"Ticklish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... if you've got the pluck and the sand. But it's a ticklish place. There is a good many places in there that I ain't never explored, and don't want to; and it's safe to bet that the hoboes ain't done it, neither. I reckon, mister, that that's about all I kin show ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... from the enemy, are highly enraged at Dikaiopolis for concluding a peace with the Lacedaemonians, and determine to stone him. He undertakes to speak in defence of the Lacedaemonians, standing the while behind a block, as he is to lose his head if he does not succeed in convincing them. In this ticklish predicament, he calls on Euripides, to lend him the tattered garments in which that poet's heroes were in the habit of exciting commiseration. We must suppose the house of the tragic poet to occupy the middle of the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... that I have a natural Aversion to Pain. Besides, it is as vulgar as Rats-bane, or the slicing of the Weasand. No, I'll die a Death uncommon, and leave behind me an eternal Fame. I have somewhere read an Author, either antient or modern, of a Man that laugh'd to death.—I am very ticklish, and am resolv'd to die that Death.—Oh, Mopsophil, my cruel Mopsophil! [Pulls off his Hat, Sword and Shoes. And now, farewel the World, fond Love, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... earnest, were those compelled to resort who ventured upon the ticklish experiment of presenting heroic entertainments for king's palaces, where 'hanging was the word' in case of a fright; but, with a genius like this behind the scenes, so fertile in invention, so various in gifts, who could aggravate ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... appearance, to herself, by suggesting that it would not do for the husband of her sister to detest her! That was sophistry, and it was sophistry that served her now; but the subjects upon which she exercised it were becoming hourly more and more ticklish. The woman of two weeks back would have started and turned pale before ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... on placidly in a bland tone of mild persuasion, 'there's the question of politics. Politics are a very ticklish matter, I can assure you, in Pilbury Regis. Have you any fixed political opinions of your own, Le Breton, or are you waiting to form them till you've had some little ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... see what I can do," he answered; "but it is ticklish work interfering with such fellows as the present master of this ship, unless one advises the very thing ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... sell him any? Would the other members of the family care to do anything which would infringe on Robert's prerogatives under the will? They were all rather unfriendly to Lester at present, and he realized that he was facing a ticklish situation. The solution was—to get rid of Jennie. If he did that he would not need to be begging for stock. If he didn't, he was flying in the face of his father's last will and testament. He turned the matter over in his mind slowly and deliberately. He could quite see how things were ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... You know the dam: half of it is cut from the rock, and the water all comes into it from the end. It was not a matter of half a dozen Kafirs with spades, like most dams, but a business for dynamite and all kinds of ticklish and awkward work. So Jan wisely did not put his own fingers to it, but sent to the Rand for an Uitlander to come out and burst the rocks; and they sent him this young fellow, the Irishman Moore. He was a tall youth, with hair like some of the red in that sunset over ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... a King use a string and Bell, so that after you have passed, you need not doubt the end, as being a thing not so ticklish, or requiring so much Art as the King does, to be toucht finely and gently at a distance, without throwing it down: This alone is to be preferred for ingenious Persons, the other for the ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... to, at that," said Stone. "You're pretty slight. But it would be a ticklish proposition without any rope from above. Well, if ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... bubble's burst and gone for ever. But why are they such fools? I gave Zametov a bit of a thrashing at the time—that's between ourselves, brother; please don't let out a hint that you know of it; I've noticed he is a ticklish subject; it was at Luise Ivanovna's. But to-day, to-day it's all cleared up. That Ilya Petrovitch is at the bottom of it! He took advantage of your fainting at the police station, but he is ashamed of it ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... invited me to Paris, to share in the festivities and honours he proclaims. I would risk it, for I believe it is the safer game, except for two obstacles, and both of those are women. Matters are growing very ticklish now. That old bat of a Stubbard has got scent of a rat, and is hunting about the farm-houses. It would be bad for him if he came prowling here; that step for inspectors is well contrived. Twenty feet fall on his head for my friend; ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... ticklish, as you know, and the boy is young! He has not as yet, through proper training, had time to learn all the arts by which one gains one's wishes. Now, I ask nothing more of life, for I know what it gives; therefore he shall have my wish-ring. ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... chuckled. "But the woods don't breed many runts, that's a fact. There's some bigger than I. Long Sam Dorgan is near seven feet he isn't quite sure, for he's so ticklish that you can't ever measure him," and Uncle Henry's chuckle burst into a full-fledged laugh. "He's just as graceful as a length of shingle lathing, too. And freckles and liver spots on his hands and face, well, he certain ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... ups and downs that try to make an impress, but can only glide away upon either side or sink in dimples under it. And here a gray bough of the ancient alder stretches across, like a thirsty giant's arm, and makes it a very ticklish place to throw a fly. Yet this was the very spot our John Pike must put his fly into, ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... after my conversation with the old Dutchman," Derville continued, "I sent in my thesis, and became first a licentiate in law, and afterwards an advocate. The old miser's opinion of me went up considerably. He consulted me (gratuitously) on all the ticklish bits of business which he undertook when he had made quite sure how he stood, business which would have seemed unsafe to any ordinary practitioner. This man, over whom no one appeared to have the slightest influence, listened to my advice with something like respect. ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... he eased himself through the opening. There was a ticklish moment when he had to let go of the side of the compartment and swing over on the step. He took a deep breath ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... said Malcolm. He knew, from sundry remarks he had heard about the stables, that the mare in question was a ticklish one to ride, but would rather have his ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... certainly the more so when there is another whom she does love. In my endeavour to teach this lesson I subjected the young wife to the terrible danger of overtures from the man to whom her heart had been given. I was walking no doubt on ticklish ground, leaving for a while a doubt on the question whether the lover might or might not succeed. Then there came to me a letter from a distinguished dignitary of our Church, a man whom all men honoured, treating me with severity for what I was doing. It had been one of the ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... me? I've heard of the Phelpses ever since I was knee-high to a duck. They are folks nobody need feel ticklish about shaking hands with. You're the only swelled up one of the stock. I never knowed but one wuthless Phelp, and he was a good enough fisher when he was sober. Colonel, were you ever picked up by puttin' out your paw to the wrong ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... perplexity, &c. (see uncertainty); intricacy; entanglement; cross fire; awkwardness, delicacy, ticklish card to play, knot, Gordian knot, dignus vindice nodus, net, meshes, maze; coil, &c. (see ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... instance, in the case of tickling the feet. You can, if you make up your mind to it, prevent yourself from either wriggling, pulling your foot away, or giggling, when the sole of your foot is tickled; but if you happen to be at all "ticklish," it will take all the determination you have to do it, and some children are utterly unable to resist this ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... wi' the Judges, Nae drooning a' your grudges In deep, deep draughts o' claret, and a' your senses tae, Nae chatter wise or witty On ticklish points o' dittay,— The days o' my Circuits ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... Melbourne's affair with Mrs. Norton, which latter, if it is not quashed, will be inconvenient. John Bull fancies himself vastly moral, and the Court is mighty prudish, and between them our off-hand Premier will find himself in a ticklish position. He has been served with notices, but people rather doubt the action coming on. I asked the Duke of Wellington a night or two ago what he had heard of it, and what he thought would be the result. He ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... the English, in hope of some tolerable bargain from Austria? Shall I have to join with the French, in despair of any?" Readers may consider how stringent upon Friedrich that question now was, and how ticklish to solve. And it must be solved soon,—under penalty of "being left with no ally at all" (as Friedrich expresses himself), while the whole world is grouping itself into armed heaps for and against! If the English would but get me a bargain—? ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... bootiful wimin, and a heap of good clothes. There was a good deal of hair present that belonged on the heds of peple who didn't cum with it—but this is a ticklish subjeck for me. I larfed at my wife's waterfall, which indoosed that superior woman to take it off and heave it at me rather vilently; and as there was about a half bushil of it, it knockt me over, and give me pains in my body which I hain't got ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... into my bunk and Bill got into 'is, and we lay there listening while the cook, who was a terrible ticklish man, leaned out of 'is bunk and said wot 'e'd do ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... proceed to hum the rest of the air in falsetto, he had to be satisfied with murmuring, smiling the while, as if, after all, there had been something irresistibly amusing in the sheer beauty of the painting: "It smells all right; it makes your head go round; it catches your breath; you feel ticklish all over—and not the faintest clue to how it's done. The man's a sorcerer; the thing's a conjuring-trick, it's a miracle," bursting outright into laughter, "it's dishonest!" Then stopping, solemnly raising his head, pitching his voice on a double-bass ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... thine airy bound Drop like a feather softly to the ground; This light bolero grows a ticklish dance, And there is mischief in thy kindling glance. To-morrow bids thee, with rebuking frown, Change thy gauze tunic for a home-made gown, Too blest by fortune if the passing day Adorn thy bosom with its frail bouquet, But oh, still happier if the next forgets Thy ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... situation even more ticklish, Cunningham's servant, in his zeal for his master's comfort, had forgotten to sham sickness, and instead of limping was in abominably active evidence. He was even doing more than was expected of him. Ralph Cunningham had said nothing to him—had ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... vacillations of Austria were notorious; and Pitt was said to be about to send Eden to Paris to sue for peace. As for Spain, she was hard pressed; French and American emissaries had stirred up strife in her colonies; and affairs were most "ticklish" in San Domingo. His Government had therefore sought for a composition (not a definite peace) with France. In fact, the war as a whole had failed, for whereas the Allies had set themselves to crush French principles, they ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... in the German trenches just over the way with regard to what was taking place in our lines. Relief periods are ticklish intervals for the side making them. It is quite possible that some intimation of our presence ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... at breakfast this morning wearing only half a moustache. He said a goat had browsed off the other half while he slept. The poor beast has been having fits of giggles ever since—a moustache must be very ticklish ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... years, and hardly shown to any one, so that the whole younger generation of dealers and collectors knew of them only by hearsay. Then you know the effect of suggestion in such cases. The undefinable sense we were speaking of is a ticklish instrument, easily thrown out of gear by a sudden fall of temperature; and the sharpest experts grow shy and self-distrustful when the cold current of depreciation touches them. The sale was a slaughter—and when I saw the Daunt Diana fall at ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... who during this conversation had sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes fastened upon the floor, "things is getting sorter ticklish down here in this neck of the woods already. Nobody don't know who he ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... British supply depot and Nairne had just been sent thither to aid in repelling a menace from the American fleet. He had brought his force from Ten Mile Creek, in boats, on the open lake, and the journey, lasting all day, was ticklish enough. All the time the American fleet was in pursuit and it reached the narrow gateway to Burlington Bay only an hour and a half after Captain Nairne entered. The enemy intended to storm the heights, and landed 800 men for that purpose; but finding the position ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... broth. "Kail through the reek," to give one a severe reproof. Kail-brose, pottage of meal made with the scum of broth. Kale-yard, a vegetable garden. Ken, to know. Kend, knew. Kenna, kensna, know not. Kittle, ticklish. Kye, kine. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... over. In the beginning of the play Socrates expressly declares that no gods exist. Similar statements are repeated in several places. Zeus is sometimes substituted for the gods, but it comes to the same thing. And at the end of the play, where the honest Athenian, who has ventured on the ticklish ground of sophistic, admits his delusion, ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... ranges roughly all round to prominent objects by the mekometer, as it gives one added confidence and is invaluable when shooting over the heads of one's own men to cover their attack, which is often a ticklish job and to be successful must be continued up to the very last moment it ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... without feeling a something in common with them, that you do not have even with life-long friends. The high officer and the cockney Tommy have that linking up. There was one person whom I couldn't grow to like. But with him I have shared a ticklish time, and there is that cord of connection. Then, too, one is glad of a record of oneself. There is some one to verify what you say. You have passed through an unbelievable thing together, and ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... thing, Darrell," Morrell rapped to me. "The thing is ticklish. You have a feeling all the time that you are taking liberties. I can't explain it, but I always had a feeling if I was away when they came and let my body out of the jacket that I couldn't get back into my body again. I mean that my body would be dead for keeps. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... seemed to be all right with Corny now, and we had a good time together. I was going to say to him, once, that he had changed his mind about girls, but I thought I wouldn't. It would be better to let well enough alone, and he was a ticklish customer. ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... often draw tears from her goodly cheeks; she walketh out but little, meditates much alone, and sometimes writes in private to her best friends. The Scottish matters do cause much discourse, but we know not the true grounds of state business, nor venture further on such ticklish points[137]. Her highness hath done honor to my poor house by visiting me, and seemed much pleased at what we did to please her. My son made her a fair speech, to which she did give most gracious reply. The women did dance before her, whilst ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... protect it, and soon Johnny came to the surface hugging to his breast with his left hand a wildly flapping turtle, while with his right he struck out for the canoe. Getting into the canoe would have been a ticklish job, so Johnny handed the turtle to his companion and swam to the bank while Dick followed with the canoe. By the time Johnny had butchered the turtle, Dick had constructed a very creditable camp-fire ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... he paused abruptly, as if he had suddenly remembered that tact and not pugnacity was the requirement for the handling of this ticklish situation. ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... condemn this extraordinary delicacy, as I may call it, of virtue, as too nice and scrupulous; but we must make allowances for her situation, which must be owned to have been very ticklish; and, when we consider the malice of censorious tongues, we must allow, if it was a fault, the fault was an excess on the right side, and which every woman who is in the self-same situation will do well to imitate. The most formal appearance of virtue, when it is only an appearance, may, perhaps, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... to be grateful. If I understand Colonel REAY rightly he doesn't wish bouquets to be thrown at the Specials, but he would not, I think, discourage me from saying that they performed dangerous and ticklish work with unfailing resource and tact. All of us know that they desire no other reward for their services than the satisfaction of having done their duty; but our gratitude demands to be heard; and I for one take this occasion to trumpet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... he held the royal standard fastened to a long cane which ended in a silver knob. A sword was by his side, which, as he only could have worn it on such occasions, and as the 'horses of the saint' were not unlikely as ticklish as most horses of the prairies of Entre Rios and Corrientes are wont to be, must have embarrassed him considerably. Behind him came the Corregidor, arrayed in yellow satin, with a silk waistcoat and gold buttons, breeches of yellow velvet, and a hat equal in magnificence to ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... respects unprepared and utterly inadequate to cope with a first-class power. In consequence of this, and the criticisms of our Navy Department, which Admiral Sims as a young man had written, Roosevelt took the steps he did in his first term. Three ticklish times in that Spanish War England stood our friend against Germany. When it broke out, German agents approached Mr. Balfour, proposing that England join in a European combination in Spain's favor. Mr. Balfour's refusal is common knowledge, except ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... on the tight-rope again, at the most ticklish part. For he did think Dick was running Heathcote into mischief, unintentionally, no doubt, but still unmistakably, "Am I?" repeated Dick, rounding on his man, and fixing him with ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... Ba'tiste, contorted with merriment, pointed vaguely in the direction of the bed, "M'sieu l' Nobody, heem is ticklish!" ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... the really ticklish work of the night!" Reade shouted back. "When we try for a landing we'll endeavor to make our own crowd understand that, though this is a German machine, it comes on no hostile errand. If we can't make the Frenchmen understand that, then they'll blow us back ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... would content them. Pilate knew that he was perpetrating flagrant injustice in such a suggestion, and he tried to hide it by using a gentle word. 'Chastise' sounds almost beneficent, but it would not make the scourging less cruel, nor its infliction less lawless. Compromises are always ticklish to engineer, but a compromise between justice and injustice is least likely of all to answer. This one signally failed. The fierce accusers of Jesus were quick to see the sign of weakness, both in the proposal itself ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sometimes spoken to me. Touching this, I would say more to you about it if I were of such profession as permitted me to do so with a good conscience; I content myself, as it is, with leaving yours to do its work within you on so ticklish ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... civilian mind, being sent forward purposely to draw the enemy's fire, looks like "ticklish" business. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... almost as well as the dead, and forms good ash for baking dampers. Again to-day we had our usual shock of earthquake and at the usual time. Next day at three p.m., earthquake, quivering hills, broken and toppling rocks, with scared and agitated rock wallabies. This seemed a very ticklish, if not extremely dangerous place for a depot. Rocks overhung and frowned down upon us in every direction; a very few of these let loose by an earthquake would soon put a period to any further explorations on our part. We passed a great portion of to-day (18th) ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... ticklish business," said I after a minute, "to carry the King's letter. Not one in four of his messengers comes through, they say. But since it keeps you from ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... but expressed great confidence in the future exertion of that talent which had been blessed with such a prosperous beginning. Our hero finding him thus obstinately deaf to the voice of his own interest, resolved to govern himself in his next endeavours of friendship, by his experience of this ticklish punctilio; and, in the meantime, gave a handsome benefaction to the hospital, out of these first fruits of the success in play, and reserved two hundred pounds for a set of diamond ear-rings and solitaire, which he intended for a present to ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... It was a ticklish task that Lieutenant Raymond had before him then. He knew there were sand bars about. But he did not know where they were. And the ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... I am by the side of a young or old woman now, I try to give our conversation a ticklish turn; I forget all reserve and I try to make her talk of those jokes which nettle, those words of double meaning which excite, and to lead her up to the only subject that interests and holds me, to find out what she feels in her body as well as in her heart, on that night, when for the ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... rock at the first practicable place, Basil mounting first, and lowering one end of his "strucca" for me to hold by. Mr Popham followed, saying, playfully, in my ear, "Ticklish work, ain't it; this holding on by one's ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... playing the charming father-in-law and the indulgent grandpapa, the Baron took his son into the garden, and laid before him a variety of observations full of good sense as to the attitude to be taken up by the Chamber on a certain ticklish question which had that morning come under discussion. The young lawyer was struck with admiration for the depth of his father's insight, touched by his cordiality, and especially by the deferential tone which seemed ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... phrase. The king was in one of his gloomy moods; for royalty, with reverence be it spoken, has its moments of merriment and ill-humour, its mixture of sunshine and of cloud; and be it known to thee, gentle reader, that ticklish is the position of a courtier when majesty is in the dumps. To mend, or rather to mar the matter, the grand chamberlain, imagining that the sadness which overshadowed the royal brow came from regret, fixed his eyes ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... they're the dead spit of each other. I'll put them side by side, so you can see. It isn't only the decanters, but the liquor looks the same in both, and tastes so you wouldn't know the difference till you woke up in your tracks. I got the poison from a blamed Indian away west, and it's ruther ticklish stuff. So I keep the label around the trap-bottle, and only leave it out nights. That's the idea, and that's all there is to it," added Maguire, putting the labelled decanter back in the stand. "But ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... ticklish work, as the dusk deepened, getting from one wreck to another; and at last—after nearly going down into the weed between two of them, because of a rotten belaying-pin that I caught at breaking in my hand—I had to resign myself to giving over until ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... to see Miss Crown as soon as possible, Webster," he said. "Do you suppose she will go up in the air if I mention the fact that I know she was with Thane yesterday up in that old house? It's a rather ticklish thing to spring ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... its ability, be it repeated, since its ability is singularly hampered. For, apart from any ticklish temporal considerations, be it remembered, life is always claiming of this temperament's possessor that he write ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... too long, Mac!" ejaculated Hardwick. "I shouldn't feel the anxiety I do if we hadn't been having trouble with those mountain people up toward Flat Rock over that girl that died at the hospital." He laughed a little ruefully. "Trying to do things for folks is ticklish business. There wasn't a man in the crowd that interviewed me whom I could convince that our hospital wasn't a factory for the making of stiffs which we sold to the Northern Medical ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... me, but I seized upon Cameron's notion. "I accept the arrangement provided you do not hold me responsible for any ill effects," I said. "It's ticklish business. There are many who hold the ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... slowly, with Austin crouching on his shoulders. They arrived in safety at the point aimed at, and managed to tear away a grand cluster of the great, beautiful yellow flowers; but the process was a very ticklish one, and the struggle resulted, not unnaturally, in Austin becoming dislodged from his not very secure position, and floundering head foremost into the depths. Lubin caught him as he rose again, and, taking him firmly by one hand, ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... ticklish," Charley admitted, "but just the craft for our purpose. She's so light she will float on a good heavy dew, and then she's so easy to take to pieces and pack away. But we'd better stop our chattering, for we are getting near the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... he could easily be found if it became necessary, no doubt. Samuel sends the message, and waits on the steps, watching, in an agitated manner (as would be natural, perhaps, in a man engaged in an anxious and ticklish piece of illegality) for an hour, when this mysterious brougham appears. He takes this black case into the brougham, and he obviously brings it out again, for here it is. Whatever has happened, he brings it out empty. ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... mass of irritable beasts was urged forward by the white drover and his boys. It was a ticklish job, and the whips were kept quiet at first, except to flick up one or another which tried to poke out of the mob. All went well till the leading cattle came to the wing of the yard. Those iron rails frightened them. They had only seen a yard once before in their lives, and the rails of ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... "It's a ticklish thing, anyhow you look at it," sighed Dorothy. "I'm sorry now that I noticed the Record ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... word. On moved the wagon. Obed and I went to the horses' heads. It was ticklish work with all our care. Downward we slid. Often we could scarcely keep our own footing. I was very glad, I know, when we reached the bottom of the first descent. We had several more, however, to accomplish. Others, seeing our success, came following with the same caution, and succeeded ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... lips and lean against the desk. "I didn't kill Ganeth-Klae," he continued, "though I suppose in a court of law I would be judged responsible for his death. The manufacture of Indurate required some ticklish work. As you know, we produced our halves of the formula separately. Physical contact with my half over a long period of time would prove fatal, I knew, and I simply neglected ...
— The Long Voyage • Carl Richard Jacobi
... It was ticklish work bringing the Bella Donna to the wind. Twice she refused to come, lurching sickeningly as she rolled broadside on to the race of wind-driven waves. The third time she heeled over till her canvas almost brushed the surface of the water and it seemed as though she must inevitably capsize. ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... point, and kindle all Europe into war; but merely to extract, with the minimum of violence, something like justice from Austria on this Bavarian matter. For which end, he may justly consider slow pressure preferable to the cutting method. His problem is most ticklish, not allowed for ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... ticklish work, being choked as I was, Mas'r Harry," said Tom, with his pale face flushing up, and his eyes brightening with the recollection; "but above all things, I couldn't help feeling then that, if I did get a ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... ticklish job," argued Parson Ranson, "an' I wouldn't want to wuck at de debbil's task aroun' de ribber, ca'se you mout fall ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... had been as close with only a ticklish spinal effect upon the not very remote descendant of Congo man-eaters. The result produced by the glare of Rupe's unfamiliar eyes, and by the dreadfully suggestive proximity of Rupe's unfamiliar nose, was altogether different. Herman's ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... urchin; the yelling, however, considerably smothered by his coon-skin cap rammed down over his mouth, and by his two shirts turned up over his head. With a swing of his huge limbs that made the knitted panels shake and rattle, Burl had flung himself over the fence, and was now engaged in the ticklish task of extricating his little master from amongst the vines and briers, the latter being just sufficiently thick to spice the disaster. When he had succeeded in fishing him out, pulled down the shirts, and pushed up the cap, he began vigorously rubbing the bare young ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... same plate is better. If he rumples your dress a little, and imprints a kiss, in passing, on the back of your neck, let him. When, on coming home from a ball, he tears out the pins, tangles the strings, and laughs like a madman, trying to see whether you are ticklish, let him. Do not cry "Murder!" if his moustache pricks you, but think that it is all because at heart he loves you well. He worships your virtues; is it surprising hence that he should cherish their outward coverings? No doubt you have a noble soul; but your body ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... Had his question been about truth, only a pragmatist could have told him the particular go of it. I believe that our contemporary pragmatists, especially Messrs. Schiller and Dewey, have given the only tenable account of this subject. It is a very ticklish subject, sending subtle rootlets into all kinds of crannies, and hard to treat in the sketchy way that alone befits a public lecture. But the Schiller-Dewey view of truth has been so ferociously attacked by rationalistic ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... for a new path. On the Padre Cliffs, however, had occurred that rare phenomenon, a benevolent avalanche, piling up a safe and feasible embankment around the angle of an impracticable precipice, and thus saving an hour of the most ticklish going of the journey. Thanks to this dispensation, the two men reached the Tenaja Poquita before dawn. Scouting ahead, the captain reported no fresh trail except coyotes and mule deer, and not more than seventy-five gallons of water in the basin. Of this they both drank ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... liniment lookin' good and earnest I know, and tears almost standin' in my eyes, I told him the feelin's I felt for the Powers, how mad I'd been at 'em in the past, and how them feelin's had turned into pity, for I knowed just what a ticklish place they wuz in and how necessary it wuz for 'em to keep a cool head and a wise, religious heart, and then, sez I, "I d'no as that will save you. You Powers have got so hard a job to tackle that it don't seem to me you'll ever git out of it with hull skins if you don't use all the ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... here," the lawyer's son decided at last. "Whew! I wouldn't dare even to stumble over a tramp taking a nap here. This is ticklish business, or it would be if I were caught here. Now, where ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... his protest and Bud said nothing. But Sunfish's head bumped the tail of Eddie's horse many times during that ride. Once in the Gap, with a lighted lantern in his rein hand and his six-shooter in the other—because it was ticklish riding, in there with lights revealing them to anyone who might be coming through—he was content to go slowly, peering this way and ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... both his own and their equilibrium. Owing to this habit he was conscious that he did not read well, and was always uncommonly pleased if anybody else would relieve him of the task; this, however, was a ticklish thing to do, especially in the case of MSS. copy, for every word read falsely or every hesitating glance upon a word to make sure what it was went like a knife to his heart, and this effect he could not conceal. As a singer he was a ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I told to heem—whee!" Maggie clamped her hands to her back as if somebody had caught her in a ticklish spot, as she squealed, and jumped into the room where the grand duke of the cattlemen's nobility ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... labour heavily, and my father climbed to the deck to observe the alteration in her trim. He dropped back and picked up his shovel again in a chastened silence. In fact, deputy-captain Priske (who had just accomplished the ticklish task of securing the rudder and lashing a couple of ropes to its broken head for steering-gear) had ordered him back to work, using ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... (or in) a leading monthly magazine ("Harper's Monthly," July, 1890,) asks: "A hundred years from now will W.W. be popularly rated a great poet—or will he be forgotten?" ... A mighty ticklish question—which can only be left for a hundred years hence—perhaps more than that. But whether W.W. has been mainly rejected by his own times is an ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... he had climbed upon his shelf he found that it was going to be one of those hot uncomfortable nights when pillow and sheet get ticklish and make the skin feel itchy. The air he breathed was stifling, and for a long time he lay awake listening to the rippling of the water against the sides of the ship. But at last he slept deeply and dreamlessly, to be awakened by a hand ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... a stock of smoked or dried meat, and that which the woodsman, if accustomed in early life to the settlements, prizes most highly, a half-barrel of pickled pork. The bark canoe had sufficed to transport all these stores, merely ballasting handsomely that ticklish craft; and its owner relied on the honey to perform the same office on the return voyage, when trade or consumption should have disposed of the various articles ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... the interruption to this ticklish excursion into his sacred emotions, he jumped to his feet and went out to meet the man who was riding slowly toward them, the two others in his train. Burroughs went with him, and a brief ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... for a moment. "Sir Isaac," at length he began, "we are relying very much upon you. Is there no suggestion which you can offer on this ticklish theme?" ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... it is a somewhat ticklish business, for some time or other there is bound to come a crash, and then if neither of us has a penny there will ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... them; for their present invasion proceeds more from our accidental misfortunes, than that they have any great dependence on their weapons, or their own fitness for action. Now that hope which depends not on men's own power, but on others' ill success, is a very ticklish thing; for there is no certainty among men, either in their bad or good fortunes; but we may easily observe that fortune is mutable, and goes from one side to another; and this you may readily learn from examples among yourselves; for when you were ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... say anything to a woman; all depends on the way in which it is said. I have seen lady doctors with whom one could discuss the most ticklish subjects, profoundly shocked by the misplaced pleasantries of a tactless professor. In themselves these pleasantries were quite innocent for medical ears, as my lady colleagues were finally obliged to admit, when I pointed out to them the specially feminine character of ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... imitation of meadow-lark notes. A bit farther and I pulled up, looked all around, and got off and tightened the cinch a bit more. Shylock—I always rode him when I could—threw his head around and nearly took a chunk out of my arm, and in reproving him I forgot, for a minute, the ticklish game I was playing. Then I loosened my gun—I had learned to carry it inconspicuously under my coat, as did the other boys—made sure it could be pulled without embarrassing delay, and went on. Around the next ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... apprehension. He was exercised in his mind as to the effect which the embracing of a new religion by the King might have on the formidable Church party. It would be certain to cause displeasure among the priesthood; and in those days it was a ticklish business to offend the priesthood, even for a monarch. And, if Merolchazzar had a fault, it was a tendency to be a little tactless in his dealings with that powerful body. Only a few mornings back the High Priest of Hec had taken the Vizier ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... The stable-keeper rose from his seat, placed his hand lovingly on a trace which hung limply on the wall. "Don't I run the coach to Beaver Town?—and I guess a coach is a more ticklish thing to run than a gold-escort. Lord bless your soul, isn't every coach supposed to arrive before dark? But they don't. 'The road was slippy with frost—I had to come along easy,' the driver'll say. Or it'll be, 'I got stuck up by a fresh in the Brown ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... the space-stick, mopped the trickles of sweat from his brow and with a vast sigh shifted his bulk. The job of speeding into an atmospheric pressure was always ticklish, and it was with some relief that he reported "Into th' atmosphere, suh," according to routine. He waited for the usual acknowledgment, and when it did not come repeated his observation in a louder voice. Two full minutes of silence passed. Then, finally, Hawk Carse turned from the electelscope, ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... Spring and Hudson streets. Mortier used it as a country place until 1797 when the New York Legislature, upon the initiative of Burr, developed a consuming curiosity as to how Trinity Church was expending its income. This was a very ticklish question with the pious vestrymen of Trinity, as it was generally suspected that they were commingling business and piety in a way that might, if known, cause them some trouble. The law, at that time, restricted the annual income of Trinity Church from its property to $12,000 a year. ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... for you, and have to accept whatever condition the law will cumber you with, but be before them! Get your son to join you in docking the entail; petition before the court for a sale, yourself or somebody for you; and wash your hands clean of it all. It's bad property, in a very ticklish country," says Tom—and he dashes the words—"bad property in a very ticklish country; and if you take my advice, you'll get clear of both." You shall read it all yourself by-and-by; I am only giving you the substance of it, and ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... and baggage, is always a ticklish operation, your honour, especially if an enemy is pressing your rear! Then we have a wilderness before us, and the ladies could hardly hold out for so long a march as that from this place to the Mohawk; short ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... and drinking with Pao-ch'ai, Hsiang-yn and the other girls, P'ing Erh turned her head round. "Don't rub me like that!" she laughed, "It makes me feel quite ticklish." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... thousand five hundred miles to Liverpool from New York, and rather more from Toronto; a ticklish journey, with no chance of landing till ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... be prying, of his own accord, into things of such ticklish and troublesome, not to say perilous nature—I've nothing to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... his face blank, eyeing the Information chief woodenly. The room was silent for a moment, a tense, anticipatory silence. Then Hart said: "The Rocket story was great, Tommy. A real writing job. You've got the touch, when it comes to a ticklish news release—" ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that Frances' father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that most of the young lady's life had been spent in France. I feared more searching questions, but she did not ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "mop up" had the "time of their lives" and some ticklish moments. What a scene! Germans in clean uniforms coming out of their dugouts blinking in surprise at their undoing and in disgust, resentment and suppressed rage! Canadians, dust-covered from shell-bursts, eyes flashing, laughing, rushing about on the job in the midst of ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... scuppers, and a half-bucket of iced water had run it. Head-hunters were mere daily episodes in Grits's existence, but water... He muttered something in cockney that sounded like a prayer.... The wind was rapidly driving us toward the middle of the pond, and something cold and ticklish was seeping through the seats of our trousers. We ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Bread sauce is so ticklish; a simmer too much and it's clean done for," Mrs. Baker said with a voice of great solicitude. But she had been accustomed perhaps to patients whose appetites were fastidious. The pheasant and the bread sauce and the mashed potatoes, all prepared ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... hangs on that, and it will be a ticklish job. Tandy is as wily as any old fox. You're ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... that we should have to fell the hemlock. Judging from the ticklish way the basswood hung on it, the task looked dangerous. We climbed down into the gully, however, and, with many an apprehensive glance aloft where the top of the basswood hung threateningly over our heads, approached the foot of the hemlock ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... though it's hardly conceivable that the murderer waited to sort over the papers in the safe. I tell you, gentlemen, his position was a ticklish one." It was the ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... you will be going almost immediately to London—at least all our Scotch members are requested to be at their posts, the meaning of which I cannot pretend to guess. The finances are the only ticklish matter, but there is, after all, plenty of money in the country, now that our fever-fit is a little over. In Britain, when there is the least damp upon the spirits of the public, they are exactly like people in a crowd, who take the alarm, and shoulder each other ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the bed as cautiously as he could, and made his way to the door. It was a ticklish task, in the dark, to accomplish without noise, but he succeeded in doing it. Outside it was very dark, with a velvety sort of blackness. The boy was glad of this, for it afforded him protection ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... a century ago, when an elegant gentleman, very ticklish about his honor, had for—friend—a beautiful and rich lady, it was considered perfectly proper to live at her expense and even to squander her whole fortune. This game was considered delightful. This only goes to show ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... a ticklish operation, requiring nice skill and dexterity, but now that his footing was sure the runner exerted his whole strength, and as the dogs scratched and tore for firm foothold, the sled came crunching closer and closer through the half-inch skin of ice. Then ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... just like the time when I was under the snowdrift, only it wasn't so cold," Bunny said, telling about his accident afterward. "And it was awfully ticklish!" ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... lines out as the slight windage of the Elsinore's hull, spars, and rigging drifted her through the water. When a bird was hooked they hauled in the line, still from shelter, till it was alongside. This was the ticklish moment. The hook, merely a hollow and acute-angled triangle of sheet-copper floating on a piece of board at the end of the line, held the bird by pinching its curved beak into the acute angle. The moment the line slacked the bird was released. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... still alive, and thrifty Johann George the Heir-Apparent—kept a watchful eye on those emergencies. But it was difficult to interfere directly; the native Prussian Raths were very jealous, and Poland itself was a ticklish Sovereignty to deal with. Albert Friedrich being still a Minor, the Polish King, Sigismund, proposed to undertake the guardianship of him, as became a superior lord to a subject vassal on such an occasion. But the Prussian ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... her effusively, anxious now not to meddle dangerously in what promised to be a ticklish business. Mrs. Edwards must stay as long as she would. The Sundays were especially lonely, for Mr. Leicester did not think she should bear the heat of the city so soon, and left her alone when he returned to Brooklyn ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarred and scored, Shall the Formidable here, with her twelve and eighty guns, Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way, Trust to enter—where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons, 20 And with flow at full beside? Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide. Reach the mooring? Rather say, While rock stands or water runs, Not a ship will ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... as he began to gather up his glittering pebbles, though there was a look of disappointment in his eyes. "I'd ruther have got rid of 'em, fur they're kind o' ticklish things to be carrying about. Wonder if I couldn't leave 'em in ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Stewart was drivin' Pat an' his crowd off the place, one of them de-pooties lost his head an' went fer his gun. Nels throwed his gun an' crippled the feller's arm. Monty jumped then an' throwed two forty-fives, an' fer a second or so it looked ticklish. But the bandit-hunters crawled, an' then ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... remarked the fact that odious creatures possess a susceptibility of their own, that monsters are ticklish! At this word "villain," the female Thenardier sprang from the bed, Thenardier grasped his chair as though he were about to crush it in his hands. "Don't you stir!" he shouted to his wife; and, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... to Bienvillers. The rest of the Battalion joined them there on July 7th, except Transport and Quarter-Master's Stores, which moved to La Cauchie. Our most important work there was the somewhat ticklish procedure on two nights of carrying up to the Monchy trenches, about two miles North of Foncquevillers, cylinders of gas to loose off on a suitable occasion. These were drawn at Hannescamp, and for carrying were fastened to poles, each cylinder requiring two men. Special ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... years before this appropriation of the church rates could be abolished. The year 1830, with a brand new squire and parson, was too ticklish a time for ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it with you two in. The captain and we can slide down the ropes. We're used to it, but it's ticklish business for land-lubbers." And the man grinned even in ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... place four years agon a brat iv a boy, and to think iv his comin' back and outdoin' his elders, that saw him runnin' about the place, a gassoon, that one could tache a few months before"; 'twas too bad. Barny saw his reputation was in a ticklish position, and began to consider how his disgrace could be retrieved. The very name of Fingal was hateful to him; it was a plague-spot on his peace that festered there incurably. He first thought of leaving Kinsale altogether; but flight implied so much of defeat, that he did not ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... The most accomplished human being is the finished liar. Never to forget a detail, to remember step by step the windings, over a ticklish road. And Cutty, for all his wide newspaper experience, was a poor liar because he had been brought up on facts. Perhaps his lie might have passed had he not been so fagged. The physical labours of the night had dulled ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... river fell perpendicularly ten or twelve feet; but near its centre the force of the current had so far worn away the rock as to permit the water to shoot through a narrow passage, at an angle of about forty or forty five degrees. Down this ticklish descent the canoe had glanced, amid fragments of broken rock, whirlpools, foam, and furious tossings of the element, which an uninstructed eye would believe menaced inevitable destruction to an object so fragile. But ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper |
