerts of fiction, certain characteristics persist. Broffin thought he knew the worth of boldness; where it was a mere matter of snapping the handcuffs upon some desperate criminal, the boldness was not wanting. But now, when he found himself face to face with the straightforward expedient, the craft limitations bound him. Instantly he thought of a dozen good reasons why he should make haste slowly; and he recognized in none of ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... school, Dolly went in to see dear old Madam Lewis, who sat in her rocking-chair in the front parlor, where the fire was snapping behind great tall brass andirons and all the pictures were overshadowed with boughs of spruce and pine. Dolly gazed about her with awe and wonder. Over one of the pictures was suspended a cross of green with flowers ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... as rich as they say?" pursued the Gascon, whose eyes were snapping with covetousness; "has she such immense treasures? Is she beautiful? ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... him and went into the inner room to make it. She was afraid of him; afraid of what she might have to hear. She had the sense of things approaching, of separation, of the snapping of the tense thread of time that bound them for her moment. It was as if she could spin it out by interposing between the moment and its end a series of ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... had no weapon with him, save a staff, he climbed up into a tree; whereupon the wolves trotted round it, blinked at him with their eyes, licked their lips, and at last jumped with their fore-paws up against the tree, snapping at him; he then saw that one was a he-wolf, a great fat brute with only one eye. Hereupon in his fright he began to scream, and the long-suffering of God was again shown to him, without, however, making him wiser; ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... had brought the camera home she had me set up as a statue all over the lawn, and she was snapping at me like a Spitz doggie ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... lay a prisoner in a rocky ravine all through the hot afternoon, I heard the rifles snapping like hounds around a cornered beast. I watched the Boers as they moved from cover to cover, one here, one there, a little farther on a couple in a place of vantage, again, in a natural fortress, a group of eight; so they were placed as far as my eye could reach. The British force I could ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... was pretty dark, we could distinguish their dusky forms. We could hear them eating, too, the bones, scraps and offal we hand thrown out,—quarrelling, snapping ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... clearly set out desires for his future prosperity, and assured of their unalterable protection on all future occasions, Kai Lung again turned his face towards the lanterns of Knei Yang. Far down the side of the mountain they followed his footsteps, now by a rolling stone, now by a snapping branch of yellow pine. Once again they heard his voice, cheerfully repeating to himself; "Among the highest virtues of a pure existence—" But beyond that point the gentle forest ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... Nation's sons went forth to fight in those first brave days of '61. Just so they marched out, defiant, from South and North alike, each side eager for the cause he thought was right, with bright pennons snapping in the breeze and bugles blowing gayly and never a thought in any man's mind but that his side would win and his own life ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... them, and throbbing and panting like living creatures in their race for revenge. From the south, came a three-decked vessel, a great island of floating steel, with a flag as red as the angry sky behind it, snapping in the wind. To the south of it plunged two long low-lying torpedo boats, flying the French tri-color, and still further to the north towered three magnificent hulls of the White Squadron. Vengeance was written on every curve ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... the Lord's will for a woman to raise a family, it stands to reason He'll send her a husband. This snapping your fingers in the face of the Almighty and gathering up children from here and there ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... servant, with thoughts intent on cooking it, ran, knife in hand, to cut its throat in the orthodox manner, so as to make it lawful for a Mohammedan to eat. The bird, on being seized, struggled hard with its captor, and, snapping its elongated bill widely in wild terror, by accident got the man's head jammed between its mandibles. The keen cutting edges of the long strong beak scarified the man's cheeks, and made him scream with pain and with frantic fear that it was his throat which was being ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... as I directed, and taking the line into the boat, I carried it to the point on the Fish opposite the landing. I succeeded in catching a turn around a tree. The rope strained, and I was obliged to ease it off to prevent it from snapping; ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... the cone to 1/16 in. diameter, and jacket the whole with a 2-1/2-in. pipe. The flame end of this burner tube should be about 4-1/2 in. above the cone opening and should be covered with gauze to prevent flame from snapping back. When lighted, the point of the blue flame, which is the hottest part, should be just in the hole in the bottom of the kiln. Such a burner will be cheaply made and will furnish a kiln temperature of 1400 degrees, but it will burn ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... middle of the stream until the wind sprung up and drove us on to the southern bank of the river, and then all was cracking and tearing away of the wood-work, breaking of limbs from the projecting trees, the snapping, cracking, screaming, hallooing, and confusion. As fast as we cleared ourselves of one tree, the current bore us down upon another; as soon as we were clear above water, we were foul and entangled below. It was a pretty ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... several hours later, and the men in the bigger tent were fast asleep, when Seaforth and Alton sat swathed in clammy blankets under a little canvas shelter. The drip from the great branches above beat upon it, and the red light of the snapping fire shone in upon the men. Neither of them had spoken for some time, but at last Alton laid ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... teeth, as the dogs made frantic efforts to get at each other. The neighbors assembled in a crowd, and the knowing ones predicted a lively time when those two dogs found the hole in the fence. Down the line of the fence the two curs walked, their eyes glaring, their jaws snapping, their tongues out, and dropping foam. The racket was tremendous. At each place where the pickets were a little spread, they redoubled their efforts to clinch. They approached the opening. The interest of the spectators redoubled. Now they reached the spot; sprung at each other; ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... girls ate their supper in a tired daze, not paying any attention to what the grown-ups were saying, until rapid hoofs clicked on the stones outside and Cousin Ann came in quickly, her black eyes snapping. ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... others only heard the rustle of the willows and the swishing sound of driven snow; then a faint patter caught their ears, and a crack followed like the snapping of a whip. ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... game to watch is apple-snapping. An apple is hung from a string in the middle of the room about the height of the blind man's head. The blind man's hands are then tied, or he holds them strictly behind him, and he has ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... shrunken from the swelling, undulating lines of his hilarious health; a pity such as one feels whose hopes are too inexplicably bound up with another's, who shares his very being, and who knows by all the sympathies of a brother's bosom that the other's heart-strings are snapping. Animae dimidium meae!—beautiful expression of the poet, comprehended less while life unites, than when death severs. It is only when gazing on the seal which has been set, we inquire 'Where is the spirit?' and struggle ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... settle down to charts and questions, Dr. Hennessey, do you mind showing us to our rooms so we may wash away some of the travel dust?" she asked icily, black eyes snapping. ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... now gone; the moon had risen; but the cold had not lessened, for the trunks of the trees were still snapping all around our teepee, which was lighted and warmed by the immense logs which Uncheedah's industry had provided. My uncle, White Footprint, now undertook to explain to me the significance of ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... beginning to puff up from the south-east, and that the sea was rolling in, and he had called the captain; and as he threw himself down on his chest with all his clothes on, I knew that he expected to be called. I felt the vessel pitching at her anchor, and the chain surging and snapping, and lay awake, expecting an instant summons. In a few minutes it came—three knocks on the scuttle, and "All hands ahoy! bear-a-hand up and make sail." We sprang up for our clothes, and were about halfway dressed, when the mate called out, down the scuttle, "Tumble up here, men! ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... others, and blazed away at the beast, and more snapping and snarling followed. The animal rolled clear over the fire, scattering the burning brands in all directions. Then it rolled among the horses. One steed after another kicked at it, and a flying hoof sent it against the tree with a thud. Then ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... was killed, think." The shorter detective took a small package from his pocket and held it in his hand, snapping the ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... black line each side of their tails. They are perfectly tame, and I feed them with crumbs in my hand. After making every effort to terrify the unknown object containing the food—gallant bulls, quite two inches long, sidling up and snapping at my fingers- -they come and feed right in the palm, so that I could have caught them by the handful had I wished. There are also a lot of those weird, semi-transparent, yellow, spotted little sandfish with cup- shaped pectoral fins, which I see they use to enable them to make their ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... from Ma, with that snapping of the jaw which in Ma expressed emphasis. Poor old Pa was the shining example of masculinity ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... the sentence, Meta's gun was directed between his eyes and she was wildly snapping the trigger. There was only hatred and revulsion in her expression. Kerk took her by the shoulders and sat her in his chair, before anything worse happened. It took a while before she could calm down enough to listen to Jason's words. It is not easy to ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... suddenly smites EDWIN in the back, almost snapping his head off, and there stands spectrally between them Mr. BUMSTEAD, who has but recently found his way out of the back-yard in Gospeler's Gulch, by removing at least two yards of picket fence from the wrong place, and wears upon his head a gingham sun-bonnet, which, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... They ceased barking for a moment and two or three of the larger ones ran away. Then the little dogs began yelping again and came on in a swarm. Bo made at them with his stick, but they dodged past him, and in a moment more were circling and snapping around Horatio, who was waving his violin wildly with one paw and slapping like a man killing mosquitoes with ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... asked some very simple and natural questions of Winifred Anstice, she snapped at me like a snapping-turtle; but I did not discontinue my investigation on that account. On the contrary, I resolved to be all the more watchful; and when it comes to putting two and two together, there are few who have a more mathematical mind than ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... darted off, quicker than their eye could follow him. If they had not seen his footprints in the sand they would have thought he flew. Cephalus and others stood on a hill and saw the race. The fox tried every art; he ran in a circle and turned on his track, the dog close upon him, with open jaws, snapping at his heels, but biting only the air. Cephalus was about to use his javelin, when suddenly he saw both dog and game stop instantly. The heavenly powers who had given both, were not willing that either should conquer. In the very attitude of life and action they were turned into stone. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... the night by the ravening of a pack of wolves at the carcass of the slain moose, which lay within twenty rods of the snow camp. They were growling and snapping as they tore the meat from the bones. Solomon rose and drew on ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... without incident, except for an attempt on our part to speak to a captured guardsman, who was loading trucks, which was promptly squashed by Wolfe snapping out "Das geht nicht." Nevertheless, a tin or two of food found its ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... pros and cons had all been threshed over, clauses inserted, and clauses struck out, Orcutt drew from his pocket a heavy gold watch, and snapping it open, detached it from its chain and laid it upon the table between them. "Half past eleven," he announced. "I suppose you insist upon waiting until the uttermost minute ticks to ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... on his back, every nerve strung to snapping pitch. Two whispering voices assailed his ears. The horror of them seemed to grip his heart and stop its ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... curling thickly in around the crack in the door and the air was hot and suffocating. Somewhere the sound of crackling, snapping wood, the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... drive. The countryman, who had grown rich in the last three days, offered to buy the thin little ass which had carried me so far and so well. He observed that he was blind of one eye, which I had never found out, and I do not believe it was true. The way he showed it was by snapping his fingers close to the eye in question. The donkey winked, and the countryman said that if the eye were good the beast would see that the noise was made by the fingers, and would not be frightened, and would ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... was again absorbed in his calculations, snapping his green eyes and playing with his fingers in front ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... the door, she almost fell over the old dog who lay sleepily snapping at the flies which buzzed around his head. He sprang up with a growl which died away into an apologetic yawn as she stooped to pat his ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... the princess Rosetta, Louis," cried Frank; "I want to know how the fair animal got out of her watery bedroom, and whether the green dog ever got his nose nipped by the oysters he was so fond of snapping up." ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... man who officiated as second, it would appear to both parties, bustled about with an activity little congenial to his shape; and what between snapping the pistols, examining the flints, and ramming down the charges, had got himself into a sufficient perspiration before he commenced ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... he had a bite at all.) Thus snubs that made other people's ears tingle, had no effect whatever on the lady to whom they were addressed, for she knew exactly what they were worth, and had by this time become fairly adept at snapping in return. In the days when she succumbed she was occasionally unhappy, but now she and her husband understood each other, and having agreed to differ, they unfortunately agreed also to ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... shell three feet from edge to edge, the gaff firmly transfixed in his body, just under the fore-flipper. From under his shell protruded his snake-like head and neck, withered like that of an old man. He was waving his head from side to side, the jaws snapping like a snapped silk handkerchief. Kitchell thrust him away with a paddle. The turtle craned his neck, and catching the bit of wood in his jaw, bit it in two ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... brass bell and dorge, and, sitting down cross-legged, commenced matins, counting his beads, or ringing the bell, and uttering most dismal prayers. After various disposals of the cups, a larger bell was violently rung for some minutes, himself snapping his fingers and uttering most unearthly sounds. Finally, incense was brought, of charcoal with juniper-sprigs; it was swung about, and concluded the morning service to our great relief, for the noises were quite intolerable. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... by one of them barking at his door and snapping at him. Suddenly pulling his flap open, he hurled his sombrero in the dog's face, frightening it, so that it slunk away with a howl. Tad, laughing heartily, reached ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... Maggie had stretched truth to the snapping point—"as this! And it's all thick with iron strips, and it has a lock as big as my head. Once I saw him open it—I was ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... weapons, and will, if possible, avoid firing them. Once in a military play a troop of grenadiers were required to fire a volley. Their officer waved his sword and gave the word of command superbly; but no sound followed, save only that of the snapping of locks: Not a gun had been loaded. An unfortunate unanimity had prevailed among the grenadiers. Each had forborne to load his weapon, trusting that his omission would escape notice in the general noise, and assured that a shot more or less could be of little ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... heard both these cautionary exclamations, but they reached him too late to be of any service to him: for before he could have counted six, at least twice that number of mules had closed round him, and with a simultaneous scream commenced snapping and biting at both him and his French roadster with all the fury of famished wolves! In vain did the stalwart jennet defend itself with its shod hoofs, in vain did its rider lay round him with his whip: for not only did the Spanish mules assail him with their teeth, ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... lungs, a shrilly treble to the growling remonstrances of the enraged matron. Another part in this concert was sustained by the incessant yelping of a score of idle useless curs, which followed, snarling, barking, howling, and snapping at the horses' heels; a nuisance at that time so common in Scotland, that a French tourist, who, like other travellers, longed to find a good and rational reason for everything he saw, has recorded, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... and conquest punctuated the cyclonic panorama. Here, a girl's snapping black eyes, winking devilishly, and pursed-up Cupid mouth invited a new swain to master her. There, a short-skirted beauty, whose sways and kicks revealed bare thighs, was dancing wildly a solo intended to infatuate ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... appearing to view when the rain holds up, shedding its rays upon the Jade Hall; or a gentle breeze (wafting its breath upon it). Wedded to a husband, fairy like fair and accomplished, you will enjoy a happiness enduring as the earth and perennial as the Heavens! and you will be the means of snapping asunder the bitter fate of your youth! But, after all, the clouds will scatter in Kao T'ang and the waters of the Hsiang river will get parched! This is the inevitable destiny of dissolution and continuance which prevails in the mortal ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Mr. Callender, with snapping eyes, "can you play well enough to be an interesting ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... struck out swift and straight for the pale constellation of stars that hung over Fort Confidence. It was splendid traveling. The surface of the arctic plain was frozen solid. What little wind there was came from behind them, and the dogs were big and fresh. Uppy ran briskly, snapping the lash of his whip and la-looing to the dogs in the manner of the Eskimo driver. Dolores did not wait for Peter's demand for a further explanation of their running away and her remarkable words to Blake. She told him. She omitted, for the sake of Peter's peace ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... looking turtle," Rose said. "See how high up it is." None of them had ever seen a wood tortoise before, and the box-like, horny shell was not like that of the little mud-turtles in Rainbow River or the snapping turtle Laddie ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... We were now between two fires; the great conflagration from which we were trying to protect ourselves came on from the west like a roaring tornado, its ashes falling all about us, its hot breath beginning to scorch us, its snapping and crackling now reaching the ear along with its roar; while on the east was the fire of my own kindling, growing in speed, racing off away from us, leaving behind it our haven of refuge, a tract swept clean of food for the flames, but hot and smoking, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... old salt is endeavouring to impose on their credulity. But they are soon undeceived. Scarcely have they set foot within the breeding precinct, when fully half a score of old penguins rush fiercely at each of the intruders, with necks outstretched, mouths open, and mandibles snapping together with a clatter ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... abroad, but like the sow in the mire at home.' The immoral taint infected the young. '0! it is horrible to behold how irreverently, how easily, and malapertly, children, yea, professing children, at this day, carry it to their parents; snapping and checking, curbing and rebuking of them, as if they had received a dispensation from God to dishonour and disobey parents.' p. 535. 'This day, a sea and deluge of iniquity has drowned those that have a form of godliness. Now immorality shall, with professors, be in fashion, be pleaded ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... said; "there's no use going into it any farther. You believe, with the rest of them, that I'm a criminal and deserve the penitentiary. I don't care a straw about the others," he cried, snapping his fingers again. "And I suppose, if I'd had any sense, I might have expected it from you, too, Victoria—though you are ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... true, the magnificent landscapes of his youth; the fields of maize, the steppes, dotted here and there with clumps of wild roses; the Carpathian pines, with their sombre murmur; and all the evening sounds which had been his infancy's lullaby; the cowbells, melancholy and indistinct; the snapping of the great whips of the czikos; the mounted shepherds, with their hussar jackets, crossing the plains where grew the plants peculiar to the country; and the broad horizons with the enormous arms of the windmills outlined against the golden ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... snapping over thick to keep them down while the Boche went on, on the right: machine guns, of course. The barrage was screaming well over and dropping far back, and their wire was still all right just in front of them, when ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... brave and steadfast. Life began to resume for her its normal aspect, the aspect which it had worn in the old days before Sir John had ever come down to Kynaston, or ever found her day-dreaming in the churchyard upon Farmer Crupps' family sarcophagus. The tongue of the sour-tempered old lady, snapping and snarling at her with more than the bitterness of old, and the suppressed sighs and mournful demeanour of her sister, whose sympathy and companionship she had now completely forfeited, and who went about the house with a face of ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... thought occurred to me that I had heard the same voice the night before. I reflected for a moment, and when I looked up at the roof again there was no girl to be seen. Suddenly she darted past me, with another song on her lips, and, snapping her fingers, she ran up to the old woman. Thereupon a quarrel arose between them. The old woman grew angry, and the girl laughed loudly. And then I saw my Undine running and gambolling again. She came up to where I was, stopped, ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... Pelican bird, snapping his bill together just like a big pair of scissors. "I ate the first one after it fell to the ground near me, and I ate the second one that you shot over here. They're good—marbles are! I like 'em. Give ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... indoors or out, on land or water, in any sort of weather." After I got the new machine, with a tripod to insure stability and consequent sharpness of outline, a piece of lemon-colored glass for cloud photography and another extra lens for portrait work, I began snapping at anything that held out even the faintest promise of allowing me to clear expenses in the course of acquiring needed experience. I photographed the neighbors' children, houses offered for sale, downtown street scenes and any number ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing |
