"Swab" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... interesting. Hazlitt stole up behind, and knocked his hat flying across the cloister. In a second Gordon and Lovelace were on him. They did not care in the very least what happened to Davenham. He played no part in their life. But a School House man had been "cheeked" by a filthy little outhouse swab. These aliens had ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... structures and the ease with which proper drainage may be effected. No special after-care is necessary if drainage is perfect, except that one should avoid injecting the wound cavity with aqueous solutions unless it be absolutely necessary to cleanse such cavity, and then it is best to swab the wound rather than ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... a pail, and apparently varnishing the chairs with a little swab as he moved swiftly about the room; and, as he came nearer, Davy determined to speak ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... Silas Talbot encountered the perfidious King George to the southward of Long Island and riddled her with one broadside after another, first hailing Captain Hazard by name and cursing him in double-shotted phrases for the traitorous swab that he was. Then the seagoing infantry scrambled over the bulwarks and tumbled the Tories down their own hatches without losing a man. A prize crew with the humiliated King George made for New London, where there was much cheering in the port, and "even the women, both young and old, expressed the ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... about. This limping dummy of a fakir thinks he's got us frightened, and we've got to teach him different. There's some reason why we're not being attacked as yet. There's something fishy going on, and this swab's at the bottom of it! We want him, too, on a charge of murder, or instigating murder, and the guardroom's the best place for him. To the guardroom with him. He'll do for a hostage anyhow. And where ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... had both mastered the reef-knot, and had tried our hand at others—the bowline, the figure of eight, the Carrick-bend, and the old swab-hitch. He was very patient with us. He told us exactly how each knot would be used at sea, and when, and why, and what the officers would say, and how things would look on deck while they were in the doing. The time passed pleasantly and quickly; we felt like jolly robbers ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... follows: 3 parts water, 1 part nitric acid, 1 part sulphuric acid. Allow the metal to remain in this until the acid has eaten to a depth of 1/32 in., then remove it and clean in a turpentine bath, using a swab and an old stiff brush. The amount of time required to do the etching will depend upon the strength of the liquid, as well as ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... swab," cried the commodore, "nearer by twelve fathom: but, howsomever, that's enough to prove the falsehood of Hatchway's jaw—and so, brother, d'ye see," turning to Pickle, "I lay alongside of the Flour de Louse, yard-arm and ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... Hitches his breeches and shifts his quid "Hey? What is it? Who 's come to grief Louder, young swab, I 'm ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... said Tony, jumping the gate as I went through it, "get busy with this situation. We've got almost a half-hour, so be doing something, everybody. Belle, you help Roxy skin that kid and get him into clean clothes while I swab up and light old Pomp's jimson-weed pipe for him?" And as Tony spoke he started to ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... pallid and lustreless as a sea of molten lead. The atmosphere was still oppressively close, but it was no longer as deadly stagnant as it had been during the earlier hours of the day; for, at intervals, the vane at our main-royal masthead, which hitherto had drooped heavy as a sodden deck swab, save for the swaying motion imparted to it by the lift of the ship to the heave of the scarcely visible swell, lifted and fluttered feebly for a second or two, pointing now this way, and anon in some other direction, showing ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... restraint. "You found it. And yo're going back after more?" His forehead was still creased with puzzlement. "Wal, I'm going with ye, eyes or no eyes, an' I'll keep tabs on ye, Bill Simms, by day and night. You can lay to that, you slimy-hearted swab!" ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... of the normal, well eye has been already described, and while it need not be reiterated, we may say, in passing, that if the eyelid be at all inclined to be sticky or adherent, never use force, but instead, gently swab with boracic acid. As a preventive of this condition, a little vaseline from the tube may be rubbed on the edges of ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... down to cases, as the preachers says: Old Andy he don't cantankerate none noticeable. When he feels needful of a jamboree he goes down to the bank an' fills his pockets an' a couple of valises with change, an' gum-shoes down to John D. Swab's, an' they hunt up Charley Carnage an' a couple of senators an' a rack of chips an' they finds 'em a back room, pulls off their collars an' coats an' goes to it. They ain't no kitty only to cover the needful expenses ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... says he, his voice kind of breakin' up. "That's what I want to forget, how—how late it is!" and hanged if he don't have to fish out a handkerchief and swab off his eyes. "You see," ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... They seized on me again, and led me to the tanks, where they almost flayed me with horse-hair gloves, and drowned me with bowls of warm water, poured continuously on my head. I could not see, and if I again tried to cry out, they thrust a large soapy swab, made of the fibres that grow at the foot of the date palm, into my mouth, accompanying each renewed act of cruelty with a demand for baksheesh. At last, being fairly exhausted, themselves, they swathed me in a great many towels; and I was ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... holding the pistol in his hand he gave me several more cuts, and then told me to swab the deck. I did it, pretending all the time I was scarce strong enough to keep my feet. Then I made my way forward and sat down against the bulwark, as if nigh done up, till night came. That night as I lay ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... seen the great swab, who is supple as a glove, and will do ALL, which some interpret NOTHING. However, we shall ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... cresol is an excellent remedy at this stage. It should be applied, in its pure or undiluted state, to the suppurating and putrefying tissue between the claws. It is best applied by means of a cotton swab on a thin stick. Care must be taken to keep it from contact with the skin about the coronary band or heels. If deep sloughing has taken place the carbolic solution should be used, and a wad of oakum or cotton smeared with ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... it? Oh, if I had my scissors here till I'd clip your ears off—wouldn't I be the happy man, any how, you swab, ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Audrey, and transformed himself instantaneously into what she had hitherto imagined a chauffeur always was; but in those few moments she had learnt that the essence of a chauffeur is godlike, and that he toils not, neither does he swab. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... many courses as you like, with a wash-up like a small mountain, which the masalchi disposes of behind the pantry door on a yard or two of bamboo matting, with an earthen gumla, a kettle of boiling water, and an unthinkable swab! An English maid would ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... put them on because we did not want to be impressed by the first ship that came in, but preferred to wait a bit till we saw one to suit us. I see, sir, that you have shipped a swab. That means, of course, that you have got a lieutenancy. I congratulate you indeed, ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... disburden the bicycle of its covering of clay. The awkward-looking hostler comes around several times and eyes the proceedings with glances of genuine disapproval, doubtless thinking I am cleaning it myself instead of letting him swab it with a besom with the single purpose in view of dodging the inevitable tip. The proprietor can speak a few words of English. He puts his bald head out of the window above, and asks: "Pe you Herr Shtevens ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... 1777. William Gamble deposes that the prisoners were huddled together with negroes, had weak grog; no swab to clean the ship; bad oil; raw pork; seamen refused them water; called them d——d rebels; the dead not ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... said the gallant mariner, reaching for his tobacco pouch, "I think it would be as well to swab her down with liniment. There's a bottle of it in my cabin. Better suggest ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... 30 minutes, then pour out the solution, remove the hose and breech plug, and swab out thoroughly with soda solution to neutralize and remove all trace of ammonia ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... his soul, but did the condemned sailors think you could keep steam up in the God-forsaken boilers simply by knocking the blanked stokers about? No, by George! You had to get some draught, too—may he be everlastingly blanked for a swab-headed deck-hand if you didn't! And the chief, too, rampaging before the steam-gauge and carrying on like a lunatic up and down the engine-room ever since noon. What did Jukes think he was stuck up there for, if he couldn't get one of his decayed, ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... chambermaid to a cow, but it's worse being groom to a gun. These rifles have been in use all summer, and they're all et up inside. They're like fat men, they sweat. Then they rust. Put in some dope and swab the barrel, then take twenty-five dinky little squares of cotton flannel and run them through, and the last will be just as dirty as the first. Let it go at that, and put in some ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... matter. He had issued forth on the enterprise, cased in tight blue pantaloons that fitted him like his skin, over which were drawn long well-polished Hessian boots, each with a formidable tassel at top, and his coat was buttoned close up to the chin, with a blaz-, ing swab on the right shoulder, while a laced cocked hat and dress sword completed his equipment. But, alas! when we were accounted for on board of the old Torch, there was a fearful dilapidation of his external man. First ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... shows an ordinary "gate" of fitting patterns being drawn from the drag or nowel part of the mould by means of a spike and rapper wielded by the moulder's hand after cope and drag have been rammed together on a "squeezer" and cope has been removed. Frequently the pernicious "swab" is used to soak and so strengthen joint outlines of the sand before drawing patterns, in such cases as this. In this case, before cope is lifted, these patterns must be vigorously rapped through the cope; an amount depending (and so does the size of the casting) upon ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... your heart for a dirty swab like that," he said, with more of insistence than interrogation in his voice. "Look you here, Columbine! You're too honest to care for a beast like that. Why—though I pulled him out of the quicksand and saved him from the sea—I'd have wrung his neck if he'd stayed ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes—what do the doctor know of lands like that?—and I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee-shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab;" and he ran on again for a while with curses. "Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges," he continued, in the pleading tone. "I can't keep 'em still, not I. I haven't had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pus germs following injury or digestive troubles. Symptoms: Cheesy growths in mouth and throat. Treatment: Scrape off canker and swab with full strength Pratts Poultry Disinfectant. Improve general condition with Pratts ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... say to de man ahead o' me, 'huccome dat white man don't bus' dat damn yeller swab ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... best fitted for running mines or herding cattle, Dan. And I'm leaving all the boys who know me for those who don't—and I don't git on with folks who don't know me. God knows what persuaded me to sell to that macaroni-eating swab. But it's done, and there ain't no manner of ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... pounds' weight of green food with a quart of arrack, and Deesa would take a share and sing songs between Moti Guj's legs till it was time to go to bed. Once a week Deesa led Moti Guj down to the river, and Moti Guj lay on his side luxuriously in the shallows, while Deesa went over him with a coir-swab and a brick. Moti Guj never mistook the pounding blow of the latter for the smack of the former that warned him to get up and turn over on the other side. Then Deesa would look at his feet, and examine his ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... down for a little rest. Better finish the job completely while you are about it. You will appreciate leisure so much more later. In lack of a wash-rag you will find that a bunch of tall grass bent double makes an ideal swab. ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... of distant seas— And humbly then I bowed my neck And sank forlornly to my knees To swab the blooming deck; A wealth of flaming pageantries, When, in a dusty Indian fort, I went to early morning jerks,[A] Cursing the sun and all his works And dripping ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... Cap'n Dott. Don't you worry about Zuby and me. We'll boss this end of the craft; you 'tend to the rest of it. Say, that Hungerford swab ain't come ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... if some one down the street had got him tied to the end of a pole and is using him to swab off his windows," said Abe Lincoln with a good-natured laugh. "I'll try to ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... the boy for indoor work is the "house-coolie," whose business it is to swab floors, polish grates, light fires, trim lamps, clean knives and boots and make himself generally useful about the house. Oftentimes he is unable to speak any English, wears a short coat in contradistinction to the boy's long one, and while ranking below the boy is ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... Foltz, the surgeon who attended the house. The doctor took a look at my arm, and recommended an operation, as the lump would continue to increase, and was already so large as to be inconvenient. I cannot say that it hurt me any, though it was an awkward sort of swab to be carrying on a fellow's shoulder. I had no great relish for being carved, and think I should have refused to submit to the operation, were it not for James, who told me he would not be carrying Bunker Hill about on his arm, and would show me his own stump by way of encouragement. ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... for you if you vas, you seven-foot stock-fish,' cried my enemy the cooper, whose aspect was not improved by a great strip of plaster over his eye. 'You might have learned something petter than to pull on a rope, or to swab decks like a vrouw ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... him a swab, and he leaned over the dory, mopping up the slime clumsily, but with great good-will. "Hike out the foot-boards; they slide in them grooves," said Dan. "Swab 'em an' lay 'em down. Never let a foot-board jam. Ye may want her bad some day. Here's ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... mind that. I have n't got anything you are used to. I just take them down to the stream and swab them off with ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... use of the antitoxin at the proper stage of the disease, early recognition is important, and fortunately science here can be of great service. By wiping out the throat with a sterilized swab of cotton, the bacteria present in the throat, if any, will adhere and may be wiped off onto a gelatine substance in which the germs can grow. In twelve hours, they will have developed, if present, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... the Parson between clenched teeth. "I'll swab that boy's soul clean if I have to do it with a scrubbing-brush.... Now, Knapp, ready yourself, while I write a ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... back to his seat, Silver added to me in a confidential whisper that was very flattering, as I thought, "He's quite an honest man, Tom Morgan, on'y stupid. And now," he ran on again, aloud, "let's see—Black Dog? No, I don't know the name, not I. Yet I kind of think I've—yes, I've seen the swab. He used to come here with a ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... labor is so frequently done in a negligent manner, by domestics, as this. A full supply of conveniences, will do much toward a remedy of this evil. A swab, made of strips of linen, tied to a stick, is useful to wash nice dishes, especially small, deep articles. Two or three towels, and three dish-cloths, should be used. Two large tin tubs, painted on the outside, should be provided; one for washing, and one for rinsing; ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... "D'yer hear, you black swab!" cried the sailor. "Show the way to your master's house, and keep that talking box of ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... brushing should be done lightly and the strokes should follow the ridge design in order to clean not only the ridges but the depressions as well. In the event that the skin is not firm enough to use the toothbrush, a cotton swab may be used. The fingers should be wiped very lightly with either soap and water or xylene, always following the ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... fellow as ever stepped and never failed in his duty, I don't think he would have been willing to act as you suggest. We must not forget that we were once upon a time youngsters ourselves, and we may possibly recall to mind some of the tricks we played in those days, ay, and after we had mounted a swab, or maybe two, on our shoulders. You remember the sentry-box which stood at the inner end of the landing-place on the Common Hard, with a comfortable seat inside it, rather tempting, it must be confessed, to a drowsily-disposed sentry to take a quiet snooze. Our fore-fathers had more consideration ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... kept running up, and yet it looked like sheer Waste to lavish so much Collateral on the upkeep of a Physical Swab. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... if you give a good account of her, it will put another swab on your shoulder. The pirate schooner, which has so long infested the Atlantic, has been seen and chased off Barbadoes by the Amelia; but it appears that there is not a vessel in the squadron which can come near her, unless it be ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... fancy to worry her. Captain Helfrich had hitherto taken no notice whatever of me, and he seemed to me so awful a person, that I never expected to be spoken to by him. Now and then the mates ordered me to do some little job or other, to fetch a swab or a marlinespike, or to hold a paint-pot, but they in no other ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... beheld the scene, but I said nothing. I considered myself too fortunate to escape with life. When it was all over, the boatswain roared out, "That job's done! Now, Mr Barber, swab up all this here blood, and be d——d to you! and recollect that you are one of us." I obeyed in fear and silence, and then returned to my former station near ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... to send you to bed without your supper. Talk to you? You bet I'll talk to you, John Cardigan; and I'll tell you things, too, you scandalous bunko-steerer. To-morrow morning I'm going to put a pair of overalls on you, arm you with a tin can and a swab, and set you to greasing the skidways. ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... corporal, I know who you mean. It was him—I am sure—and as sure as I sit here I'll be revenged. Bring a swab, corporal, and wipe up all this blood. Do you think the poor ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... know of lands like that?—and I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me; and if I'm not to have my rum now I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore, my blood'll be on you, Jim, and that doctor swab"; and he ran on again for a while with curses. "Look, Jim, how my fingers fidges," he continued in the pleading tone. "I can't keep 'em still, not I. I haven't had a drop this blessed day. That doctor's a fool, I tell you. If I don't have a drain ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... over to the custody of a little man, with big, staring eyes, and a magnified head of hair that made him look like a gun-swab. This ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... scavenger, dustman[obs3], sweep; white wings brush[Local U. S.]; broom, besom[obs3], mop, rake, shovel, sieve, riddle, screen, filter; blotter. napkin, cloth, maukin|, malkin|, handkerchief, towel, sudary[obs3]; doyley[obs3], doily, duster, sponge, mop, swab. cover, drugget[obs3]. wash, lotion, detergent, cathartic, purgative; purifier &c. v.; disinfectant; aperient[obs3]; benzene, benzine benzol, benolin[obs3]; bleaching powder, chloride of lime, dentifrice, deobstruent[obs3], laxative. V. be clean, render clean &c. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... the Knitting Swede, that prince of crimps, who put most of us into the ship. There was myself, with my childish vanity, and petty ambitions. There was the lady, the beautiful, despairing lady aft, wife of the infamous brute who ruled us. There was Cockney, the gutless swab, whose lying words nearly had Newman's life. And last, and chiefly, there was the man with the scar, he who called himself 'Newman,' man of mystery, who came like the fabled knight, killed the beast who held the princess captive, and led ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... having married the young ladies to whom we had so long been attached, entered the firm, and on the death of that kind and excellent man Mr Swab, we found that he had divided his ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... sake, he was determined to bear his sufferings with patience and resignation, and to obey the captain, even if he told him to jump overboard. He did what was almost as bad as this, for he ordered the sick boy to swab up the deck—an entirely useless operation, for the spray was breaking over the bow of the Roebuck, and the water was rushing in torrents out of the lee scuppers. But Noddy, true to his resolution, obeyed the order, and dragged his weary body forward to perform ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... the reins, sat The Crew. "Don't sit grinning there, you blockhead!" shouted the ancient mariner to Sylvanus; "hev ye been so long aboard ship ye can't tell a stable when you see it? Drive on, you slabsided swab!" The Captain's combination of lumbering with nautical pursuits gave a peculiar and not always congruous flavour to his pet phrases; but Sylvanus did not mind; he drove round the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... said pleasantly, "you are a tar, as any one can see, and as good a seaman, I doubt not, as ever slept upon foc's'le. Two years ago I was a swab myself—" ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... 14th of April, and sarve them right, too. Wasn't a four-decker enough for any two-decker, without any more coming on us? and couldn't the beggars have matched themselves like gentlemen? Well, Mr Simple, this gave us a minute or two to fetch, our breath, let the guns cool, and repair damages, and swab the blood from the decks; but we lost our four-decker, for we could not ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... near the top of the water; and whether it's drift-nets or trawling-nets, they must take their share of hauling in and of playing out, night or day. More than that, too: any sort of work is boy's work, whether it's to swab the decks or to take a turn at frying fish in the cooking-galley, or paying a boat with tar, or helping to take a boat-load of fish off to the cutter in bad weather, when the waves tosses so that the fish, being loose, may slide, so that one side of the boat may heel over, and ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... silver to the foot of copper is sufficient. To apply it on new plates use nitric acid applied with a swab to free the surface of the copper from oxides or impurities, then rub the ball of amalgam over the surface using some little force. It is always well when coating copper plates with silver or zinc by means ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... the use of a swab made by twisting a bit of absorbent cotton upon a wooden toothpick. With this the folds between the gums and lips and cheeks may be gently and carefully cleansed twice a day unless the mouth is sore. It is not ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... rope-yarns sometimes secured to the tompion, saturated with water to cool the gun in action, and swab up ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... thy lime-kiln, that we may swab off the dark blemishes of the hour!! Aye, and on the whited wall, draw thee a picture of power and beauty Cleveland, for instance, thanking the peoples party for all the favors gratuitously granted by our mongrel saints in speckled ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... bed-furniture, with great rejoicings; the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in number at the last census) turning out on the beach to rub their own hands and shake everybody else's, and sing "Fill, fill!" A certain dark-complexioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything else that was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly stated (by the boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed to two other Swabs to get all mankind ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... tent-caterpillar may be destroyed while in the egg state, as these are plainly visible around the smaller twigs in circular, brownish masses. (See illustration.) Upon hatching, also, the nests are obtrusively visible and may be wiped out with a swab of old bag, or burned with a kerosene torch. Be sure to apply this treatment before the caterpillar begins to leave the nest. The treatment recommended for codlin-moths is also effective for ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... champagne, shut the door and struck a light. Then he opened the bottle of fizz and poured it out into a deep, enamelled starching-dish, and Billy MacLaggan drank thereof, and then raised his head, with his immoral-looking beard hanging in a sodden point like a wet deck-swab, and asked for more. That is, he asked as well as any Christian and civilised goat could ask, by standing up on his hind legs like a circus-horse and making strange, unearthly noises. Then he rammed his wicked old nose into the dish again, and pushed it all round ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... spoken orders and make a fatal error. Therefore, pay no attention to unwritten orders. That will do for you for the present. Xanthippe, you may take Ophelia and Madame Recamier, and ten other ladies, and, every morning before breakfast, swab the larboard deck. Cassandra, Tuesdays you will devote to polishing the brasses in the dining-room, and the balance of your time I wish you to expend in dusting the bric-a-brac. Dido, you always were strong at building ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... "Swab," said Raft, two tones deeper. Then he laughed as if to himself. "Well, that's a go," said he. He took a pull at his beard as he contemplated this slayer of men seated on her blankets at his feet. She glanced up and saw that ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... here, though, I'll have you to understand, you swab," shrieked Snipes, with a volley of ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... out the baby's mouth done? Use a swab made by twisting some absorbent cotton upon a toothpick. The folds between the gums and lips and cheeks may be gently and carefully cleaned twice a day ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Miles smiling. "However, you can please yourself, and get any of the hands you may want to assist in lifting back the bunks and so on in their proper places—some of the things may be too heavy for you. At all events, make the saloon presentable before we come down again, and swab up ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... fine words; it's you who forget, you swab. Ay, it's you who forget that you asked me to take the money to the gambling- tent, and made me promise that you should have half of what we won, but that I should play for both. What, are you beginning to remember now—is it coming back to ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... half hang 'em to make 'em float, and then haul 'em out. Awful lookin' critters they be, you may depend, when they do come out; for all the world like half-drowned kittens—all slinkey slimey, with their great long tails glued up like a swab of oakum dipped in tar. If they don't look foolish it's a pity! Well, they have to nurse these critters all winter, with hot mashes, warm covering, and what not, and when spring comes, they mostly die, and if they don't they are ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... the many household slaves, white-headed and shrunken, and bent with the toil of years, squatted by the fire in the court of the slaves' quarters, cleaning a copper pot with a swab of twigs soaked in oil to pliancy. Within the house a feast was in progress, so that all the slaves were there on service, and Marcus had the fire to himself. He crooned softly as he scrubbed; ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... full height. My windows were so hot that I could not bear my hand on them. I opened one and felt the woodwork, which was equally hot. I had buckets of water in the front and rear rooms, with an improvised swab, made by tying up a feather duster, ready to put out any small fire which would be within my reach. I watched the situation for an hour, and as the flames died down a little I had hope, and at 10 P. M. I felt satisfied that it would not cross Van Ness Avenue, and neither would it cross ...
— San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906 • James B. Stetson |
