"Catcher" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of parents and husbands, these people appear to admit no kind of superiority among one another, except a certain degree of superstitious reverence for their angetkooks, and their tacitly following the counsel or steps of the most active seal-catcher on their hunting excursions. The word nallegak, used in Greenland to express "master," and "lord" in the Esquimaux translations of the Scriptures, they were not acquainted with. One of the young men at Winter Island appeared to be considered somewhat ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... lacked the skill to work them out. Such is the Bailiff of Hexham, who represents the iniquities of local magistrates. He has four sons,—Walter, representing the frauds of farmers; Priest, the sins of the clergy; Coney-catcher, the tricks of cheats; and Perin, the vices of courtiers. Besides these, we have Honesty, whose business it is to expose crimes and vices. The Devil makes his appearance several times, and, when the old Bailiff dies, carries him off. At last, Honesty exposes ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... their editorials telegraphed to him; he could not wait for the papers themselves to crawl along down to Washington by a mail train which has never run over a cow since the road was built; for the reason that it has never been able to overtake one. It carries the usual "cow-catcher" in front of the locomotive, but this is mere ostentation. It ought to be attached to the rear car, where it could do some good; but instead, no provision is made there for the protection of the traveling ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... tired Scott found renewed strength and speed was a mystery. But he struck out the hard-hitting Providence catcher and that made the third out. The Stars could not score in their half of the inning. Likewise the seventh inning passed without a run for either side; only the infield work of the Stars was something superb. When the eighth inning ended, without a tally for either ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... path; Not to be beaten by such chaps, She silently removed his traps. Again he set the traps and toils, Again his cunning pussy foils. He set a trap to catch the thief, And pussy she got caught in brief. "Ah!" said the rat-catcher, "you scamp, You are the spy within the camp." But the cat said, "A sister spare, Your science is our mutual care." "Science and cats!" the man replied; "We soon that question shall decide; You are my rival interloper, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... they held the Pennsylvania act to be invalid. And without relying on any principle, without any discussion of, or the slightest allusion to, any authorities or the great fundamental questions involved in that issue, he coolly depicted the inconveniences the slave-catcher might be subject to in States where there was but one District Judge, and how essentially he would be aided by the State legislation; and pointed out to his brethren those "consequences" which they did "not contemplate" and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... addressed people on the right side. So she stands high, and deservedly so, for to these active qualities, more French I think than English, and partaking of the Creole vivacity and suppleness of character, she adds, I believe, honourable principles and an excellent heart. As a lion-catcher, I could pit her against the world. She flung her lasso (see Hall's South America) over Byron himself. But then, poor soul, she is not happy. She has a temper, and Davy has a temper, and these tempers are not one temper, but ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... this game you must first decide which one of you is to be the Bird-catcher; the other players then each choose the name of a bird, but no one must choose the owl, as it is forbidden. All the players then sit in a circle with their hands on their knees, except the Bird-catcher, who stands in the ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... mind, baby dear," he said: "come on. If my leg did get catched between the boat and the bank and ground agin a stone this morning, I can still fight an eel-catcher." ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull
... a rod 'n' line 'n' reel, whether it's with flies, spoons, or minnows, castin' or trollin', or spearin' or nettin', Warry's th' expertest fish-catcher that ever waded the rapids or paddled th' lakes o' this old Province o' Quebec. But it's gettin' a leetle hard for Warry late years—fish 's come to know him so well that after he's made a few casts 'n' hooked one or ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... Constitution, and demand justice and liberty, and say to this bloody Moloch, Away! Sir, the world has never furnished so great a congregation of hypocrites as those that formed the Constitution, if they designed to make it the greatest slaveholder, slave-breeder and slave-catcher on earth. He is a great slaveholder that has a thousand slaves; but if this law is a true exponent of the Constitution, this Government, ordained for justice and liberty, ...
— Speech of John Hossack, Convicted of a Violation of the Fugitive Slave Law • John Hossack
... known from the letters of Hammurabi and the contemporary contracts, but whose functions are not easy to fix. They were the rid sabi and the bairu. By their etymology these titles seemed to mean "slave-driver," and "catcher." But the Code sets them in a clearer light. They were closely connected, if not identical, officials. They had charge of the levy, the local quota for the army, or for public works. Hence "levy-master" and "warrant-officer" are suggestive renderings. For the former official, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... cliffs, and many find all they need in the wide mud-flats. Such an army is there of these shore birds, that we cannot even glance at them all in this lesson. So we will take a few of them only—the Black-headed Gull, the Cormorant, the Ringed Plover, the Oyster-catcher and the Redshank. ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... by first-class, with an Oxford man who had just taken his M.A., an ensign of infantry in his first uniform, a clerk in Somerset House, and a Manchester man who had been visiting a Whig Lord,—and returned third-class, with a tinker, a sailor just returned from Africa, a bird-catcher with his load, and a gentleman in velveteens, rather greasy, who seemed, probably on a private mission, to have visited the misdemeanour wards of all the prisons in England and Scotland; we preferred the return trip, that is to say, vulgar and amusing to dull and genteel. Among other pieces of ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... in the Park. Berkeley was written all over him. A thin, pure type. He was dressed in field glasses and a bag full of green weeds and stout walking boots. There was an ecstatic glint in his eye which meant that he had discovered a long-billed, yellow-tailed Peruvian fly-catcher, "very rare ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... companion in dissipation, and exercised a great influence over him. Mozart at last consented. A compact was made, and Schickaneder set to work on the libretto. As he was a popular buffoon, he invented the part of Papageno, the bird-catcher, for himself, and arranged that it should be dressed in a costume of feathers. It is a trivial part, but Schickaneder intended to tickle the fancy of the public, and succeeded. The first act was finished, ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... Lorette flashes upon me since the above was written. On looking over a provincial paper, I find astounding rumors of ghosts appearing upon the track of a western railroad. Things clothed in the traditional white appear before the impartial cow-catcher, which divides them for the passage of the train, in the wake of which they immediately reappear in a full state of repair and posture of contempt. If this sort of thing goes on, what a splendid new field will be opened for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... impoverished are ours," the socialists said. "The Grangers have come over to us, the farmers, the middle class, and the laborers. The capitalist system will fall to pieces. In another month we send fifty men to Congress. Two years hence every office will be ours, from the President down to the local dog-catcher." ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... started back there were about ten million buffaloes on the track. If I had been heading into them with the cow-catcher I shouldn't have been afraid. But I had to back into them, and if I had crippled one it ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... rotten fish, and his clothes are absolutely horrors. The shoemaker is a miserable wretch. He is always asking for work, and his health is that of a dying fish. The washerman is neighbour to the crocodile. His food is mixed up with his clothes, and every member of him is unclean. The catcher of water-fowl, even though he dive in the Nile, may catch nothing. The trade of the fisherman is the worst of all. He is in blind terror of the crocodile, and falleth among crocodiles." The text continues with a few further remarks on the honourable character of the profession of the scribe, ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... use the phrase which Canon Wilberforce has made so famous in another connexion. Later on I heard much more about the exploits of this champion bird-destroyer of the village from (strange to say) a bird-catcher by trade, a man of a rather low type of countenance, and who lived, when at home, in a London slum. On the common where he spread his nets he had found, he told me, about thirty nests containing eggs or fledglings; but this ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... us that the salt-water catcher and pitcher are ahead of you two!" protested Durville ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... subsequent trial under a full pressure of steam and a velocity of about thirty miles per hour the entering and leaving the curve was equally satisfactory, the same being accurately observed by a man located on the cow catcher. ...
— Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck - Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Paper 24 • John H. White
... shooting, hanging, destroying in a thousand ways these unhappy slaves, the aggressive South forced upon a passive North a law whose enormity passes description. Every man at the beck of the Southern kidnapper, by its provisions was obliged to play the part of a Negro catcher. So great was the passiveness of the North that her most eminent orator, instead of decrying the proposition as unworthy of humanity, even lifted up his voice in its defense. Virgil inveighed against the accursed thirst for gold—auri sacra fames; but it was not this thirst ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... village can't compare with the London shops; One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, bats, Clout's balls, and the other sells malt and hops, And Mrs. Brown in domestic economy not to be a bit behind her betters, Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a cobbler, lives in it herself, and it's the post-office for letters. Now I've gone through all the village—ay, from end to end, save and except one more house, But I haven't come to that—and I hope I never shall—and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... spoon is first base. Where I'm putting this cup is second. This piece of bacon is third. There's your diamond for you. Very well, then. These lumps of sugar are the infielders and the outfielders. Now we're ready. Batter up? He stands here. Catcher behind him. ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... by the furze, and some goldfinches come calling shrilly and feasting undisturbed upon the seeds of thistles and other plants. The bird-catcher does not venture so far; he would if there was a rail near; but he is a lazy fellow, fortunately, and likes not the weight of his own nets. When the stubbles are ploughed there will be troops of finches and linnets up here, leaving the hedgerows of ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... an in-door game with out-door weapons. The soft-headed, eight foot spears of the tilting-match are used. The contestants stand on barrels eight feet apart. Each tries to put the other off his barrel. It is well to have a catcher behind each player to ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... inquired into the cause of the conflagration, and, in place of recognising, like the rest of the world, that the moist straw had taken fire of its own accord, they suspected that it was a case of revenge. It proceeded, no doubt, from Maitre Gouy, or perhaps from the mole-catcher. Six months before Bouvard had refused to accept his services, and even maintained, before a circle of listeners, that his trade was a baneful one, and that the government ought to prohibit it. Since that time ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... where the new car and the trip to California was to come from. Perhaps that was where the fifteen hundred dollars had come from, too. But she had paid it back. She had just barely shaken the bird-catcher's lime from her wings. She shivered and closed the ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... left them bunch-berries! and do you suppose you can go home without them? Why, it wouldn't be safe. You would be run off the track, and scalded by steam, and broken all to pieces, and caught on the cow-catcher, and get lost, and be run away with, and even struck by lightning, I shouldn't wonder. And now if you go in to-morrow's train you'll catch the small-pox and the measles and the scarlet fever and the yellow fever, and all the colors-in-the-rainbow ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... was with his flock on the down and found himself near another shepherd, also with his sheep, one he knew very well, a quiet but knowing old man named Joseph Gathergood. He was known to be a skilful rabbit-catcher, and Caleb thought he would go over to him and tell him about how he was being tricked by the two Gaarges and ask him what ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... crayfish had made holes or homes of some sort, and were sitting at the doors with their claws and feelers just outside, waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up. To meet their views the crayfish catcher had cut a long willow withe. From the tapering tip of this he had cut the wood, leaving the bark, which had been carefully slit and the woody tip extracted from it. This pendant of bark he had made into a running noose, and leaning over the bank he worked it ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... may the prisoner plead that he is not the person mentioned in the certificate; in vain may he offer to show that the certificate is a forgery; in vain may he urge that the man who signed the certificate was not a commissioner. The little piece of paper costing ten dollars is to save the slave-catcher from "all molestation," not because the writ of habeas corpus is suspended,—O, no! but in consequence of ...
— A Letter to the Hon. Samuel Eliot, Representative in Congress From the City of Boston, In Reply to His Apology For Voting For the Fugitive Slave Bill. • Hancock
... A slim, straight statue he stood during a full moment, then slowly raised his arms above his head in a gesture of supple grace and ease. The afternoon sun struck across his wind-ruffled brown hair and smiling face, as he gave a brief nod to the catcher and dropped his arm with a lithe, swift movement and turn of his whole body. The white ball shot across, swerving almost at the plate, and crashed into ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... we might have made this noted bandit prisoner if we had only known!" exclaimed Lawrence, who seemed more distressed at missing the chance of becoming an amateur thief-catcher than at misdirected charity. "But do you really think the fellow was ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... him on the wall hung a large photograph of Billy's base-ball nine in full uniform. He could have drawn it from memory, afterwards. Billy, he remembered, was a great catcher. He held hard to that cool, ...
— In The Valley Of The Shadow • Josephine Daskam
... afternoon nurse lifted the tea-table through the low nursery window on to the lawn, and let them have their tea out of doors among the flowers and trees and twittering birds. They had found out a fly-catcher's nest in the ivy above the front door, and every evening the two children used to fetch out their father to watch the parent birds catching flies and carrying them to the hungry little ones, whom they could just hear chirping up above the ivy. Olly was wild to get the gardener's ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... privately to Mr. Sawin, whom he had known intimately for years, that this was a dirty business he was engaged in. He did not know Mr. Sawin to be an officer of the Court. He knew him as a city constable; and supposed he had let himself out by the day as a catcher of fugitive slaves. I know something of the feelings of Southern gentlemen as to this class of men. They are necessary evils. They use them as we use spies, informers and deserters in war; they use them, but ...
— Report of the Proceedings at the Examination of Charles G. Davis, Esq., on the Charge of Aiding and Abetting in the Rescue of a Fugitive Slave • Various
... The Rat-catcher was supposed to have the art of drawing rats after him by his whistle, like a ...
— Faust • Goethe
... like dead men's bones across the rails to be crushed by the hundreds under the wheels of the Juggernaut; great lizards ran from sunny rocks at the sound of their approach, and a deer bounded across the tracks fifty feet in front of the cow-catcher. MacWilliams escorted Hope out into the cab of the locomotive, and taught her how to increase and slacken the speed of the engine, until she showed an unruly desire to throw the lever open altogether and shoot them off the rails into the ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... going through the ether until it strikes that other antenna. Then it climbs along it until it reaches the receiving set and registers the same kind of dot or dash as the one I made at this end. It's like the pitcher and catcher of a baseball battery. One pitches the ball and the other receives the same ball. At one instant it's in the pitcher's hand and the next it has traveled the space between the two and is resting in the catcher's hand. Sounds simple, ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... the car off the track in a jiffy. And Mrs. O'Burke's new bonnet was all smashed in the ditch, an' the bloody snort of Number Five knocked you senseless. Who would have thought that boost of the cow-catcher was jist clear good luck? And you moped about with a short draw in your chist, and seemed bound to be a grouty old man in the chimney corner that could niver lift a stroke for your childer, ah' you didn't see the good luck, you know, Tim—but when the prisident sent the ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... that "In presence of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, while the philosophers were making elaborate dissertations on the danger of the poison of vipers, taken inwardly, a viper catcher, who happened to be present, requested that a quantity of it might be put into a vessel; and then, with the utmost confidence, and to the astonishment of the whole company, he drank it off. Everyone expected ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... journey to the distant bazaar of Chinese traders in the lower part of the river; the necessity of removing to a new site; an epidemic of disease; the rites of formally consulting the omens, or otherwise communicating with and propitiating the gods; the operations of the soul-catcher. The more important of these incidents will be described in later chapters. Here we need only give a brief account of the way in which some of them affect the daily round of life in the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... last night but one thou didst go to the house of Nicol Hendry, who is no common catcher of thieves, but a spy of nations whose business is with the great ones of the earth. Tell me: whom did thy ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... thrust stupidity from thee, though I have to box thine ears in doing so," but I did not see that the old man really did box Jim's ears, or do more than pretend to frighten him, for the two understood one another perfectly well. Another time I remember hearing him call the village rat-catcher by saying, "Come hither, thou three-days-and-three-nights, thou," alluding, as I afterwards learned, to the rat-catcher's periods of intoxication; but I will tell no more of such trifles. My father's face would always brighten when old Pontifex's name was mentioned. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... truth. College mates of Taylor will recall the deceptiveness of this outward appearance. It concealed muscles of steel and a will that had only to be right in order to be invincible. He was the peer of any amateur baseball catcher in his day, and held the same enviable place as a student of the classics. He was the strong man for the D.K.E. initiations, and took the same rank in all ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... they had left they met another man, a bird catcher from the uplands of Olaa;[53] he asked, "Where are you ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... friend and introduce him to Ritchie," sneered Banbury. "He needs a new catcher for his measly team that we're ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... with a calmness of tone and steadiness of eye that almost staggered the old criminal catcher, "that I do not understand you, and am ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... open-faced, fresh-coloured young man, still under thirty, modest of demeanour, given to smiling, who might from his general appearance have been, say, a professional cricketer, or a young commercial traveller, or anything but an expert criminal catcher. ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... His Majesty, "let Us see this brigand-catcher who excels the redoubtable Contra Guerrillas.—As I live, the young man is a Chasseur d'Afrique! Step nearer, sir, and tell Us ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... situations, but failed in them all. At last he was made a postman, but was found drunk one evening with all his letters scattered about him, and, of course, lost his situation. He then took up the employment of rat-catcher, for which, perhaps, he was better qualified than any other. His stock-in-trade consisted of some ferrets and an old terrier dog, and a more extraordinary dog was seldom seen. He was rough, rather strongly made, and of a sort of cinnamon colour, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... wedding-march in concord. "Be no longer full of sorrow, Dry thy tears, thou bride of beauty, Thou hast found a noble husband, Better wilt thou fare than ever, By the side of Ilmarinen, Artist husband, metal-master, Bread-provider of thy table, On the arm of the fish-catcher, On the breast of the elk-hunter, By the side of the bear-killer. Thou hast won the best of suitors, Hast obtained a mighty hero; Never idle is his cross-bow, On the nails his quivers hang not, Neither are his dogs in kennel, Active agents is his bunting. Thrice within the budding ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... the right of the post with the red tie, is the son of an ostler. He commenced betting thousands with a farthing capital. The man next him, all teeth and hair, like a rat-catcher's dog, is an Honourable by birth, but not very honourable in his nature." "But see," cried Mr. Jorrocks, "Lord—— is talking to the Cracksman." "To be sure," replies Sam, "that's the beauty of the ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... informed the Lieutenant that Counsellor Layer must be chained as directed, even if the chains had to be forged expressly for him. Upon which Mr. Lieutenant took a very surly leave of the Great Man, cursing him as he comes down the steps for a Thief-catcher and Tyburn purveyor, and sped him to Newgate, where he borrowed a set of double-irons from the Peachum or Lockit, or whatever the fellow's name it was that kept that Den of Thieves. And even then, when they had gotten the chains to the Tower, none ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... instrument, upon which he played with a somewhat specious but effective art. He did not try to make you forget his ugliness; he flaunted it in your face and made it part of the charm of his speech. Shutting your eyes, you would have trailed after this rat-catcher's pipes at least to the walls of Hamelin. Beyond that you would have had to be more childish to follow. But let him play his own tune to the words set down, so that if all is too dull, the art of music may bear ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... to this class of birds, are few. I have observed the black and white creeping warbler, the Kentucky warbler, the worm-eating warbler, the redstart, and the gnat-catcher, breeding near ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... hour or an hour and twenty minutes, to improvise it in, he would have said something uncommonly sharp; as it was he left him with the pertinent inquiry we have recorded—'What have you to do with Robins, the mole-catcher?' We need hardly say that this little incident did not at all ingratiate Mr. Sponge with his host, who re-entered his house in a worse humour than ever. It was insulting a gentleman on his own ter-ri-tory—bearding an Englishman ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense. Commas and points they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite; Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds. Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... quite at issue when they endeavour to determine what kind of instrument the vocal organ resembles; indeed, Galien compares it to a flute, Magendie to a hautboy, Despiney to a trombone, Diday to a hunting-horn, Savart to a bird-catcher's call, Biot to an organ-pipe, Malgaigne to the little instrument used by the exhibitors of Punch, and Ferrein to a spinet or harpsichord. The last-named compared the lips of the glottis to the strings of a violin; hence was given the name Vocal Cords, ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... my breast, so that I could scarce keep from laughing out. And when my father admonished me, pretty roughly, for not having mended the fence of the fowl walk to his liking, I minded it no more than if it had been old Sugden the rat-catcher. Once or twice during the dinner I caught my mother looking at me with a certain apprehension, as if she observed somewhat unusual in my behaviour. I fancy she thought I might be sickening for the ague, which was very rife in those parts. My mother was a great physician, and always kept ready a ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... (it is either a species of the alauda trivialis, or rather perhaps of the motacilla trochilus) still continues to make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods. The stoparola of Ray (for which we have as yet no name in these parts) is called, in your Zoology, the fly-catcher. There is one circumstance characteristic of this bird, which seems to have escaped observation, and that is, that it takes its stand on the top of some stake or post, from whence it springs forth on its prey, catching ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... ten minutes to win her smiles and make you a declared favorite. What is it you have about you, old fellow, which wins on every one? It makes one believe in the old fable of the rat-catcher." ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... Peter suddenly found himself on the diamond with the ball in his hands. It was the first familiar experience that had come to him that day. His blood warmed. He sent a twirler over the plate and was greeted by a roar from the Factory 1 men. The ball dropped with a smack into the hands of the catcher. ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... righteous work to burn poor children in their beds? So he turned round, and struck his sword upon the floor, and asked me whether I was one of them—'Who are you then?' and I—all my courage went away, and I answered, I was a poor rat-catcher. 'A rat-catcher, are you? Well then, Mr Rat-catcher, when you are killing rats, if you find a nest of young ones, don't you kill them too? Or do you leave them to grow, and become mischievous, eh?'—'I kill the young ones, of course,' ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... have some name for it yourself if you sent a deputy sheriff to look after your rights, and he came back tied to the cow-catcher!" ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... like the humming-bird's, and comparable to it in neatness and symmetry, is that of the blue-gray gnat-catcher. This is often saddled upon the limb in the same manner, though it is generally more or less pendent; it is deep and soft, composed mostly of some vegetable down, covered all over with delicate tree-lichens, and, except that it is much larger, appears ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... against the woodwork of the sofa and broke it to pieces. "Who was he?" he went on, in increasing rage; "a chaffering jack-pudding. I have made him what he is, the noodle. If I whistle, he dances; he is only the decoy, I am the bird-catcher." Here Hippus tried to whistle a tune, and to execute a few steps. Again the cold sweat rained from his brow, and, taking out his handkerchief, he dried his face, and carefully replaced the rag in his pocket. "He does ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Sheriff More, thou hast done more with thy good words than all they could with their weapons: give me thy hand, keep thy promise now for the king's pardon, or, by the Lord, I'll call thee a plain coney-catcher. ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Court-ladies began Their trial of who judged best In esteeming the love of a man: Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed Boy-Cupid's exemplary catcher and cager; An Abbe crossed legs to decide ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... a rat-catcher," said Sprouse. "What are you doing here?" demanded Barnes, staring. He seized the man's arm and inquired eagerly: "Have you got ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... seignor in the Middle Ages, when the rich thought no more of the poor than we do of flies, or they'd have run over every one who didn't get out of their way on the instant. They'd have had a sort of cow-catcher fitted on to their cars, to keep themselves from coming to harm, and they'd have dashed people aside, anyhow. In these days, no matter how hard your heart may be, you have to sacrifice your inclinations more or less to decency. I dare say the Car of Juggernaut was a motor. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... cleaner this morning before I started to school. I saw how easily the motor-driven fan sucked in everything in sight. I held the nozzle near a fly on the window pane and zipp—p-p, in went Mr. Fly. I thought right away that a big vacuum cleaner would make a fine moth catcher if we could only get near enough to the moths. And I even figured out a plan for a large one which wouldn't cost very much and could be made mostly of wood. But I knew it was foolish 'cause we couldn't get near the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... For the first time he saw her in fashionable attire and it was really fashionable, for despite all her disadvantages she, who had real and rare capacity for learning, had educated herself well in the chief business of woman the man-catcher in her years in ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... gagged him with the loose end of the rope; and Tybee held the candle to light the knotting of it. And so they marched him out, with Tybee muttering between his teeth that it was rat-catcher's work, and no soldier's, this killing of vermin, and bidding ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... respect and familiarity. Their talk was full of mysterious names and expressions, and Taffy thought at first they must be Freemasons. "The Moor point-to-point was a walk-over for the Milkman; Lapidary was scratched, which left it a soft thing, unless Sir Harry fancied a fox-catcher like Nursery Governess, in which case Billy behind the bar would do as much business as he liked at six-to-one." After a while Taffy discovered they were talking about horses, and wondered why they should meet to discuss horses in a dingy room ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pilgrims with a puzzle, and the one he propounded was the following. He showed them the diamond-shaped arrangement of letters presented in the accompanying illustration, and said, "I do call it the rat-catcher's riddle. In how many different ways canst thou read the words, 'Was it a rat I saw?'" You may go in any direction backwards and forwards, upwards or downwards, only the successive letters in any reading must always adjoin ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... submission! Alla stoccata carries it away. [Draws.] Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... about? By their very powers of absorption. The moisture of which the air is never deprived penetrates them slowly; it dilutes the thick contents of their tubes to the requisite degree and causes it to ooze through, as and when the earlier stickiness decreases. What bird-catcher could vie with the Garden Spider in the art of laying lime-snares? And all this industry and cunning for the capture of ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... night that Rudie called, Pa Keller thought it a great joke. He sat out on the porch with Rudie and Ivy and talked baseball, and got up to show Rudie how he could have got the goat of that Keokuk catcher if only he had tried one of his famous open-faced throws. Rudie looked politely interested, and laughed in all the right places. But Ivy didn't need to pretend. Rudie Schlachweiler spelled baseball to her. She did not think ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... saw the dogs coming over the fence, and knowing there was no chance of my getting to the woods, I turned around, and ran back to a persimmon tree, and just had time to run up one of the branches when the dogs came upon the ground. I looked and saw the men, Williams the nigger-catcher, and Dr. Henry and Charles Dandridge. As soon as Williams rode up, he told me to come down, but I was so frightened I began to cry, yet came down trembling. The dogs laid hold of me at once, tearing my clothes and biting ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... Rule is to be refused till all the prophets of evil are refuted, Ireland must go without Home Rule for ever. "If the sky fall, we shall catch larks." But he would be a foolish bird-catcher who waited for that contingency. And not less foolish is the statesman who sits still till every conceivable objection to his policy has been mathematically refuted in advance, and every wild prediction falsified by the event; for that would ensure his never moving at all. Sedet aeternumque ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... Guildhall people were old Mrs "Ratty" Kemp, widow of the Rat-catcher; {31} old one-eyed Mrs Bond, and her deaf son John; old Mrs Wright, a great smoker; and Mrs Burrows, a soldier's widow, our only Irishwoman, from whom Monk Soham conceived no favourable opinion of the Sister ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... man-of-war's man &c (sailor) 269; navy, wooden walls, naval forces, fleet, flotilla, armada, squadron. [ships of war] man-of-war; destroyer; submarine; minesweeper; torpedo-boat, torpedo-destroyer; patrol torpedo boat, PT boat; torpedo- catcher, war castle, H.M.S.; battleship, battle wagon, dreadnought, line of battle ship, ship of the line; aircraft carrier, carrier. flattop [Coll.]; helicopter carrier; missile platform, missile boat; ironclad, turret ship, ram, monitor, floating battery; first- rate, frigate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... felt the need to go abroad. In a kind of burlesque of the calling of the infant Samuel, she sat up in her bed, startled as by a voice calling her to a mission. She had been an actress, a wanderer, a performer in cheap theaters, a catcher of late trains, a dweller in rickety hotels. She knew cold, and she had played half clad ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... I keep standing here? ( aside). 'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one. No, no, no; I must have a lantern. Ho, ho! That's it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn. What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man? thrusted light is worse than presented pistols. i thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter. Carpenter? why that's —but no; —a very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... respecting the meaning of the clause in relation to persons held to service or labor, must have been removed by the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Prigg versus The State of Pennsylvania. By that decision, any Southern slave-catcher is empowered to seize and convey to the South, without hindrance or molestation on the part of the State, and without any legal process duly obtained and served, any person or persons, irrespective of caste or complexion, whom he may choose to claim ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... the organ-grinder after this? What are the limits of a man's domicile? How much of the coast does he own beyond his area-railings? Is No. 48 to be deprived of the 'Hat-catcher's Daughter' because 47 is dyspeptic? Are the maids in 32 not to be cheered by 'Sich a gettin' up stairs' because there is a nervous invalid in 33? How long may an organ-man linger in front of a residence to tune or adjust his ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... lodge edgewise in the oesophagus, and are best removed by means of an instrument known as a "coin-catcher", which is passed beyond the coin, and on being withdrawn catches it in a hinged flange. In emergencies a loop of stout silver wire bent so as to form a hook makes an excellent ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... confirmed commuter I have sprained three watches and two of my legs trying to catch trains that are wild enough to dodge a dog-catcher. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... genus of birds is seldom seen amongst the numerous descriptions of wild fowl, which, in the winter seasons, wing their flight to our marshes. The most striking part of the Oyster-catcher is its bill, the colour of which is scarlet, measuring in length nearly four inches, wide at the nostrils, and grooved beyond them nearly half its length: thence to the tip it is vertically compressed on the sides, and ends ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various
... No wild animal can leap ten yards, and they all make a high trajectory in their leaps. Now, think of the speed of a ball thrown, or rather pitched, with just sufficient force to be caught by a person ten yards off: it is a mere nothing. The catcher can play with it as he likes; he has even time to turn after it, if thrown wide. But the speed of a springing animal is undeniably the same as that of a ball, thrown so as to make a flight of equal length and height in the air. The corollary to all ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... supposed to handle so murderously—a blue pencil. And as he had a habit, when he was flustered or annoyed—and that was most of the time—of scratching his head with the point end of it, his forehead under the hair roots was usually streaked with purplish-blue tracings, like a fly-catcher's egg. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... element 101, mendelevium. A very thin layer of {99}Es was electroplated onto a thin gold foil and was then bombarded, from behind the layer, with 41-MeV [alpha] particles. Unchanged {99}Es stayed on the gold, but those atoms hit by [alpha] particles were knocked off and deposited on a "catcher" gold foil, which was then dissolved and analyzed (Fig. 3). This freed the new element from most of the very reactive parent substances, so that analysis was easier. Even so, the radioactivity was so weak that the new element was identified "one atom at a time"; this is possible ...
— A Brief History of Element Discovery, Synthesis, and Analysis • Glen W. Watson
... that we are so worthless, O editorial writers? Why do we produce such feeble results? Why do we talk daily through our newspapers to ten millions of people and yet have not influence to elect a dog catcher? ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... which you see the Dolphin, that natural Friend to Mankind, fighting with a Crocodile, Man's deadly Enemy. Upon the Banks and Shores you see several amphibious Creatures, as Crabs, Seals, Beavers. Here is a Polypus, a Catcher catch'd ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... the ruin we crossed a baseball-field which the company had given the men. I looked back for Kennedy. He had paused at the wire backstop behind the catcher. Something caught in the wires interested him. By the time I reached him he had secured it—a long, slender metal tube, cleverly weighted ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... your aunt say, Cleo?" Grace exclaimed. "Just think of fetching another surprise. We thought the fly catcher plant quite wonderful; but just imagine a ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... 'wife-catcher;' "but Terence soon retrieved his credit, for in less than three months after his disappointment with the heiress, we were legging it as his wedding with Miss Debby Doolan, a greater fortune and a prettier girl than the one ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... his right fist and saw Nappy go down. He saw Pop's face go gray as though the old man himself had felt the force of the blow. Saw Nappy climb erect slowly. He grinned through blood. Frankie—ghost-catcher. He ...
— Vital Ingredient • Gerald Vance
... the seed was so attractive, and he who had baited the trap knew it full well, and that the bird could not resist its appetite. The fowler is our Lord. The bait is Divine Love. The bird is the soul. O skillful catcher of souls! O irresistible bait of Divine Love! O pitiable victim! but most blessed soul; for in the hands of our Lord the soul only dies to self ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... night would take out his watch and note the time—"Now the first act is over, now is the time for the great Queen of Night." The day before his death he said to his wife, "Oh, that I could only once more hear my 'Flauto Magico!'" humming, in scarcely audible voice, the lively bird-catcher song. The same day, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he called his friends together, and asked for the score of his nearly completed "Requiem" to be laid on his bed. Benedict Schack sang the soprano; his brother-in-law, Hofer, the tenor; Gerl, the bass; and Mozart himself took the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... food en route, and the men vanished into one of the tiny carriages. Special arrangements had been made in honor of Schoverling and the doctor, however, and as the weather was fine they were to travel on a wide seat fastened across the cow-catcher, which held four with comfort. The boys took their places with some misgivings, but found ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... blowing into the shop, and with a great deal of triumph, dragging the poor creature in the most butcherly manner up towards their master, who was in the back shop, and cried out aloud, 'Here's the widow, sir; we have catcher her at last.' 'What do ye mean by that?' says the master. 'Why, we have her already; there she sits,' says he, 'and Mr. ——,' says he, 'can swear this is she.' The other man, whom they called Mr. Anthony, replied, 'Mr. —— may say what he will, ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... can't, Rosalie! I have to give orders about my new bridle and saddle-cloth, and speak to the rat-catcher about his dogs: Miss ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... think that his name was connected with a crusade against short-skirts and dancing—Ugh! Not even the average run of church-goers would swallow it. "Mayor!" he thought bitterly. "President of Council! I couldn't get elected second deputy assistant dog-catcher!" ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... rhetorical vein. 'Or a button-hook,' I said, 'or a blunderbuss or a battering-ram or a piston-rod——' He resumed, refreshed with this assistance, 'Or a curtain-rod or a candlestick or a——' 'Cow-catcher,' I suggested eagerly, and we continued in this ecstatic duet for some time. Then I asked him what it was all about, and he told me. He explained the thing eloquently and at length. 'The funny part of it is,' he said, 'that the thing isn't new at all. It's been talked about ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... sagacity, skill and directing ability, the twirler would make a pitiful show of himself. There are pitchers who recognize this fact and have the generosity to acknowledge it; but in most cases, especially with youngsters, no matter how much he may owe to the catcher, the slab-man takes all the credit, and fancies ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... not because it was too cold-blooded that he put the suggestion aside. It was rather because the man-catcher himself suggested another expedient. The spring evening was raw and chilly, and the open doors of the saloon volleyed light and warmth and a beckoning invitation. Griswold's gift, prostituted to the service of the changed point of view, bade him read in the red face, the loose lip, and ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... prison, said that if it had been only one inch higher, nothing could have saved their train from wreck, because, being so dark and small, it was not noticed till too late to stop. However, it was a little too low to hook in the bars of the cow-catcher, as I intended. ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... promising Gipsy youth, who was placed with a coach-maker in Southampton, after working some time, cut his hand, and then relinquished his employment, to wander with his father, who is a rat-catcher. But it is hoped that he, as well as others of his brethren who have returned to their former courses, will be brought back, or find some other desirable and permanent abode; that what has been done by this ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... Anglais, he got more and more irritated; and he lent his ears to the complimentary remarks made in a low tone by Joseph, the cousin, a fine young fellow without any money, who was a lover of the chase and a University prizeman. Cisy, for the sake of a laugh, called him a "catcher"[A] ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... my worthy mole-catcher! come and behold the prospect of skirting Ishmael; come and look nature boldly in the face, and not go sneaking any longer, among the prairie grass and mullein tops, like ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... manner you can tell that the dogmen are bound in a hopeless enchantment. Never will there come even a dog-catcher Ulysses to remove ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry |
