"Small fry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrived a dozen nice little boys and girls who had been invited to make it pleasant for Billy. I had to remind him of the fact that they were his guests, for, in comparison with the queen of his affections, they were in danger of being despised by him as small fry. ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... out to enjoy the "gundy" in some secret place, hid their treasure within their waistcoats, lest a bigger fellow should supply himself without the trouble of waiting his turn, and defer payment to the end of the year. And one of the lords of the school would on occasion clear out a dozen of the small fry, in order that he might select his refreshments comfortably. It was indeed the Seminary Club, with its bow-window like other clubs, and the steps on which the members could stand, and from the steps you commanded three streets, so that there were many things to see, and in snowball time many things ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... word Socinian because it was so much used in Locke's time: it is used in our own day by the small fry, the unlearned clergy and their immediate followers, as a term of reproach for all Unitarians. I suspect they have a kind of liking for the word; it sounds like so sinful. The learned clergy and the higher ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... small fry, the swallowers of swords and the grimace makers, real performances took place on the green. There was a circus of women, ringing from morning till night with a magnificent peal of all sorts of instruments—psalteries, drums, rebecks, micamons, timbrels, reeds, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... quietly, I'll give her such a bottle of champagne as she doesn't get every day." Staring down from his height on Soames he contracted his thick, puffy, yellow hand as though squeezing within it all this small fry, and throwing out his chest ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of ineffable pecuniary failure. A plan generally approved of is to sell your entire copyright in your book for a very small sum. You want the ready money, and perhaps you are not very hopeful. But, when your book is in all men's hands, when you are daily reviled by the small fry of paragraphers, when the publisher is clearing a thousand a year by it, while you only got a hundred down, then you will thank me, and will acknowledge that, in spite of apparent success, you are a failure after all. There are publishers, however, so inconsiderate that they ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... appearance of immense shoals of young fish which the bonito perpetually harass, driving them to the surface for the terns, with sharp screams of satisfaction, to dart upon. What with the strong, far-leaping fish, and the agile, acrobatic birds, the existence of the small fry is one of perplexity ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... him best. But one thing he'd certainly do if he had a say in the government. He would expel all the monks and nuns, for they're like the mange: the weaker the sufferer, the more it thrives. To this argument Leandro, the elder son, added that as far as the monks, nuns and other small fry were concerned, the best course with them was to lop off their heads like hogs, and with regard to the priests, whether Catholic, Protestant or Chinese, nothing would be lost if there were ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... rafters were black and shiny. Fowls and horses live on one side of the dark interior, and the people on the other. The houses were alive with unclothed children, and as I repassed in the evening unclothed men and women, nude to their waists, were sitting outside their dwellings with the small fry, clothed only in amulets, about them, several big yellow dogs forming part of each family group, and the faces of dogs, children, and people were all placidly contented! These farmers owned many good horses, and their crops were splendid. Probably on matsuri ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... custom in the Soudan to spare the employers, who were the most responsible parties, but to punish the small fry, such as vakeels, and the reis, ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... enough when the Baleen Whale rushes through the water with open jaws, engulfing in the huge cavern of its mouth, where the pendent whalebone plates form a huge sieve, incalculable millions of small fry. ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... grandees; he got into close connection with some of the principal parties seeking to establish a monopoly of land (which has since been in great measure effected, by raising the price, and excluding the small fry of petty capitalists); and effectually imposed on them as a man with a vast knowledge of public business, in the confidence of great men at home, considerable influence with the English press, etc. And no discredit to their discernment; for Jack, when he pleased, had ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the stable is a freeholder, and he sits next to the burgomaster in the tavern and is a burgess. When he sees fit to open his head and grumble about the hard times and the taxes, his words are heeded, and the small fry go about the next day telling how Harlanger, or whatever his name is, has spoken his mind ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... narrower necessarily for fine work, and then it is plaited in and out, each article being made double, so that the shiny silvery surface may show on either side. Even baby children manipulate the birch bark, and one may pass a cluster of such small fry by the roadside, shoeless and stockingless, all busily plaiting baskets with their nimble little fingers. We often marvelled ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... time being she is wholly absorbed in her gastronomic exertions. She has already devoured a Bergeret with peas, a Lullier with anchovy sauce, an Assy and potatoes, a Cluseret with tomatos, a Rossel with capers, besides a large quantity of small fry, and she is not yet appeased. The maitre-d'hotel Delescluze waits upon her somewhat in trepidation, with a sickly smile on his face. What if, after such a meal of generals and colonels, the ogress ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... honey. Und' his hat, ef he had any, Brer Rabbit had a mighty quick thinkin' apple-ratus, an' mos' inginner'lly, all de time, de pranks he played on de yuther creeturs pestered um bofe ways a-comin' an' a-gwine. De dogs done mighty well, 'long ez dey had dealin's wid de small fry, like Brer Fox, an' Brer Coon, an' Brer Wolf, but when dey run ag'in' ol' Brer B'ar, dey sho struck a snag. De mos' servigrous wuz de identual one dat got de wust hurted. He got too close ter Brer B'ar, an' when he look ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... political opponent a 'Whirling Coxcomb,' or a 'pensioned scribbler,' was a very mild amenity in eighteenth century party warfare; and the abuse of such small fry as these anonymous pamphleteers might be wholly disregarded did it not show Fielding's prominence, during these anxious times, as a strenuous Hanoverian, and also the fact that he had now not only largely abjured ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... shore at the inlet for small fish, I had seen swirls in a great eddy near the farther shore, which told me plainly of big fish beneath; and one day, when a huge trout rolled half his length out of water behind my fly, small fry lost all their interest and I promised myself the joy of feeling my rod bend and tingle beneath the rush of that big trout if it ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... time! Then Granoux and Roudier; I shouldn't be at all sorry to make them feel that it isn't their purses that will ever win them the cross. Vuillet is a skinflint, but the triumph ought to be complete: invite him as well as the small fry. I was forgetting; you must go and call on the marquis in person; we will seat him on your right; he'll look very well at our table. You know that Monsieur Garconnet is entertaining the colonel and the prefect. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... liked Rotherby," the husky voice went on. "He was a big swell, and he didn't think much of small fry. But you—you and ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... said, when he caught sight of me and my burden, 'what on earth have you got here? You are certainly the most extraordinary young person that we have had in these parts for a long time! Where have you picked up this small fry? Are you taking a pilgrimage and doing penance for your sins with him? If you only could see your face! It makes me burn to look ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... may easily be confuted, since if you toss them crumbs, they will seize them with great readiness, not to say greediness: however, bread should be given sparingly, lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They will also feed on the water- plant called lemna (duck's meat), and also on small fry. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... as the nose on my face," said one intelligent skipper, who had a huge red bulbous proboscis you could have almost seen in the dark. "We've got to play up to you, Captain Mackenzie, just as the small fry plays up to a great ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... fancies for her," said Dick, looking full at Mr. Gresley in an unpleasant manner. "I'm not one that holds that parsons should have their own way in everything. I've seen too much of missionaries. I just shove out curates and vicars and all that small fry if they get in my way. But when they break out in buttons and gaiters, by Jove! I knock under to them—at least, I do to men like the Bishop. He knows a thing or two. He has told me not to come back without Hester, and I'm not going to. Ah! there she is in the garden." Dick's large back ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... to be as big as a porpoise. It was now very fair weather, and the sea was full of a sort of very small grass or moss, which as it floated in the water seemed to have been some spawn of fish; and there was among it some small fry. The next day the sea was full of small round things like pearl, some as big as white peas; they were very clear and transparent, and upon crushing any of them a drop of water would come forth: the skin that contained the water ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... a productive one, though none of its printed results can be counted of permanent value, except his share in the "Letters on German Literature." And even these must be reckoned as belonging to the years of his apprenticeship and training for the master-workman he afterwards became. The small fry of authors and translators were hardly fitted to call out his full strength, but his vivisection of them taught him the value of certain structural principles. "To one dissection of the fore quarter of an ass," says Haydon in his diary, "I owe my information." Yet even in his earliest criticisms ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... sense of Moffatt's strength and keenness, but with a vague doubt as to the "straightness" of the proposed transaction. Ralph had never seen his way clearly in that dim underworld of affairs where men of the Moffatt and Driscoll type moved like shadowy destructive monsters beneath the darting small fry of the surface. He knew that "business" has created its own special morality; and his musings on man's relation to his self imposed laws had shown him how little human conduct is generally troubled about its own sanctions. He had a vivid sense ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... herself and Alfieri in the house by the Arno, with the brilliant society which had assembled in her hotel in Paris. To her, who was, after all, not Italian, but French by education and temper, and who had been steeped anew in French ideas and habits, this small fry of Italian literature, professional and pedantic, able to discuss and (alas! but too able) to hold forth, but absolutely unable to talk, to causer in the French sense, must have become rather oppressive. She and Alfieri were both growing elderly, ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... pushing. The family portraits look disdainfully from their frames, and the ancestral oaks hang their heads in shame. The company reflects the peculiar ambition of the hostess. The neighboring squires are conspicuous by their absence. The local small fry are of course ignored, though to the great lady of the county, who cuts her in town, she is cringingly obsequious. The visitors consist mainly of relays of youths, fast, foolish, and fashionable, with now and then a stray politician ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... a prominent point in our voyage, and having had the seaworthiness of our little ship thoroughly tested, as already told; and seeing, moreover, that we had nothing to fear from common small fry of the sea (one of its greatest monsters having failed to capsize us), we stood on with greater confidence than ever, but watchful, nevertheless, for any ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... abroad, and immediately won, and has since retained, an immense popularity. He was at the height of his fame, but poor, as always. In 1846 he published "The Literati," critical comments on the writers of the day, in which the literary small fry were mercilessly condemned and ridiculed. This naturally made Poe a host of enemies. One of these, Thomas Dunn English, published an abusive article attacking the author's character, whereupon Poe sued him for ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... have been materially aided by two Anglo-American friends, MM Thayer and Cotheal, and I have often had cause to thank the Tribune and the Herald of New York for generously appreciating my labours. But no gratitude from me is due to the small fry of the Transatlantic Press which has welcomed me with spiteful little pars mostly borrowed from unfriends in England and mainly touching upon style and dollars. In the Mail Express of New York (September 7, '85) I read, "Captain Richard Burton, traveller and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... very much indebted to you for the boom you are giving me; it is of distinct value to me, and I appreciate it. I send you herewith a number of my verses that have appeared this week in my column. Having done my work ahead I am rusticating in great shape and have become a veritable terror to the small fry in which the lakes of this delectable locality abound. My books will be issued about the first of August; they will be very pretty pieces of work; I shall send you a set at once. My western verse seems ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Soon he paused before a quiet house, one of the many which housed in cavernous depths uncounted clerks and other small fry of the city. "Good-night to you," said Peter Niburg. Then, rather tardily. "And my thanks. But for you I should ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... water-drinking, thereby shortening their hours of heavenly bliss and depriving their heirs of a certain amount of cash. The same thing applies to Buxton in my own neighbourhood and gout, especially when it threatens the stomach or the throat. Even archbishops will do these things, to say nothing of such small fry as deans, or stout and prominent lay figures of ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... the Reichstag a host of small fry from the Departments collects behind the Government and this dominent Federal Council. The Chancellor, whose place is at the corner of the Government "table" nearest the President, is always shepherded by his political aide-de-camp, ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... it, which is a point in his favour. It was a little awkward though the other day when he began to beat up to find my profession; I forget what he said exactly. It was something like, "Sahib General?" and I said, "No, no," as if Generals were rather small fry in my estimation, and racked my brains how to index myself. I've read you must "buck" in the East—isn't that the expression?—so a happy inspiration came, and I said with solemnity, "I am a J.P.,—a Justice of the Peace, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... fresh for that length of time. The first haul brought up a Chemidium-like sponge; the next gave us a crinoid, very much like the Rhizocrinus lofotensis, but probably different; the third, a living Pleurotomaria; the fourth, a new genus of Spatangoids, etc., etc., not to speak of the small fry. We had the crinoid alive for ten or twelve hours. When contracted, the pinnules are pressed against the arms, and the arms themselves shut against one another, so that the whole looks like a swash made up of a few long, coarse twines. When the animal opens, ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... coldly, and said, "Well, Eric, it would serve you right to be caught. What business have you to be going out at night, at the invitation of contemptible small fry, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Secretary and confidante, little Baranello, whom I brought with me from Salzburg. She is an Italian, and, unlike most of them, as faithful as a dog. A connection of the Ruffo family, princes and dukes that gave the world more than one pope, the small fry Saxon nobility hate her, and George knows that he can't corrupt Lucretia by his paltry presents and ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... country, where Davy had come to pass Christmas with his dear old grandmother, things were not much better; but here people were very wise about the weather, and stayed in-doors, huddled around great blazing wood fires; and the storm, finding no live game, buried up the roads and the fences, and such small fry of houses as could readily be put out of sight, and howled and roared over the fields and through the trees in a fashion not to ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... was looked up to as an epitome of all the virtues which are most acceptable in racing circles. Well, had this dodger exhibited the heroism of Gordon, the benevolence of Lord Shaftesbury, the probity of Henry Fawcett, he could not have been more bepraised and bewailed by the small fry of sporting literature. All he had done in life was to deceive people by making them fancy that certain good horses were bad ones: strictly speaking, he made money by false pretences, and yet, such is the twist given by association with genuine gamblers, that educated men wrote of him as if he had ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Sallust, and the tales of the great Malatestas, of Caesar Borgia and such-like!—a woman whose one passion is conquest and empire—fancy her, on the eve of being wedded to a man of the power of the Duke of Stimigliano, claimed, carried off by a small fry of a Pico, locked up in his hereditary brigand's castle, and having to receive the young fool's red-hot love as an honor and a necessity! The mere thought of any violence to such a nature is an abominable outrage; and if Pico chooses to embrace ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... Why had Henry of Navarre been spared? Had not Alva said, "Take the big fish, and let the small fry go. One salmon is worth more than ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... Bengal nor on the Malabar coast. In Central India it is not uncommon. It has got a reputation for digging into graves, and is called in some parts "the grave-digger;" but I do not believe in its carnivorous propensities to this extent; it lives principally on small fry, insects, and small animals, honey and vegetable food. Jerdon says it is destructive to poultry, which is probable, for it will eat small birds. Both it and the Cape species will eagerly look out for bees, but it is not to be supposed, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale |
