"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 1650, all Paris was electrified at the news of the arrest of the three Princes—Conde, Conti, and Longueville. That bold coup d'etat was effected very easily and unceremoniously. The Princes went voluntarily, as it were, into the mouse-trap, by attending a great council at the Palais Royal. Anne had obtained from Conde an order for the seizure and detention of three or four persons whose names were left in blank; and on the authority of his own signature, the hero of Rocroy and the ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... nearly knocked me down!" cried Hal Harling, amazed by the suddenness of his welcome. "What's the matter with you? Trying to trap a burglar?" Then, glancing at the object about which the household were clustering, he added, "Jove! Have you ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... But where was the speaker? On every side, to every corner, her eyes turned without finding him. She looked up at last. There was the round face of Mr. Van Brunt peering down at her through a large opening, or trap- door, in ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... two serious mistakes. They fell into the Law and Order trap by committing an act of technical piracy. From this Durkee saved them by taking upon himself the legal onus of the seizure. The second error, though a minor one, proved much more serious. They sent Sterling Hopkins, a vainglorious, witless, overzealous wight, to rearrest Maloney. ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... This trap was constructed on a completely new principle. It consisted of a cleaver hung in a frame like a window; when any poor wretch got in, down it came with a tremendous din, and took off his head in a twinkling. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... for Dresden much against its will, and had resolved at the very outset to place itself at the disposal of the royal forces on arriving there, had deceived Heubner by inviting him to Chemnitz, and had lured him into the trap. They had reached Chemnitz long before Heubner, and had taken over the guard at the gates with the object of seeing him arrive and of preparing for his arrest at once. My brother-in-law had been very anxious about me too, as he had been told ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... to see Jean spring his trap on you. I waited and swore, and swore and waited, for him to give me the chance to get betwane you and the pollutin' pup! It didn't come until the sun took his face full and square, and I see my chance to make two steps. He's so doggoned ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... a mile and a half to the village sir," said the man, as they mounted the trap which was waiting outside the station; "and ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... I should write to Count Giraldi. She laughed. "Your Count Giraldi will be out of Florence. Do you think him a child? His one desire is to get rid of you. No, no. You must disguise yourself. This is a trap." ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... strove to think, and might not, nor might she do aught, but spread abroad her hands and moaned in her agony; for now indeed she felt herself in the trap; and she said that all her past life of hope and desire and love and honour was all for nought, and that she was but born to die miserably in that foul ruin of an isle envenomed with the memories of bygone cruelty ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... up your potato-trap, old man, and don't try to take the heart out of us all in that fashion," said Jeffson; "but let's have a feed of the best you have in the house, for we're all alive and kicking as yet, anyhow, and not too poor to pay our way; and, I say, let's have some home-brewed beer if you can, because we've ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... reeled. "I take my hat off to you. I apologize. I admire your taste in skirts, an' take it from me that's a compliment; but I did'nt know who you was. If I'd knowed you was Bill Roberts there wouldn't been a peep from my fly-trap. D'ye get me? I apologize. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... ravens brought their young into the open road, and ate them, carrying the relics into the nest again. Mice having gnawed the consecrated gold in one of the temples, the keepers caught one of them, a female, in a trap; and she bringing forth five young ones in the very trap, devoured three of them. But what was greatest of all, in a calm and clear sky there was heard the sound of a trumpet, with such a loud and dismal blast, as struck terror and amazement into the hearts of the people. The Etruscan ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... interesting study in Norman architecture and the change to Early English is nowhere seen to better advantage. Portions of the foundations of the Saxon church were laid bare during repairs to the floor in 1900. A section is shown beneath a trap door near ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... prejudices so different and distinct, how could he suppose his mind was the common measure of man? Faultless? Perfect? Vain supposition! Extravagant hope! The driver of a mill-horse, he who never had the wit to make much less to invent a mouse-trap, will detect and point out his blunders. All satisfied? No; not one! Not a man that reads but will detail, reprove, and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... said Captain Hubbell, "it is ten to one that he has not been able to get out again, and has found himself here caught just as if he was in a trap. Fishes don't like to swim into tight places. They may do it once, but they don't want to do it again. It is this disposition that makes 'em easy to catch in traps. I believe you are right, Mr. Gibbs. I believe this whale has got in here ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... big, strong fence in the jungle," said Tum Tum. "They left one opening in it, and then they began to drive us elephants along toward it. We did not know what was happening until it was too late, and at last we were caught fast in a sort of big trap, ...
— Mappo, the Merry Monkey • Richard Barnum
... feet, and amid shouts of demoniac laughter they fell on to the swords and daggers of the Murids below. The flat roofs had been taken off the whole row of houses and replaced by layers of brushwood thinly covered with earth; every house, in fact, was a death-trap.' ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... trap of appeasement, cynicism and isolation that gives temptation to tyrants. The world has answered Saddam's invasion with 12 United Nations resolutions, starting with a demand for Iraq's immediate and unconditional withdrawal, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George H.W. Bush • George H.W. Bush
... he groaned. "I see everything you say, but I can't. I dare not. I'm caught, Frank, in a trap, I can only wait ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... her master's gloomy abstraction, Mrs. Hopper continued. She related that Boxon had been at certain races where he had lost money and got drunk; driving away in a trap, he had run into something, and been thrown out, with serious injuries, ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... in every direction, men's voices, a cordon of men all round the wood. Yes, that would be the state of affairs when they had found the body and were beginning to look for the murderer. This wood was a death-trap. He forgot the pain in his feet, and began to run with the long trotting stride of a hunted stag, careless now of the crash of the bushes and fern as he swung ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... I was brained—but we did it cleverly however—although, if ever I made a leap in the dark, that was one. I was at fault for a minute—but Spitfire was all alive, and had it all her own way: with some difficulty I got my nob out of the beaver-trap, and was ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... the practice of setting spring-guns and other engines of destruction for the preservation of game. This bill, which passed into a law, declared it to be a misdemeanour in any person to set a spring-gun, man-trap, or other engine calculated to kill, or inflict grievous injury, with the intent that it should destroy life, or occasion bodily harm to any trespasser or other person who might come into contact with it. An exception was made in favour of gins and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... covering of flesh and fatness upon his own bones. The question now was not of the woman; she had passed out of his life. The question was of the keeping that life itself, the life which involved everything else, in a hard world, which would remorselessly as a steel trap grudge him life and snap upon him, now he was ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... when, on rounding the base of a spur, one would strike a weird, volcanic-torn country whose mountains piled up in utter confusion like the waves of the stormy Atlantic; and further on we would come out upon a plain once more scattered with gigantic bowlders of porphyry and trap, out of which the monoliths of ancient Thebes might ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... counsel,— At length the Mayor broke silence: For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell; I wish I were a mile hence! It's easy to bid one rack one's brain,— I'm sure my poor head aches again, I've scratched it so, and all in vain, O for a trap, a trap, a trap!" Just as he said this, what could hap At the chamber door but a gentle tap? "Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?" (With the Corporation as he sat, Looking little though wondrous fat; Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister Than a too-long-opened ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the sporting part of our society had rather a novel diversion: intelligence having been brought that a wolf had borne away a steel trap, in which he had been caught, a party went in search of the marauder, and took two English bull dogs and a terrier, which had been brought into the country this season. On the first sight of the ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... will. But I am not in the right mood just this moment. Let me tell you first how I came by my present mood. Don't mistake me: I am not possessed by the idea—I am only trying to understand its nature, and set a trap fit to catch it, if it should creep into my inner premises, and from an idea swell to a seeming fact.—Well, I had a strange kind of a vision last night—no, not a vision—yes, a kind of vision—anyhow a ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... A mountain between Glenartney and the Braes of Doune. The name signifies "great den," and is derived from a rocky enclosure on the mountain-side, believed to have been used in primitive times as a toil or trap for deer. As told in Stanza IV a giant was fabled to have ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... yards the Italians pursued, doing great execution with their heavy cavalry swords; and then Colonel Anderson called a halt, for he feared he might be rushing into a trap. ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... big room in which he found himself there was nothing to excite suspicion at first sight. The room seemed ordinary enough; the usual living-room of a peasant. One thing was curious; he could see a trap door, evidently leading to a cellar below. But that he reserved for later inspection, preferring at first to look upstairs. He reached the second floor by the stairs; there, too, there seemed at first nothing out of the ordinary. But when he threw aside all scruples and looked ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... sophistical fudge, with no logic at all; Then pepper the mixture with snigger and jeer; Add insolent "sauce," and a soupcon of sneer; Shred stale sentiment fine, just as much as you want, And thicken with cynical clap-trap and cant, Plus oil—of that species which "smells of the lamp"— Then lighten with squibs, which, of course, should be damp; Serve up, with the air of a true Cordon Bleu, And you'll find a few geese to taste it and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... I believed that my life was his, his mine; I believed that his every thought belonged to me—and perhaps I asked him too many questions, and when a woman begins to do that, she is unconsciously setting a trap ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... "Well, sir, a trap—that's certain, for I walked in through the door as innocent as a child; but I don't see on that account that I'm to be set down ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... "Here you are, old Rattle-trap!" cried Molly, from the head of the stairs, as Rhoda and Phoebe were mounting them. "Brought that white rag? We're going. Mum says so. Turn ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... cabin, he found it pretty nearly clear of water, the steward having opened doors and trap-doors and drawn off the ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... complaining that Beauharnais, the French ambassador, had been the center of the intrigue. The charge was strictly true, for this brother of the Empress's first husband, though a bluff, honest man, was blindly self-confident, and had fallen into the trap set for him in Paris. He was not unwilling to gratify Josephine, he despised Godoy, and his evident friendship for the crown prince had been largely instrumental in creating the popular confidence that France would regenerate Spain by ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... down under the trap door of the main-cabin floor and thought for a solid hour. It was the Jew again, he concluded—the Jew who had been willing to equip the Mary Turner with two chronometers, but not with three; the Jew who had ratified the agreement of a sufficient ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... shrieked, "it was a trap! Slocum would have taken it! If I had been ass enough to make any such offer, he would have jumped at it. What do you and Slocum take me for? ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... pursue measures for eluding these detested visitants. I first extinguished the light, and then, observing that the parley in the street continued and grew louder, I sought an asylum in the remotest corner of the house. During my former abode here, I noticed that a trap-door opened in the ceiling of the third story, to which you were conducted by a movable stair or ladder. I considered that this, probably, was an opening into a narrow and darksome nook formed by the angle of the roof. By ascending, drawing after me the ladder, and closing the door, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... glassy deep, But oft retarded; once with a hidden net, Though with great windows, (for when need first taught These tricks to catch food, then they were not wrought As now, with curious greediness, to let None 'scape, but few and fit for use to get,) As in this trap a ravenous pike was ta'en, Who, though himself distress'd, would fain have slain This wretch; so hardly are ill ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... of strong wire in the shape of the net at Fig. 46, or 43, if without the joints, a bag of strong dowlas and a stick are attached, and the front square-ended part is pushed by the collector through the grass, in order to trap any low feeding or invisible insects. When the leaves are fully out on the trees, beating will shake many larvae, pupae, certain moths, beetles, etc, into the net or sheet spread to receive them, Both sweeping and beating may be practised ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... the town became dark and silent. A drunken man would reel from one side to the other until he fell down a cellar trap-door, into the gutter, or into the sea. If by chance he stumbled upon the watch, he soon found himself in ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... swordsman could ask for more. Duroc drew his sabre and sprang into it. The Baron stood back with a bow and motioned me to follow my companion. Hardly were my heels over the threshold when the heavy door crashed behind us and the key screamed in the lock. We were taken in a trap. ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... enter into the details of the Reynolds affair. No intrigue was ever less interesting. Nor should I make even a passing allusion to it, were it not for its political ultimates. A couple of blackmailers laid a trap for the Secretary of the Treasury, and he walked into it, as the wisest of men have done before and since, when the woman has been sufficiently attractive at the right moment. This woman was common and sordid, but she was young and handsome, and her affectation of violent attachment, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... followed was an angry one. Fierce denunciations against the Whigs proceeded from the Seceders, which were answered by the Old Irelanders, as they called themselves, with clap-trap allusions to the name and fame of the "Liberator." The audience were indisposed to be duped, and so strong and general was the aversion to a Whig compromise, that Mr. D. O'Connell, jun. was denied a hearing, and even ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... any thing; but I have got his tracks, and this night I think that I shall get hold of him, for I shall lay a trap for him." ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... help being egotistical," I replied, "when I see no one, and am shut up in the 'little world of me,' as closely as mouse in trap. And with myself for a subject, what can my ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... council; At length the Mayor broke silence: "For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell, I wish I were a mile hence! It's easy to bid one rack one's brain— I'm sure my poor head aches again, 40 I've scratched it so, and all in vain. Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!" Just as he said this, what should hap At the chamber door but a gentle tap? "Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?" (With the Corporation as he sat, Looking little, though wondrous fat; Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister Than a too-long-opened oyster, Save when ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... true boiler, a torrential pool never at rest. It charges down amongst huge masses of rock, and just where the descent is comparatively easy the inevitable salmon trap is fixed. Sometimes the salmon takes in the very boil, if you cast fly right into the milky tossings, and believe me you need not strike. Hooking is quite an automatic affair if the fish comes. Downward it goes at speed, and your man will have to steady you maybe as you follow amongst ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... fool! I did not foresee the consequences if he met and recognized the girl. Even now we do not know where and how he met her. But the menace to us is the same. We must get rid of him—and quickly, too! The trap must be baited—and what better bait than ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... tun transfixed by a bolt. Precisely so the Mexican emperor Ixcoatl is mentioned in the Aztec manuscripts under the figure of a serpent coatl, pierced by obsidian knives ixtli, and Moquauhzoma by a mouse-trap montli, an eagle quauhtli, a lancet zo, and a hand maitl. As a syllable could be expressed by any object whose name commenced with it, as few words can be given the form of a rebus without some change, as the figures sometimes represent their full phonetic ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... A.M., the river narrowing immediately, and after a run of half a mile we found ourselves caught in a trap. The river, although fourteen feet deep, had entirely disappeared in a boundless sea of high grass, which resembled sugar-canes. There was no possibility of progress. I returned to our halting-place of last night in a small rowing-boat, and examined it thoroughly. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... As very Infants prattle of thy pride. Thou art a most pernitious Vsurer, Froward by nature, Enemie to Peace, Lasciuious, wanton, more then well beseemes A man of thy Profession, and Degree. And for thy Trecherie, what's more manifest? In that thou layd'st a Trap to take my Life, As well at London Bridge, as at the Tower. Beside, I feare me, if thy thoughts were sifted, The King, thy Soueraigne, is not quite exempt From enuious mallice of thy ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... greater length than it is drawn. When you have lighted the lamp in the lantern and placed the mirror in a proper direction, put the box on a table, and, setting the chafing-dish in it, throw some incense in powder on the coals. You then open the trap door and let down the glass in the groove slowly, and when you perceive the smoke diminish, draw up the glass, that the figure may disappear, and shut the trap-door. This exhibition will afford much wonder. The lights in the ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... away... then a muffled disturbance drew his attention to a sort of square trap which existed high up on one wall of the room, but which admitted no light, and which hitherto had never admitted any sound. Now, in the utter darkness, ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... likewise of iron, and rather broad and capacious, but of no great height. It could not be called a vessel at all; it was a machine,—and I have seen one of somewhat similar appearance employed in cleaning out the docks; or, for lack of a better similitude, it looked like a gigantic rat-trap. It was ugly, questionable, suspicious, evidently mischievous, —nay, I will allow myself to call it devilish; for this was the new war-fiend, destined, along with others of the same breed, to annihilate whole navies and batter ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in her flowered petticoat, and the flowers stood out, and smelt like real ones; her kerchief shone like a cobweb in the grass in the morning, and gold sparks flew out of her hair. Goody Corey fixed her up so with her devilish arts to trap Paul Bayley. ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to which was about a league from the top to a stream of water in the bottom, yet the hills were so precipitous and close together that their tops hardly exceeded a musquet shot. As Carvajal was well acquainted with this pass, he was confident of catching his enemy at this place as in a trap; believing that while Centeno was descending to the bottom, he should be able to gain the top of the hill, whence he might greatly annoy Centeno and his men while clambering up the opposite hill. Centeno was however fully ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... his father's coolness, but he said nothing, and followed him quickly to the top of the house to where there was a trap-door in the ceiling over the passage leading ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... the play had come all too swiftly, and in ten nerve-shattering minutes the curtain would go up. Ten minutes after that Joy would be rising out of a trap-door, in the character of a fairy who had spent the last twenty years at the bottom of a stream; incidentally she would be acting for the first time in her life. There was enough to be excited over; and yet it was none of these things that excited her—it was the ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... Tresler saw the trap the wily police officer had laid for him and refused the bait. Evidently the blind man had told his version of that morning's doings, and the sheriff wished to learn the men's side of it. Probably his, Tresler's. This calm, cold man seemed to depend in no way upon verbal answers for the information ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... behind the lady's waist, hurled her headlong down the steps right against Mr. Urquiza, draper and haberdasher; and then, with the speed of lightning, throwing the door home within its architrave, doubly locked the creditor and debtor into the rat-trap which they had prepared ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... came to himself, for the violence of the fall had taken away his senses. The salt rubbed into his wounds preserved his life, and he recovered strength by degrees, so as to be able to walk. After two days he opened the trap-door in the night, and finding in the court a place proper to hide himself in, continued there till break of day, when he saw the cursed old woman open the street gate, and go out to seek another victim. He stayed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... with one paw into a trap that was hidden under the leaves, and there he was, held fast. For the trap, which was a string spring one, was fastened by a chain to a heavy log. And as Splash could not pull the log and trap too, he had had to ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Playing Circus • Laura Lee Hope
... the beach. The captain of the runner, however, trusting to his vessel's speed and invisibility, dashed through this space, and having got by the cruiser thought himself safe. Poor fellow! he was safe for a moment, but in such a trap that his only chance of getting out of it was by running on shore or giving up. For no sooner had he passed than up went a rocket from the cruiser who had seen the runner rush by, and who now moved a little further in towards the shore, so as to stop ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... Chinatown, we must next visit an opium-joint. This mysterious place was situated in a long, rambling building through which we had to move cautiously so as not to stumble into some pit or dangerous hole or trap-door. Here were no electric lights to drive away the gloom, here no gas-jets to show us where we were treading, nothing but an occasional lamp dimly burning. Yet we went on as if drawn by a magic spell. At last we were ushered into a room poorly furnished. It was not more than ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... for you. Let me continue. Your mama said that, if she and your sister withdrew and left you with me, if you put forth your charms (and God knows there were never such!), 'twas possible you might set the sweetest trap for the rich man, and with his aid clamber out of the mud and sit secure beside him. Confirm me if I don't ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... a clean-cut idea to your name. And a kid of seventeen as self-satisfied as you are isn't worth baiting a coyote trap with." ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... his sensations must have been similar to her own when she had looked upon the ruins of the Three Bar. But this was blotted out by the knowledge that he had only met the same treatment he had handed to so many others; that he had dropped into the trap he had built for her. She found no real sympathy for Slade,—only fear for Harris since Slade was freed. The old sense of responsibility for her brand had been worn too long to be shed at will. She ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... captive feel that he might beat upon door or wall as hard and as long as he pleased without attracting any attention. This place into which he had come of his own free will was no ordinary place—already he felt that he was in a trap out of which it was not going to ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... last injunctions to Sam and Eliza. Letitia [my mother's maid] is looking on with wonder at the preparations, and trying to get a right conception of the place to which she is going, which she seems to think is something between a steel-trap and a spring-gun. Custis is waiting to help his mother into the stage, and you see how patient I am. To add interest to the scene, Dr. Barton has arrived to bid adieu and to give Mildred an opportunity of looking her best. I believe he is the last rose of summer. ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... Paul's camps was astonished to see a crew of men unloading four-horse logging sleds at the cook-shanty. They appeared to be rolling logs into a trap door from which ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... that, since, as Powhatan had well said, they were all friends, there could be no harm in keeping their guns with them, as the settlers considered them a part of their dress. Then Powhatan planned to surprise them by night. But, just as his trap was well laid, Pocahontas, risking her own life, stole silently through the deep woods in the dark, cold night, to the Captain's tent, and, with tears in her eyes, warned him of his danger, ...
— The Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith • E. Boyd Smith
... was arrested, and then released for want of proof; but the minister of war cut short his half-pay by putting him on the active list,—a step which might be called a form of discipline. France was no longer safe; Philippe was liable to fall into some trap laid for him by spies,—provocative agents, as they were called, being much ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... it was beyond all doubt that men were near. Raising his eyes from inspection of the marten-trap, he saw on a tree close by a freshly-cut blaze. Some rods farther on he could see another. Now a question arose, which way should he follow the line?—one end was probably in pathless forest. He concluded to take that direction which suited the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... looked suspiciously at Colwyn out of his small hard grey eyes. His official mind scented an attempt to trap him, and his Norfolk prudence prompted him to get what he could from the detective but to give nothing away ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... instructions were: 'Not at home.' At half-past three she ordered a hansom to be summoned, instead of her own carriage, and, having dressed with nervous rapidity, she ran downstairs and entered the vehicle. 'Drive to the British Museum,' she spoke up to the cabman through the trap. ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... and so Buddha paid no attention to the code of morals as it stood, but merely contented himself with emphasizing the importance of unselfishness—purity of heart and mind, because he realized that the mental world is the trap of the soul, even as "the elephant is held tethered by a ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... a quadruple pun. Not only does it mean a mystery box and a box holding a somnambulist, but a kind of treasury of tiny twisted thoughts. There is not one line or conception in it on the grand scale, or even the grandiose. It is a devil's toy-house. One feels like a mouse in a mouse-trap so small one cannot turn around. In Intolerance, Griffith hurls nation at nation, race at race, century against century, and his camera is not only a telescope across the plains of Babylon, but across the ages. Griffith is, ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... all day, And when I'm home I say: He isn't like a mole To dig himself a hole; Them little legs he's got They can't go far, trot, trot, They can't go far, run run, Oh no, it is his fun; I'm sure he's near, He must be here A-skulking round the house Just like a little mouse. I'll get a mouse-trap in a minute, And bait with cheese that's smelly To bring him helter-skelly— That little empty belly, And then I'll have him in it. Where have he hid, That little kid, That good old Jacob was so kind to? And when a rest I am inclined to Who'll boil the cow and dig the kittles ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... which was in the basement of the Town Hall. It was damp and the air was not too good, but there were compensations. Rats, for instance. Jonas told himself, after the first couple of hours, that he simply wouldn't have known what to do without the rats. Trying to trap and kill them, with no weapons beyond his bare hands—even an eating knife he had carried in his jerkin had been taken away, leaving him to the uncomfortable reflection that he was going to have to dine with his fingers—was a pastime that occupied ...
— Wizard • Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)
... am I taken in a trap, for, so long as you have the sword, not one of them that are there yonder can do you evil nor hinder you ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... quick ear apprised him very exactly of the position of the approaching gaoler, rose from his knees radiant. The sour face of Gimblett appeared at the trap cell-door. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... carbines rested easily on their saddles. Yet at that moment every man of them knew that they were covered by a hundred rifles and shot guns leveled from every bush, and that they were caught helplessly in a trap. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... was a little insignificant creature, and I was just upon the point of kicking him out of the room, when I saw a fellow peeping round the corner of the door. It immediately struck me that this was a trap to get me into a scrape, and I paused and drew back in consequence. I told the little gentleman, who said his name was Morley, that I would meet him and talk over the matter at any other time; but, as I was at present engaged, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... turning in on his pile of hay, he heard in the wood on the hill back of the house the shrill shriek of a trapped rabbit. He plowed furiously out through the deep snow to find it, gave the tortured animal a merciful death, carried the trap back to the river and threw it in with a furious splash. He strode home under the frosty stars, his dirty shirt open over his corded, old neck, his burning heart almost content. He had done ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... being done now by the most rigid of Mr. Verity's friends. It is impossible to comprehend what is meant by such a statement as that every truth is somehow connected with religion. It may be that the notion—if it really is not, as I suspect it to be, mere verbiage and clap-trap, used by certain fools to mislead others—means that there is some such coherency between all truths as there is, for instance, between the elements of the body. I would admit that, but is not blood a different and perfectly severable thing from bone? Each ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... day rejoicing in his regained liberty, when he said, "Aye, bless yo', I wor as fast as a thief in a man-trap; I couldn't get away till th' Lord came and let me aat." And then turning upon the unsaved part of his congregation, he used a simile, which, on his behalf, I claim to be original if not elegant. Said he, "Yo' may think ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... a plain, unvarnished Yank who made his Pile in a Scrub Town situated midday between the Oats Belt and the Tall Timber. He was a large and sandy Mortal with a steel-trap Jaw and a cold glittering Eye. He made his first Stack a Dollar at a Time on straight Deals, but after a while he learned a few Things. He organized Stock Companies and then crawled out after hooking up with the Velvet. Every one called him Mister and treated him with Politeness, ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... "You wish to trap me. It would kill the patient to keep him with you, exposed in an open boat. No, Monsieur le docteur, I am too wise—too much of the fox, le renard—to be trapped like ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... sewers discharge their contents into the sea, the tide may exert pressure upon the contents of the sewer and cause "backing up," blocking up the sewer, bursting open trap covers, and overflowing into streets and houses. To prevent this, there are constructed at the mouth of the street sewers, at the outlets to the sea, proper valves or tide flaps, so constructed as to permit the contents of the sewers ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... with Mr. Collamer as to the word "subjugation." It expressed the idea clearly, and he was "satisfied with it. The talk about subjugation is mere clap-trap." ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... that rogue of a clown with his peculating fingers, who brazens out of every scrape, and who conquers the world by good humour and ready wit? And have we not seen Pantaloons not a few, whose fate it is to get all the kicks and lose all the halfpence, to fall through all the trap doors, break their shins over all the barrows, and be forever captured by the policeman, while the true pilferer, the clown, makes his escape with the booty in his possession? Methinks I know the realities of which these things are but the shadows; have met with them in business, ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... thither and toss their white caps, is all well enough to lie in your narrow berth and roll from side to side all night long; to walk uphill to your state-room door, and, when you get there, find you have got to the bottom of the hill, and opening the door is like lifting up a trap-door in the floor; to deliberately start for some object, and, before you know it, to be flung against it like a bag of sand; to attempt to sit down on your sofa, and find you are sitting up; to slip and slide and grasp at everything ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... it's all right; nobody's business but ours. Let her go, Smith; but they won't be no talk in this neighbourhood when they get hold of what's goin' on—oh, no!" He smiled grimly. "We can stand it, I guess; but it'll be hard on her. Ans is a little too previous. It's too soon to spring this trap on the poor ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... emotions of an animal in a trap. She scarcely dared to breathe, much less move. Unwilling to listen, she put her fingers in her ears and turned her head away, but presently the position became so strained and uncomfortable that she had to give it up. Their voices were ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... places in the thickness of the walls, oubliettes, charnel-houses, crypts where his heroes and heroines were to meet later on, to love, hate, fight, set ambushes, assassinate, or marry. . . . He cut masked doors in the walls for his expected personage to appear through, and trap doors in the floor for him ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... darkness, louder and louder, spurring and thundering, came three horsemen whom the shadows at the corner reined out eagerly to meet. There was no suspense. "Come on!" savagely growled a hoarse voice. "The game's up! Newhall's wife led him square into a trap. They've got him, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King |
