"Fluke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bilge-free; being steadied upon the beds by means of wedges called quoins. The impression made by a ship's bottom on the mud on having been left by an ebb-tide. The bite made in the ground by the fluke of an anchor. A kind of false deck, or platform, placed on those decks where the guns were too low for the ports.—Bed of a gun-carriage, or stool-bed. The piece of wood between the cheeks or brackets which, with the intervention of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... the particular morning which saw Scrabblegrab the only worker at Blugsey's, the remaining miners were assembled in solemn conclave at Stumpy Fluke's saloon, to determine what was to be done ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Jeannie, "is it too dreadful and wicked and fast of me to go on playing? I don't care if it is. I must finish the game, and I'm going to win.—Oh, Lord Lindfield, what a fluke! Do you mean to say you are ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... much if I handed over this place to a man who'd muddle it all up and maybe bring us to the Auctioneer's. I've known ... I've seen ... they had a bailiff in at Becket's House and he lost them three fields of lucerne the first season, and got the fluke into their sheep. Why, even Sir Harry Trevor's taken to managing things himself at North Farthing after the way he saw they were doing with, that old Lambarde, and what he can do I can do, seeing I wasn't brought up in a ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... of being thrown on the island than to be carried past by a fluke of the wind!" he declared, and Thad believed so much the same way that he did change their ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... by a fluke. He is a very ... unusual opponent. I cannot decide whether he is actually as clumsy as he appears to be, or whether he is shamming and trying to make me overconfident. Either way, it is impossible to predict his behavior. ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... and 130 women—all chained, and all held under by us twenty-two whites, of the which nineteen were women. The weather turned sulky almost from the start, and after ten days of drifting, with here and there a fluke of wind, we found ourselves off the Gaboon river. From this we crept our way to the Island of St. Thomas, three days; watered there, and fetched down to the south-east trades. The niggers were dying fast, and between the south-east and north-east trades, six ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... main-topsail and fore-topmast-staysail, she rode more upright. The main-topsail was clewed up and fortunately saved, the mizzen-staysail was set. "Stand by, to cut away the stoppers of the best bower anchor—to let it go, stock and fluke," said Captain G. "Man the fore-topmast-staysail down-haul; put your helm down! haul down the staysail." This was done, and the ship came up handsomely, head to wind, "See the cable tiers all clear—what water is there?" said Captain G. The leadsman sang out in a clear voice, "And a half-eight!" ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... worse for you. You'll have to unlearn all you learned before you can get right down to human nature, and unlearnin' takes a lot of time. Some men can never forget what they learned at college. Such men may get to be district leaders by a fluke, but they never last. ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... it for bread, naturally. They bring in a few shillings. It is just a fluke that I can make them at all. I know as much about a needle ordinarily as a flying-machine; but I learnt to knit once under protest. I sprained my ankle and was laid up for some weeks, and I told the doctor I ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... "I've never known him fail yet in anything he set his mind to—at least, only once. And that was a fluke." ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... House!" cried Mr. Fox. The next moment every one was shoving and elbowing with their eyes fixed on the ball as it flew through the air. It dropped in exactly the right place, and Jack Vance, by some happy fluke, kicked it just as it touched the ground. Like a big round shot it whizzed through the posts, and there was ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... fluke, then, Roderick; I declare to you I was certain I had missed," said he—though he hardly knew what he was saying; a kind of bewilderment of joy possessed him—he could not keep his eyes off the dead ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Francis acknowledged, "and as a matter of fact I deny that I have started in any new career. It was easy enough to make use of a fluke and direct the intelligence of others towards the right person, but when the real significance of the thing still eludes you, one can scarcely ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cleave watery way, the sailor passed a stout new rope from a belaying-pin through this hole, and then he betrayed his watch on deck by hauling the end up with a clew, and gently returning it to the deep with a long grappling-iron made fast to it. This had not fluke enough to lay fast hold and bring the vessel up; for in that case it would have been immediately discovered; but it dragged along the bottom like a trawl, and by its weight, and a hitch every now and then in some hole, ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the rale old gent as ye've heerd tell on, wot hangs out down below when he's at home and allers dresses in black to look genteel-like. Wears top-boots for to hide his cloven feet, sir, and carries a fine tail under his arm with a fluke at the end of it, same as that on a sheet-anchor—ah, yer knows the gent ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... time. I had to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones; I was learning to clap my teeth smartly before my heart flew out, when I shaved by a fluke some infernal sly old snag that would have ripped the life out of the tin-pot steamboat and drowned all the pilgrims; I had to keep a lookout for the signs of dead wood we could cut up in the night for next day's ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... did say the right thing, it was a most fearful fluke," I said, for I could not be silent. "I simply hate men who walk about patting themselves on the back because they have had what they call success with ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... a minor public position—because, by a fluke, having found myself in the place of a common councilman, I have got some things done and kept ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... like that happened to me. From early childhood I was trained by parents and teachers to discipline the projective potential of my mind into the System. Like every other paraNormal, I received my education by tapping Central for contact with information centers and other minds. But I was a fluke." His dark blue eyes twinkled. "Biological units are never so standardized that all of them fall under any system that can be devised. I functioned in this System, true, but I could imagine my mind existing outside, could see my functioning from the outside. This is terribly ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... on no better pretext than that of simply wanting to (she had after all virtually invited him), that she mentioned how only one song in a thousand was successful and that the terrible difficulty was in getting the right words. This rightness was just a vulgar "fluke"— there were lots of words really clever that were of no use at all. Peter said, laughing, that he supposed any words he should try to produce would be sure to be too clever; yet only three weeks after his first encounter with Mrs. Ryves he sat at his delightful davenport ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... "Fluke this time, I'm afraid," he acknowledged, "but I rather like the suggestion. You ought to see a great deal of me, Miss Van Teyl. Do you realise that I am a stranger in New York, and any hospitality you can show me may be doubly rewarded? Are you going to ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... We had spun merrily along the tail of the S.E. trades and glided slowly to a standstill on a glassy ocean, and beneath a sun that at noon left us shadowless. A fluke or two of wind had helped us across the line; but now, in 2 deg. 27' north latitude, the Midas slept like a turtle on the greasy sea. The heat of the near African coast seemed to beat like steam against our ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of his losses, was now almost cheerful again on account of a curious side issue. "You may say it is coincidence," he said, "you may call it a fluke, but I prefer to look for some other interpretation! Consider this. The amount of my balance is a secret between me and my bankers. He never had it from me, for I did not know it—I hadn't looked at my passbook for months. But he drew it all in one cheque, ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the bow, so that the sharp flukes protruded; thus extemporizing an iron-clad ram more than two hundred years before naval men thought of using one. Thus provided, the second blow of the sloop was more terrible than the first. The sharp fluke of the anchor crashed through the side of the pinnace, and the two vessels hung tightly together. Gallop then began to double-load his duck-guns, and fire through the sides of the pinnace; but, finding that the enemy was not to ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of Noah's ark thrown out there; and the other half is eat up by bankers, lawyers, and other great folks. All our money goes to pay salaries, and a poor man has no chance at all.' 'Well,' says I, 'are you done up stock and fluke—a total wrack?' 'No,' says he, 'I have two hundred pounds left yet to the good, but my farm, stock and utensils, them young blood horses, and the bran' new vessel I was a-buildin', are all gone to pot, swept as clean as ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... got on board. She had no masts, but the sails were hoisted on huge triangles, which could be lowered at pleasure. Her anchor, too, was of curious construction: it consisted of a tough, hooked piece of timber, which served as the fluke or hook, being strengthened by twisted ratans, which bound it to the shank; while the stock was formed of a large flat stone, also secured by ratans to the shank. I observed that all the crew were armed; and on a small ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... names,—star-flowers, wind-stars, St. John's wort, willow herb, lords and ladies, bachelor's buttons,—most curious names, some of them. "The flowers are all different in South Africa, y'know," he was explaining with a happy fluke of his imagination to account for his ignorance. Then suddenly, heralded by clattering sounds and a gride of wheels, Dangle had flared and thundered across the tranquillity of the summer evening; Dangle, swaying and gesticulating ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... a lucky fluke for you, and I'm glad for your mater's sake. But I wouldn't say too much about it if I were you. It'll make ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... many farmers to a state of destitution. Much of the grain was never harvested, whilst owing mainly to the excessive floods there commenced an outbreak of liver-rot in sheep, due to the ravages of the fluke parasite. This continued for several years, and the mortality was so great that its adverse effects upon the ovine population of the country were still perceptible ten years afterwards. A fall in rents was the necessary sequel of the agricultural distress, to inquire into which a royal ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Kiranus. And there it happened one Sunday, as the people were at prayers and heard mass, that there descended gently from the air an anchor, as if it had been cast from a ship, for there was a cable to it, and the fluke of the anchor caught in the arch of the church-door, and all the people went out of church, and wondered, and looked up into the air after the cable. There they saw a ship floating above the cable, and men on board; and next they saw a man ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... elbows on the ledge as they stared down the black tube at a white disc that seemed miles away. Each held the gun awkwardly like a broom-handle, holding their breath to prevent the barrel from wobbling. At the fifth shot, by a lucky fluke, Chook rang the bell. When he put down the rifle, Stinky was already dragging Pinkey away, his face black with anger. But ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... races; nevertheless their peculiarities can often be strictly propagated by seed. A great authority, Mr. Rivers (9/101. 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1863 page 643.) states that "seedlings from the ash-leaved kidney always bear a strong resemblance to their parent. Seedlings from the fluke-kidney are still more remarkable for their adherence to their parent stock, for, on closely observing a great number during two seasons, I have not been able to observe the least difference, either in earliness, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... contemptuously; "that was a pure fluke. Any one could have caught that; and so it does not count either. I ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... hardly knew what he was saying; a kind of bewilderment of joy possessed him—he could not keep his eyes off the dead stag—and now, if he had only chanced to notice it, his hand was certainly trembling. Probably Roderick did not know what a fluke was; in any case ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... but the heart-relation, the brain-relation ('the stranger in blood'), he alone should go untaxed altogether! Alas, the Inland Revenue Commissioners would charge him more than any, which shows that their above-mentioned touch of nature was but a fluke, after all. ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... full of loyalty for his friend and fellow-classman, but he did not allow this to blind his judgment. Farley's opinion was that Dave was done for, unless he could land some lucky fluke ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... it was a fluke," said the professor. "I saw him make a swift pick-up a few minutes ago that nine out of ten would have missed. And he threw down to first almost on a line. The ball didn't rise more than three ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... disaster. Over half the Fifes are missing, most of the Devons also, so-and-so killed, and so-and-so, and so-and-so. Kits lost, and tents burnt. From various reliable sources I have compiled the best account I can make of the affair, which we missed by the merest fluke, what men call chance, and here ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... of the howdah. I was sure that I had missed altogether, and thought no more about it, but when the beat came up half an hour later, a huge tiger was lying there stone dead. That, of course, was an absolute piece of luck, a mere fluke, as I had never even seen the brute. As soon as the Maharajah and his men had examined the big tiger's teeth they at once pronounced him a man-eater, and there was great rejoicing, for a man-eating tiger had been taking toll of the villagers in one of the jungle clearings. ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... fourteen hundred a year, if you only look out for a good investment. A man with ready money at his own disposal can always get five per cent, at least. I never heard of such a fluke in my life." ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... Diploma on a Fluke, but when he appeared on the Rostrum between an Oleander and the Members of the Board, with Goose-Goose on the Aureole, the new Store Suit garnished with a leaf of Geranium and a yellow Rose-Bud, and the Gates Ajar Collar lashed fast with his future Trade-Mark: viz., a White Bow Tie—he had all the ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... — N. angularity, angularness^; aduncity^; angle, cusp, bend; fold &c 258; notch &c 257; fork, bifurcation. elbow, knee, knuckle, ankle, groin, crotch, crutch, crane, fluke, scythe, sickle, zigzag, kimbo^, akimbo. corner, nook, recess, niche, oriel [Arch.], coign^. right angle &c (perpendicular) 216.1, 212; obliquity &c 217; angle of 45 degrees, miter; acute angle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dreamer nor capable of being guessed by him. If the events beheld in the dream are far away in space, or are remote in time past, the puzzle is difficult enough. But if the events are still in the future, perhaps no kind of explanation except a mere "fluke" can even be suggested. Say that I dream of an event occurring at a distance, and that I record or act on my dream before it is corroborated. Suppose, too, that the event is not one which could be guessed, like the death of an invalid or the result ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... a magnificent fight for it, Mr. Trent," he said. "I'm afraid I only got the verdict by a fluke. Another time may you be the ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... we were all glad to hear that. I ran the ship alongside of the dead whale and after darting at him two or three times managed to get fast and get him alongside. Just then it was reported that the boats to leeward were out of sight. That worried me some so I told the cooper to get the fluke chain on the whale and I would go aloft and see if I could ...
— Bark Kathleen Sunk By A Whale • Thomas H. Jenkins
... a fluke that he missed Sanders. As it happened, the Commissioner had come back to the big river to collect the evidence of the murdered woman's brother who was a petty headman of an Isisi fishing village. The Zaire came ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... Geordie—go to; a juggle, I tell thee; sheer malice of the enemy, fow' an' fause as he be." Here he spat on the floor to show his detestation and contempt; but George, either too ignorant or too idle to reply, took down a dried fluke from the chimney, and warming it on the glowing turf for a few minutes, was soon occupied in disposing of this dainty and favourite repast. Their hut was of the rudest construction. The walls were of boulder stones from the beach, loosely set up with mud and slime, and in several ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... you'd tell us what yuh done it for!" Slim cut in disgustedly. "It was nacherlay supposed you could ride; we got money up on yuh! And then, by golly, to go and make a fluke like that before them Diamond G men—to go and let that blue roan pile yuh up b'fore he'd got rightly started t' pitch—If yuh'd stayed with him till he got t' swappin' ends there, it wouldn't uh looked quite so ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... and, by what I can learn, they spoke them pretty plainly to one another. Indeed, I may say that I overheard a small matter of it myself, seeing that the windows was open, and I hard by. But this here is no pick. but an anchor on a mans shoulder; and heres the other fluke down his back, maybe a little too close, which signifies that the lad has got under way ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... drop, straight over the plate. The batter poked weakly at it. Then Carl struck out and Manning following, did likewise. Three of the best hitters in the Eastern retired on nine strikes! That was no fluke. I knew what it meant, and I sat there hugging myself with the hum of something joyous in ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... "Somebody sold you a fluke. This set must be an off brand. Incidentally, isn't Tanganyika a colony governed by the Federal ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... rich, and so on. Perhaps she is not so very plain. They are sure to meet, or Mrs. Nicholson will bring them together in her tactful way. She has not much time to lose if the girl's glass ball yarn is true, and it may be true by a fluke. Jephson is rather bitten by a taste for all that "teleopathy" business, as the old Malaprop calls it. On the whole, I shall say no more to him, but let him play the game, if he goes to ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... the Gulf States of the South would never have ordered their representatives to leave Washington on the election of Abraham Lincoln. The new administration could have done nothing with the Congress chosen. The President had been elected on a fluke because of the division of the opposition into three tickets. Lincoln was a minority President and was powerless except in the ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... counsel that the greater part of my success was due. He taught me the folly of ploughing with a fluke,—a custom to which the Eastern Shore was wedded, pointing out that a double surface was thus exposed to the sun's rays; and explained at length why there was more profit in small grain in that district ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... be made of them. It was a very clever trap which was baited, and it was not owing to any foresight or any cleverness on the part of this country that the Allies did not walk straight into it. I say again," he went on, "that it was a mere fluke which prevented the Allies from being represented at that Conference and the driving in of the thin ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the mere fact that the thief got the jewels, and was only stopped by a fluke from getting away with ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... next morning Ray greeted his ladies and helped them into the car. Giddy had put on a clean shirt and yellow pig-skin gloves and was whistling his best. He considered Kennedy a fluke as a ladies' man, and if there was to be a party, the honors had to be done by some one who wasn't a blacksmith at small-talk. Giddy had, as Ray sarcastically admitted, "a local reputation as a jollier," and he was fluent ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... you? She has traveled, she has studied, she is at home with grand dukes in Nice, and scribblers in a country village. She is wise without being solemn. She has courage, too, or I should not be here on a mere fluke. Now, my boy, you have given yourself due ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... It's a moral for us, not a doubt of it. Horse that can lick us is not foaled or named. Mr. Punch. Glad you're so cock-sure, dear JOKIM. Still lately They've scored some small handicaps, that you'll allow. Trainer. Oh! Harborough Stakes! Well, that don't scare me greatly, Mere fluke after all, though they raised a big row. Mr. Punch. It's mostly "a fluke" when opponents go by us; But flukes, you know, count, at the end of the game. Trainer. Well, look at the betting! Although they ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 30, 1891 • Various
... desired now a whole series of baths. And he was very harassed indeed. If he, by a fluke, had discovered the escapade of the church-tower and the church-clock, why should not others discover it by other flukes? Was it conceivable that such a matter should forever remain a secret? The thing, to Mr. ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... over a hundred years by slicing their old Turkey in two. Then came the big delay owing to ships changing stations during which mines set loose from up above had time to float down the current, when, by the Devil's own fluke, they impinge upon our battleships, and blow de Robeck and his plans into the middle of next week—or later! These are ward-room yarns. De Robeck was working by stages and never meant, so far as we know, to run through ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... original idea had occurred to Lance; and by the merest fluke they found one another out. To Roy's relief, Lance greeted the embarrassing discovery with a ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... however, we were disagreeably out in our anticipations, for about three o'clock A.M. (January 16) a heavy squall burst on us, veering from East-South-East to East-North-East, broke our best bower anchor, and drove us half a mile out to sea, when the remaining fluke hooked a rock and brought us up. It rained and blew till daylight, then we were again favoured with fine weather, and light westerly winds. The land was now in sight, Cape Villaret being the most northerly point, and bearing East-South-East some 16 or 17 miles. The hillock ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... Hackett Wells this was a national calamity. Havin' got in with the easy-money bunch by a fluke in the first place, he wa'n't a man who could come back. Course he brought suit, and wasted a lot of breath callin' Pyramid hard names from a safe distance; but Pyramid's lawyers wore him out in the courts, and he was too busy to care who ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... the sainted knee, Invite all men their liberty to share, Seek public peace, defy the assaults of war, Plant, reap, consume, enjoy their fearless toil, Tame their wild floods, to fatten still their soil, Enrich all nations with their nurturing store, And rake with venturous fluke each wondering shore.— ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... his own sake. And your sister, no doubt, eager to marry anybody, poor child, for the sake of getting away from that very lovely dungeon of Lady Maulevrier's, snapped at the chance; and by a mere fluke she becomes ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... with more care than he had previously done, and this close examination revealed the fact that the measure is one in every way worthy of support. (Pretty thin!) It cannot be denied that this desertion has had a damaging effect. Jex and Fluke have returned to their iniquitous allegiance, with six or eight others of lesser calibre, and it is reported and believed that Tubbs and Huffy are ready to go back. It is feared that the University swindle is stronger to-day than it ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... of course you cannot. I was forgetting you did not know! There, pass me the stuff on yonder platter that looks like caked mud from an anchor fluke, and swells like breath of paradise, and let me question you;" and while I sat and drank with that yellow servitor sitting in front of me, I plied her with questions, just as a baby might who had come into the world with a full-blown gift of speech. But though she was ready ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... his man with greater celerity. Nothing on earth will kill cross-breds; nothing will keep merinos alive. If they are put on dry salt-bush country they die of drought. If they are put on damp, well-watered country they die of worms, fluke, and foot-rot. They die in the wet seasons and they ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... done that, Mallett, for the men would have marched all night, and, if necessary, all day tomorrow, to catch up. Still, it is a wonderful fluke that after all we ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... estate—Lady Victoria's mother or grandmother was a Spanish-Californian. Of course he chucked the title. He's a sort of cousin of mine and I looked him up, and dined with him the other night. He was born in the United States, by a fluke as it were, and has made up his mind to be an American for the rest of his life and carve out a political career in this country. I'd have done the same thing, by Jove! First-class solution...although it's a pretty hard wrench ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... burst out of a disturbed hole, and Geoffry, with a shout of delight, in pure instinct flung a stone. By a strange, unhappy fluke, expected least of all by himself, the stone hit the poor little terrified thing and it rolled over dead. He picked it up by its ears and called to them triumphantly to witness his luck, with boyish delight in the unexpected, though the chances were he would never have ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... in this way. Bertie was so pleased with the result of his first speculation in horseflesh (though so far as he was concerned it was a pure fluke) that he must needs make another. If he had picked up a second cab-horse at thirty or forty pounds he could not have gone far wrong; but instead of that he must needs go to Tattersall's and give nearly fifty for a blood mare rejoicing in the name of "Tickle-me-Quick," described ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... even for a duffer. Do you suppose he will catch it? Not he. He will stand where he is, and put up his hands, and look another way. In fact, he won't do his best. And why? Because all of us never expect him to catch it; and if he did, we should probably call it a "fluke," and laugh at him all the more. Yes, it's our fault in a certain measure that Billy is the awful "duffer" ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... from the south. This day came into Harbor the bark Winona, after a cruise of three years, two months, and four days. Captain Chase reported that my eldest son, Matthew Shore, was killed by the fluke of a right whale, at Christmas Island. The whale yielded seventy barrels of oil. Matthew Shore was ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... anything to do with the conduct of the business of the company in which he invests, but one has got a tip from some friend or other who thinks he knows of a good thing. The work of the two men is exactly the same; it is a mere fluke that one gets a huge return and the other puts his money into a company which, without any fault on ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... the fluke of that anchor. The owner of this spot should be put in limbo for settin' man-traps. Have a care of your shins, Guy; it's difficult navigation ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... outward patience, though a loud voice seemed crying in his ears, "What will happen next? What will the end be—success, or a sudden fluke that will mean failure?" He barred his mind against misgivings, but he had hoped for some sign of life when he rode in sight of the white roofs; and there had ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Aft and walk away with her! Handsome to the cathead, now; O tally on the fall! Stop, seize and fish, and easy on the davit-guy. Up, well up the fluke of her, ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... of each other, head and stern, when, the fluke of our spare anchor hooking his quarter, we became so close, fore and aft, that the muzzles of our guns touched each ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... of the new-comers were fishing off the rocks, west of the hotel, a shark came close in shore. Hearing their outcries, I looked out of my chamber window, and saw the dorsal fin and the fluke of his tail stuck up out of the water, as he moved to and fro. He must have been eight or ten feet long. He had probably followed the small fish into the bay, and got bewildered, and, at one time, he ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that tiresome man, LITVINOFF, first got them from, but my poor friends, whose business all this is, were running after them at least ten months ago. Sometimes they were in Russia, sometimes they showed up in Denmark, sometimes they got scent of them in Germany, and I am told it is the merest fluke that the Bonds did not come to Switzerland for the winter sports. And wherever they turned up they were always just on their way to England; either they had a poor sense of direction or, being bad sailors, were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... lived in the place for years, but Mr. Williams quarrelled with Dr. Bevan, and his daughter dared not send for him, and as I was the nearest medical man, the servant came to me; it was just a fluke, ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Cedric stands a very poor chance." Here Dinah's face fell. "He has plenty of abilities, but I doubt his staying power; he works too much by fits and starts—there is no method or application. But of course he may turn over a new leaf. It is just possible that he may pass by some lucky fluke. It is not always the best workers who get through. You will give him a coach, of course. Oh, I see," reading Dinah's expression correctly, "he may have a dozen coaches if he needs them; but ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... WHAT though a Fluke should fling your Class aside, And Best Gross be your momentary pride: Are you a Golfer more than when last week You did YOUR best, and barely saved ...
— The Golfer's Rubaiyat • H. W. Boynton
... As he spoke, the fluke of the starboard anchor of the Serapis hooked in the mizzen chains. It was lashed fast, and the ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... if played on honor. An English tennis champion was lately playing a rubber game with the American champion. They were even and near the end when the American made a bad fluke which would have lost this country its championship. The English player, scorning to win on an accident, intentionally made a similar mistake that the best man might win. The chief evil of modern American football which now threatens ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... I was, like an old water-logged timber ship, never moving a spar, but looking for all the world as though I were a settling fast to go down stern foremost: may be as how I had no objection to that same; but that's neither here nor there. Well, I sat down on the fluke of an anchor, and began a thinking if it wasn't better to go before the mast than live on that way. Just before me, where I sat down, there was an old schooner that lay moored in the same place for ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... stay for three days with Mr. Fowler, who has promised to take me up in an aeroplane. I am also to have riding-lessons, and Aunt Mildred has promised me a pony, being so sorry to hear that I was done out of the caravan trip by a fluke. Uncle Jim has sent me 5 pounds. According to the papers the weather is going to break up directly. Your affectionate ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... not show any outward sign of nervousness, though they knew well enough that before the light of another day came their numbers would have passed through the lottery of this game of death. Each man's life depended on no more than a fluke of luck by the throw of those dice which explode as they fall. They knew what their job was. It was to cross five hundred yards of open ground to capture and to hold a certain part of the German position near the ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... seldom waste time the way I do, trying to find these things out; when they do it's generally a fluke if they come across the key. It took me hours to disentangle the first of those advertisements—the rest came ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... natives. Besides pieces of earthen jars and trees cut with axes, we found remnants of bamboo lattice work, palm leaves sewed with cotton thread into the form of such hats as are worn by the Chinese, and the remains of blue cotton trousers, of the fashion called moormans. A wooden anchor of one fluke, and three boats rudders of violet wood were also found; but what puzzled me most was a collection of stones piled together in a line, resembling a low wall, with short lines running perpendicularly at the back, dividing the space behind into compartments. In each of these were the ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... it may be that stands in the way, we must brush it aside, and fight together to carry the day. Why, Chester will just go crazy if only we can down the boasting team that has never tasted defeat this season up to that fluke game, when they underestimated the fighting qualities of the rejuvenated Chester nine. And we can do it, Fred, we surely can, if only we pull together in team work, and every fellow stands on his honor to do his level best. You believe that, ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... nakedness. In perils too, so Gerda believed, of cattle; for these would stray in bellowing herds about narrow lanes, and they would all charge straight through them, missing the lowered horns by some incredible fluke of fortune. If this seems to make Gerda a coward, it should be remembered that she showed none of these inward blenchings, but went on her way with the rest, composed as a little wax figure at Madame Tussaud's. She was, in fact, of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... hero also devoted a good deal of his time to acquiring in-door games, being quickly initiated into the mysteries of billiards, and plunging headlong into pool. It was in the billiard-room that Verdant first formed his acquaintance with Mr. Fluke of Christ Church, well known to be the best player in the University, and who, if report spoke truly, always made his five hundred a year by his skill in the game. Mr. Fluke kindly put our hero "into the way to become a player;" and Verdant soon ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... they had been called to represent. So it was that the Benson start passed unnoticed until it dawned upon Colson's, the crew ahead, that the Benson boat had drawn unaccountably nearer. And Benson's, too! It could only be a fluke, and with that conviction Colson's settled down grimly to the task ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... were beginning to be disgusted. "It was only a fluke after all," they said to each other. Colonel Drew was appealed to urge Monty to save himself, and he was on the point of remonstrance when the message came that the threatened strike was off, and that ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... don't care. But ye'll remember that I'll kill that sick kid, Fluke, and Lem'll put an end to the Tarrytown duffer what loves ye. I ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... he expected. The forward pass on the part of the scrub was a fluke and after a few more rushing plays the ball was given to the varsity to enable them to try some of their ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... husban', he 's editor of a noos-sheet, and gits a thousand dollars a year—'tain't believable, but it's what they say—an' he thinks he knows it all. He got Fluke to take him out in his boat; he began to direc' Fluke how to do this, an' how to do that, and squallin' and flyin' at him. Fluke sailed back with him and sot him ashore. 'When I take a hen in a boat, I'll take a hen,' ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... to save its life he handed the case over to my wife. She succeeded, chiefly, I think, by careful nursing, in pulling it through, much to John's surprise; doubtless he thought its recovery a lucky fluke. John was given to occasional alcoholic lapses; on one occasion I found him aimlessly driving sheep across a field of growing mangolds! I could see that he was muddled, and on reaching home later I sought an interview. He was not to be found, but at his cottage his wife told me that ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... I confessed that all three had predicted that I should do several things which I had since done rather unexpectedly. He asked if I didn't accept this as, at any rate, a scrap of evidence. I said I could only regard it as a fluke—a rather ...
— A. V. Laider • Max Beerbohm
... eight feet between his dorsal fin and the great curved fluke of his tail, and that would make his total ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... knew nothing of wax, and when the Skis stuck, they stuck, and I thought it a poor game. When they slid I sat down and I thought it a poorer game. It never entered my head that I could traverse across any slope and so I always went straight down and only by a fluke did I ever stand. Then Tobias Branger, who was a great sportsman and kept a sports shop at Davos, imported several pairs of Skis and practised ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... the use of discussing it? Blair was a fluke champion anyway. Everybody knew that. Chance had made him, chance which had been luckless for Jimmy Montague. Montague, he said, had been selected as the logical man to meet Fanchette, the man whose record ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... five hundred-weights) was lowered with the remainder of the chain. For a time this held the ship, but a gust of wind from the southeast caused it to drag. It was, therefore, hauled up and, on coming to the surface, was seen to have lost a fluke. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... Knee Buckles Fluke and Tongs, ruff and smooth Files, Bone Buckle Brushes, Freezing Punches, Binding Wire, Steel Top Thimbles, Cypher and Brilliant Button Stones, Cypher and Brilliant Ring Stones, Ring Sparks, Motto Ring Stones, Amethysts, Garnetts, Brilliant and Cypher Earing Stones, Amethysts Foyle, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... ball on her ten-yard line. The north stand was applauding vociferously this stroke of fortune. If Erskine could get possession of the ball now she might be able to score; but her coaches, watching intently from the side-line, knew that only the veriest fluke could give the pigskin to the Purple. And meanwhile, with hearts beating a little faster than usual, they awaited the first practical ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... started to interrupt indignantly, but Lispenard continued, "Hold on till I finish. One at a time. Well. Miss Luck gets him chosen to a convention by a fluke and Peter votes against Costell's wishes. What happens? Costell promptly takes him up and pushes him for all he's worth. He snubs society, and society concludes that a man who is more snubby and exclusive than itself must be a man to cultivate. He refuses to talk, and every ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... Home-Thoughts, from Abroad. Many had observed that the thrush sings a lilt, and immediately repeats it: but Browning was the first to give a pretty reason for it. The thrush seems to say, "You think that beautiful melody is an accident? Well, I will show you it is no fluke, I will sing it correctly right over again." Browning was not in Italy in April—perhaps he wrote the first stanza on the voyage, as he wrote Home-Thoughts, from the Sea, and added the second stanza about ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... beginning to bend away towards that hissing knot in the north-west, wound our poor little channel, mercilessly exposed as a stagnant, muddy ditch with scarcely a foot of water, not deep enough to hide our small kedge-anchor, which perked up one fluke in impudent mockery. The dull, hard sky, the wind moaning in the rigging as though crying in despair for a prey that had escaped it, made the ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Three-fingered Hoover had insulted Charlotte Rooze At the conversazzhyony down at Sorry Tom's that night, An' when they asked me, I allowed that Bill for once wuz right; Although it broke my heart to see my friend go up the fluke, We all opined his treatment uv the girl deserved rebuke. It warn't no use for Sorry Tom to nail it for a lie,— When it come to sassin' wimmin, there wuz blood in every eye; The boom for Charlotte Rooze swep' on an' took the polls by storm, ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... are good all year round, but the fluke is better than the flounder in summer. Carp may be had all year, but care must be taken that it has ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... chain which the undertow could not drag away with it; higher up, women and children, their clothes driven by the furious gale, with one hand holding on their caps, and with the other supporting themselves by the gunnels of the boats hauled up, the capstans, or perhaps an anchor with its fluke buried in the shingle, were looking on with dismay and with beating hearts, awaiting the result of the venturous attempt, and I soon discovered the form of Bessy, who was in advance ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... have found her," Jimmie replied. "It was by a mere fluke. I went to a solicitor on some business, and it turned out that he was acting for Miss Foster—you see her father left a good bit of money. He was close-mouthed at first, but when I partly explained how matters stood, he told me that the girl and her old servant, ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... the broker, bitterly, "the game's up. I have been ruined, stock and fluke, by letting my wife have her own way, and to-morrow I shall ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... stomach, or paunch, contains large numbers of minute parasites known as protozoa, which are too small to be seen with the naked eye. These small organisms apparently are in no way injurious. A species of fluke (Paramphistomum cervi or a closely related species) is occasionally found in North American cattle, especially grass-fed cattle, attached to the inner surface of the first stomach (fig. 12). This ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... "And by a fluke, sir," said Wilson, as one who tells of strange things, "the rat happened to be pointing in the same direction, so ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... us. In the mean time the strain put upon the Hecla's hawsers being too great for them, they snapped one after another, and a bower-anchor was let go as a last resource. It was one of Hawkins's, with the double fluke, and immediately brought up, not merely the ship, but a large floe of young ice which had just broken our stream-cable. All hands were sent upon the floe to cut it up ahead, and the whole operation was a novel, and, at times, a fearful one; ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... come off, and, by a fluke, at the very moment when the attack surged over the crest of the hill, Betteridge's exhausted platoon, with shouts and cheers, burst into Rogers's flank. There was not the slightest doubt that the defence had been cut ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... the several movements on board, the subsequent signal of sailing, and of the impatience in the crowd, Wilder had been a grave and close observer. Posted with his back against the upright fluke of a condemned anchor, on a wharf a little apart from that occupied by most of the other spectators, he had remained an hour in the same position scarcely bending his look to his right hand or to his ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... leading manufacturers and tradesmen and their sons) had now an interest in the revolver, for Brindley, the architect, had spoken of that which he had seen with his own eyes. Some people accepted the alderman without demur as a great and terrible shot; but others talked about a fluke; and a very small minority mentioned that there was such a thing as blank cartridge. It was the monstrous slander of this minority that induced the alderman to stand up morally for his revolver and to continue ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... both in the Cabinet and in the House, and will be ready to advise the Under-Secretary and myself. I must, however, say how deeply grateful I am for our pleasant relations, which might easily have been a little strained from the fact that it was a sort of fluke that you were my Under-Secretary instead of being my colleague in the Cabinet. As it is, nothing could be more satisfactory and more pleasant to me, and the knowledge we have obtained of one another will ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... released anchor swept over the lighter's forecastle. It came against the breast of Senor Hirsch, who simply seized hold of it, without in the least knowing what it was, but curling his arms and legs upon the part above the fluke with an invincible, unreasonable tenacity. The lighter yawed off wide, and the steamer, moving on, carried him away, clinging hard, and shouting for help. It was some time, however, after the steamer had stopped that his position was discovered. His sustained yelping for ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... from that by the simple plan of getting the Belgians first and trusting to the goodwill of the Parish to take care of them afterwards—there are other important factors in our success. There is our extraordinary foresight—of course it was a pure fluke really—in obtaining among them a real Belgian policeman. You can have no idea what a fine sense of security that gives us in case anything goes wrong. We have already enjoyed his assistance in a variety ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... Merchants' days how Britten and I scoffed at that pompous question-begging word "Evolution," having, so to speak, found it out. Evolution, some illuminating talker had remarked at the Britten lunch table, had led not only to man, but to the liver-fluke and skunk, obviously it might lead anywhere; order came into things only through the struggling mind of man. That lit things wonderfully for us. When I went up to Cambridge I was perfectly clear that life was a various and splendid ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... the way to the top of Spion Kop; and even had it been wanting it is not likely that after a sacrifice of 1,200 to 1,300 lives the position would have been abandoned on this account alone. Our victory was undoubtedly a fluke. ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... "you were not to be suffered to hide your light under a bushel. I wonder to hear you—I thought you had more pluck and perseverance. How many times do you think the young fellows at St. Ambrose's are turned back and have to try again? If I passed in my first exam, it was by the merest fluke, as three-fourths of the men will tell you they pass. As for my degree, I had the common sense and modesty to put off taking it to the last moment, and to stay up two different vacations, 'sapping' like a Scotchman, before I ventured to undergo the test. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... of me, and showing their tops well above the moon-kissed reeds and bushes, were two trees—a tamarind and a kulpa briksha. God knows why I decided on the latter! Probably through a mere fluke, for I hadn't the remotest idea which of the trees offered the best facilities to a poor climber. My mind once made up, there was no time to alter. The wer-tiger was already terribly close behind. I could gauge its distance by the patter of its feet—apparently the metamorphosis had only ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... likes being kind to people! Mrs. Warner told me so," remarked Rumple, with the air of knowing all that there was to be known. "He is most awfully rich, too, and he came into his money quite by a fluke." ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... choose what crimes you'll be a detective about. You just have to get a suspicious circumstance, and then you look for a clue and follow it up. Whether it turns out a murder or a missing will is just a fluke.' ...
— The Story of the Treasure Seekers • E. Nesbit
... Cupples's face. 'You must not suspect me of empty paradox,' he said. 'My meaning will become clearer, perhaps, if I mention some things which do appear to me essentially remarkable. Let me see .... Well, I would call the life history of the liver-fluke, which we owe to the researches of Poulton, an ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... instruction proceeded, and he developed a certain expert dignity, a quality of fatherly consideration. He treated Denton with the utmost consideration, only "flicking him up a bit" now and then, to keep the interest hot, and roaring with laughter at a happy fluke of Denton's that covered his mouth ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... broad-shouldered jack-tar, giving the fluke of the anchor a hearty slap with his hand after the housing was completed—"there, lass, take a good nap now, for we shan't ask you to kiss the mud again for many a long day ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... embarrassing. It crowded him into corners that were hard to get out of and forced him to make excuses for himself, whereas at the moment he was all lit up with joy over the miracle of his second big strike. He had discovered the Wunpost, and lost it on a fluke; but the Willie Meena was different—if he kept the peace with her they would both come out with ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... wurra of hopes and fears and little stratagems which as often as not proved injudicious, and then somehow or other in the end, there lay the young man bound and with an arrow through his heart at her daughter's feet. It seemed to her to be all a fluke which she could have little or no hope of repeating. She had indeed repeated it once, and might perhaps with good luck repeat it yet once again—but five times over! It was awful: why she would rather have three confinements than go through ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... to be in his office. Mat Dillon's long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out that evening on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke of mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate at first sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, laughing. Fellow always like that, mortified if ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... is at once a joy and a disappointment. Such marvellous angles and stop volleys off difficult drives! Yet immediately on top of a dazzling display Alonzo will throw away the easiest sort of a high volley by a pitiable fluke. ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... seen me already. That was why I was so long. They's three hundred more waitin' on the tree for me to pick two weeks from last night if you'll say the word. It's just the same as I told you before. He's my meat. He still thinks I 'm a rube, an' that it was a fluke punch." ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... a princely gathering to see me carry out my bat! Don't grin, you fellows. I know it was a fluke—a dashed fine fluke, too. But it's what I always meant, after all. There's good old Monty, yelling himself hoarse in the pavilion. And his girl—waving. Sweet girl, too—the best in the world. I might cut him out there. But I won't, I won't! I'm not such a hound as that, though she's the only woman ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... one who would know exactly what to do with it. Dan perched himself on the weather gunwale, his weight there serving as ballast to keep the craft from capsizing. Yet, even so, everything had to be done with the utmost skill, for, with the mainsail up, the least fluke in handling the ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... hastily added, in his orders to Trysail. "We are in no condition to sport with stock-and-fluke; have every thing ready to let go at a word; and see the grapnels ready,—we will throw them aboard the smuggler as we close, and take him alive. Once fast to the chain, we are yet strong enough to haul him in under our scuppers, and to capture him with the pumps! ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... consequence, at 6 P.M. the two frigates fell aboard, the Chesapeake's quarter pressing upon the Shannon's side just forward the starboard main-chains, and the frigates were kept in this position by the fluke of the Shannon's anchor catching in the Chesapeake's ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... prayers, tears, and alms-giving haven't been without avail. The terrors and agonies I've endured this last few days lest that old blockhead should take himself off without saying or doing anything, no man will ever know. And he would have gone off, too, had it not been for that lucky fluke of your mother's. Do ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... Fawcett, Clarence Fluke, Willard Foote, Searcy Ford, Webster Fraser, Benjamin Fraser, Daisy French, ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... to impartial observers, it looked as though these six points on the score had been won by what was little better than a fluke. ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... and prepared for another similar broadside. In the mean time, he lashed the anchor to the bows of the vessel in such a way that the fluke should pierce the side of the boat, and serve as a grappling iron. As there were now only ten Indians to be attacked, he decided to board the boat in case it should be grappled by the fluke of his anchor. Having made these arrangements, he again came running down before ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott |
