"Trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... relaxed. "Yes, it is; and he ought to give that rat-trap away and sell those old horses. They're a disgrace, all shaggy—not even clipped. I suppose he doesn't notice it—people get awful funny when they get old; they seem to lose their self-respect, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... will be Christmas Day, and I have come out twenty miles this evening to hold a service of that kind with the semi-annual communion as it happens. It will be a cold, cheerless room in a clay-built cabin down in the corner of a bare valley in a trap and basalt district with sparse vegetation and a bare aspect. A cold spot with a handful of Christians, bearing their testimony alone out on the margin of our field of work. I hope to see 40 or 50 patients up to sundown, and then have worship with them at night. That will be ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the soil of which has been gradually washed down from the surrounding heights, being that which forms its source of support. This is afforded by the decomposition of a species of claystone (slightly phosphoritic) which is found irregularly disposed in company with a few pieces of trap-rocks, amongst which, on approaching Sana from the southward, basalt is found to preponderate. The clay stone is only found in the more elevated districts, but the debris finds a ready way into the lower country by the numerous and steep ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... learned in healing all sick creatures, and in especial falcons, horses, and hounds, by means of whispered spells, the breath of his mouth, potions, and electuaries; and I myself have seen him handle a furious old she-wolf which had been caught in a trap, so that no man dared go nigh her, as though it were a tame little dog. He was taller than his master by a head and a half, and he was ever to be seen in a hood, on which an owl's head with its beak and ears was set. Verily the whole presence ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... immediately won the confidence of young Clifford, calling himself Bolton, and had prepared a very heartless trap for him. He introduced to him a most beautiful young woman—tall, dark, with oval face and glorious black eyes and eyebrows, a slight foreign accent, and ingratiating manners. He called this beauty his sister, and instructed her ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... belch forth steam when the manager came on the scene. The stoker tried to pick off the bits of iron before the manager could see them, but the steam was to high for that; and when at last the noise subsided and the steam had cleared away, the whole of the revellers were on view, caught in a trap, as there was only one exit. Most of the men were fined or suspended, the bits of iron were discovered on the levers, and the stoker had a week's notice to clear out, and lock-up valves were fitted on every boiler and the keys kept in the manager's ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... mind telling him some, but I'm hanged if I'm going to tell him all. There are too many in the secret already, what with you and the two in London; and as I keep on telling you, if one whiff of a suspicion gets abroad, the whole thing's busted, and a trap will be set that you and I will be caught in for ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Ochiltree. There is no road lies that way, and I do not conceive a mere passion for the picturesque would carry the German thither in such a night of storm and wind. Depend upon it, he has been about some roguery, and in all probability hath been caught in a trap of his own settingNec lex ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... to see if the trap of the chimney was shut," said George. It was foolish in the extreme, but it was the best he could do, and after all it was a rather marvellous invention. Lucas sat down ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... other things in their order too, is terribly at the mercy of his mind. That organ has only to exhale, in its degree, a fostering tropic air in order to produce complications almost beyond reckoning. The trap laid for his superficial convenience resides in the fact that, though the relations of a human figure or a social occurrence are what make such objects interesting, they also make them, to the same tune, difficult to isolate, to surround with the sharp black line, to frame in the square, ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... has left London and is on his way to the capital. Your idea to allow him to cross the frontier is a good one. Undoubtedly he knows where the Princess is in hiding. In trapping him you will ultimately trap her. ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... won't kill 'em, an' I don't think it hurts 'em much," said the captain, thoughtfully. "Maybe we can rig up some sort of trap that will do the work without killin' 'em. It's time for bed, now, lads, but think it over and, perhaps, we can hit on some scheme. Had we better take ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... them make their way to the foot-hills of the mountains, or to the trees that line the banks of the rivers, where some hollow log or trunk may be found. A friend of mine, while out hunting on the San Joaquin, came upon an old coon trap, hidden among some tall grass, near the edge of the river, upon which he sat down to rest. Shortly afterward his attention was attracted to a crowd of angry bees that were flying excitedly about his head, when he discovered that he was sitting upon their ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... speaking, but a second or two later he had plenty of them. Hasty steps sounded in the hall below and came up the ladder, and in less time than it takes to write it the top of the tower was covered with boys. The last one who came up turned about and slammed down the trap-door through which he had gained access to the roof. It was Dixon, the tall student who had compelled the orderly to fold the flag properly, and who afterward told Dick Graham right where to find it. Being a ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... education should chiefly aim at is to save us from a discontented life. Health is one favoring condition, but by no means an indispensable one, of contentment. Woman's heart and love are a shrewd device of Nature, a trap which she sets for the average man, to force him into working. But the wise man will always prefer work chosen ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... could hold the rustlers for ten minutes more they would be caught like rats in a trap. Once or twice he glanced behind him as a precaution against some one of the enemy climbing Point o' Rocks from the defile, but he gave this little consideration. He had not seen Brad when he disappeared into the mesquite, and ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... was something baffling about Joel's movements, his tones, the manner of his command, that stupefied Finch. He felt that he was groping in the dark. The mutiny must have collapsed.... It may have been only a snare to trap him.... He was alone—against Joel, and ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... opinion respecting our direction. It ended in our crossing the stony bed of the river, through which a reduced stream only a few inches deep flowed in the centre, and having with difficulty gained the opposite bank a hundred yards distant, we soon arrived in a sort of natural eel-trap formed by a narrow avenue of gigantic olive-trees, the branches of which effectually barred our progress and prevented the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... porphyry. Some specimens of obsidian, or volcanic glass, were also procured from the natives at the latter place, where sharp-edged fragments are used for shaving with; one variety is black, another of a light reddish-brown, with dark streaks. Mount Astrolabe is apparently of trap formation, as I have already stated. Some conical hills scattered along the coast may possibly be of volcanic origin, especially one of that form rising to the height of 645 feet from the lowland behind Redscar Head. It is in this neighbourhood also that we find the upraised calcareous ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... but his last words were scarcely heard: For Bruce and Longville[160] had a trap prepared, And down they sent the yet declaiming bard. Sinking he left his drugget robe behind, Borne upwards by a subterranean wind. The mantle fell to the young prophet's part, With double portion ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... had unconsciously ventured, in undertaking his errand to the inn. Neither of them had any adequate idea (few people have) of the infamous absence of all needful warning, of all decent precaution and restraint, which makes the marriage law of Scotland a trap to catch unmarried men and women, to this day. But, while Geoffrey's mind was incapable of looking beyond the present emergency, Anne's finer intelligence told her that a country which offered such facilities for private marriage ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... deal death, like that which we have surrendered to you. Therefore because we are helpless, do not think that the Child is helpless. Jana must have been asleep, O King, or you would have set your trap better." ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... and had laid a trap for her. He had laid a trap for her, and she had fallen into it. She had determined not to be induced to talk of herself; but he had brought the thing round so cunningly that the words were out of her mouth before she remembered ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... themselves in the clear open space occupied by the Flying Fish; and in another quarter of an hour the party passed into the black tunnel formed by the bilge-keel and the side of the ship, and began to feel with their feet for the open trap-door. This was soon reached; the party entered the opening, closed the flap, and, with a murmured "Thank God, we are safe at last!" began to feel for the button which was to open the door giving access to the interior proper of the ship. Another second and this door swung open, and the ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... presented to Captain Clark a superb white horse, a kindness which Clark requited by the gift of his artillerist's sword. After leaving this hospitable village, the party was overtaken by three young men, Walla-Wallas, who had come a day's journey in order to restore a steel trap, inadvertently left behind. ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... had been concealed, and where this morning Miller had crossed. Wetzel knew Miller expected to be trailed, and that he would use every art and cunning of woodcraft to elude his pursuers, or to lead them into a death-trap. Wetzel believed Miller had joined the Indians, who had undoubtedly been waiting for him, or for a signal from him, and that he would use them ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... not George's first bout by many, but the physical endurance of this hard, clean-hitting Corinthian of a man was an astounding revelation to him; the science of the graceful, narrow-waisted figure was still as quick and as punishing as a steel trap. ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... the moment her safety lay in his hands, a sense of pleasure. That this was her feeling puzzled and disturbed her, for to Ernest Peabody it seemed, in some way, disloyal. And yet there it was. Of a certainty, there was the secret pleasure in the thought that if they escaped unhurt from the trap in which they found themselves, it would be due to him. To herself she argued that if the chauffeur were driving, her feeling would be the same, that it was the nerve, the skill, and the coolness, not the man, that moved her admiration. ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... At length poor Tom, having neither bridle or saddle, slipped from his seat and fell into a pool of water, where he was found nearly drowned. The queen vowed he should be beheaded, and while the scaffold was getting ready, he was secured in a mouse-trap; when the cat seeing something stir supposing it to be a mouse, patted the trap about till she broke it, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... Verde, Vallarte went on shore with a boat's crew and fell into the trap which had caught the exploring party of the year before. He and his men were surrounded by negroes and were shot down or captured to a man. But one escaped, swimming to the ship, and told how as he looked back over his shoulder to the shore, again and again, he saw Vallarte sitting ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... cautiously through the other rooms on the first floor. They were as bare as the main room. The only room in the whole house that held a trace of furniture or occupancy must be the one from which I had escaped. It seemed that an elaborate trap had been set for my benefit with such precautions that I could not prove that ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... beginnings of despair in his voice). Why did you come here? My trap was laid for him, not for you. Do you know the ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... write my communique to the capital, Capitan Ord. We must describe how the American abandonment of the Alamo allowed me to press the traitor Houston so closely he had no chance to maneuver his men into the trap he sought. Ay, Capitan, it is a cardinal principle of the Anglo-Saxons, to get themselves into a trap from which they must fight their way out. This I never let them do, which is why I succeed where others fail ...
— Remember the Alamo • R. R. Fehrenbach
... girl of gentle breeding—a sweet, charming, sincere young girl whom everybody admires and respects. If you are anything but a gutter-mut, you'll respect her, too, and the only way you can do it is by shutting that unsanitary whiskey-trap of yours—and keeping it shut—and by remaining as far away from her as you ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... You see they are still so absurdly secret about it! The maid tells the princess that she might better not put out the torch at all, for a treacherous friend of the knight has watched them, suspects their love, and has told the King; that the hunting party is only a trap, and that the King will soon come back. If it were a real hunt it would be strange for the green knight himself not to go, for he is the best huntsman in the whole country. All this is quite true; for the King, kind and generous as he is, does not like to be deceived any better than anybody else, ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... to be driven in a smart pony-trap along pretty country roads; it was very pleasant too (which is not always the case with new sensations), quite apart from the beautiful plans of spending the money which each child made as they went along, silently of course and quite to itself, for they felt it would never have done to let the ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... I, in a maze of wonder at this deep solicitude in a tailless cat who had lost one foot and half an ear in some cruel trap. My host smiled a sweet smile, and, addressing a few words to ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... action or adorned it with a generous thought. He was too weak to set his will against trickery, allowed himself to be persuaded and walked out of the temple with a firm and cheerful step. Poor little fellow: if he could only have foreseen the terrible trap ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... Miss Robin dey went on by, er laffin' an' er talkin' wid one ernudder; an' de Jay he sot dar, wid his head turnt one side, er steddin an' er steddin ter hisse'f; an' by'mby, atter he made up his min', he sot right ter wuck, he did, an' fix him er trap. ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... half-truth, and because man is imperfect it does not follow that he must be futile. Russia is a land of strange silences, but it is manifest that whatever the innermost quality of the Czar may be, he is no clap-trap vulgar conqueror of the Wilhelm-Napoleon pattern. He began his reign, and he may yet crown his reign, with an attempt to establish peace on a newer, broader foundation. His religion, it would seem, is his master and not his servant. There has been ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Knight's plan for luring the journalist into his "trap," which was a harmless one. According to his prophecy, Mr. Milton Savage of the Torquay Weekly Messenger accepted the invitation from his correspondent, and came to luncheon on the day when the public were ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... and his expedition into the desert formed the topic of their conversation. It was evident, as they talked, that their main desire was to trap or decoy him on his way, but as they discussed plans ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... party came in with a scalp and an English prisoner caught near Fort Lyman. He was questioned under the threat of being given to the Indians for torture if he did not tell the truth; but, nothing daunted, he invented a patriotic falsehood; and thinking to lure his captors into a trap, told them that the English army had fallen back to Albany, leaving five hundred men at Fort Lyman, which he represented as indefensible. Dieskau resolved on a rapid movement to seize the place. At noon of the same day, leaving a part of his force at Ticonderoga, he embarked the rest in canoes ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... no second bidding. I knew that Eli was thoroughly trustworthy, and so I lifted the boards, which proved to be a trap-door, and then, putting one foot through, I realised that I stood on ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... belt of the Far West, where volcanic emanations are so abundant, and where they have certainly played an important part in the formation of ore deposits, the great majority of veins are not in immediate contact with trap rocks, and they could not, therefore, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... alarm he had been very near betraying himself. Without doubt he should have told himself that this incident of the curtains might prove a trap; but all passed so rapidly that he never imagined that, exactly at the moment when Caffie raised the lamp to give him light, there was a woman opposite looking at him, and who saw him so plainly that she had not forgotten him. He thought to use all precautions on his side in drawing the curtains, ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... I'm not trying to trap you into taking me on any trips." Barby referred to the promise she had once wangled out of her brother that she could go on the next expedition, a promise that had gotten the Spindrift young people entangled in a hazardous adventure in the far-off ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... strangeness of it! Sometimes my whole being rises up in revolt... I could tear the skies apart, to wrest the secret from them! You see, we don't know anything. We don't know what's right, we don't know what's wrong. We're in a trap! [She rises suddenly.] No, no, I mustn't talk that way. I've lost my self-control. I let myself go, and I had no right to. Now, what shall I do? Wait, dear... let me think, let me think calmly. [Stares about her.] I want to remember what father said to me; what I promised to do. See, Ethel... the ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... old boy, I am alone, as it happens, and my people don't know you. Send away your trap. ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... scattered, small bronzes, antiques, ivory junks, quaint ivory figures Chinese and Japanese, bits of porcelain, silver incense-urns, dozens of dainty sundries. She had a shamed curiosity to spy for an omission of one of them; all were there. The Crossways had been turned into a trap. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... him wine; and whether he went then and returned again when the company were gone is a question. Any way, he was found in the morning, cold and dead at the foot of the stairs, and his neck broken. It is said by some a trap was laid for him on the staircase. And if it was,' the man continued, after a pause, his true feeling finding sudden vent, 'it is a black shame that the law does not punish it! But the coroner brought it ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... the light trap to look at the workshop, and here he made no excuses for its being small. He showed off the little foundry as if it had been a world-famous seat of industry, and maintained his serious air while his companions glanced sideways ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... under his heel. He looked down at it. Gudrun was aware of the beautiful old marble panels of the fireplace, swelling softly carved, round him and above him. She felt as if she were caught at last by fate, imprisoned in some horrible and fatal trap. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... once that he had been lured into a trap. It was natural for him to jump to the conclusion that it was for robbery, owing to the fact of his coming into possession of the great Marsh fortune so recently, and a sudden sternness settled upon his face. He was not used to broils, but this fellow should see that he was ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... oaths to his suzerain, the King of France. But Harold was a man with a deep sense of religion, and did not esteem as lightly as these Norman barons an oath thus sworn; but he felt that he had fallen into a trap, and that resistance would but consign him to a prison, if not ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... the city resumed anything like a normal appearance, before people dared to come creeping back to their ruined shops and houses. Some, alas! found they had nothing to creep back to, not even ruins—for the Legations, determined never to be caught in the same trap a second time, insisted upon reserving a big area for themselves and fortifying it. Unfortunately those who had borne least of the heat of the day received the largest rewards in the newly planned Quarter, ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... the sort," Albeury interrupted. "We've a trap set for the whole crew, more than twenty of them in all, and if you warn that woman she'll tell ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... sort of trap he used for catching the birds without frightening the rest. He quickly got a fire from a split log in the way I have before described, and with the help of some fresh water and the milk of the cocoanuts we had a very good meal. He had a supply ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... said Mrs. Poyser, emphatically, "you make but a poor trap to catch luck if you go and bait it wi' wickedness. The money as is got so's like to burn holes i' your pocket. I'd niver wish us to leave our lads a sixpence but what was got i' the rightful way. And as for the weather, there's One above makes it, and we must put up wi't: it's nothing of a ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... is apt soon to come to the end of his rope—after dropping through a trap door," ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... said Coleman. "I could hardly believe my senses, when the minister at Athens told me that, you all had ventured into such a trap, and there is no doubt but what you can be glad that you are well ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Rachael's stay. Then the visitor, coming innocently downstairs at tea time, was a little confused to see that besides Mrs. Bowditch and her oldest daughter, and old Mrs. Torrence, the Bishop and Mrs. Thomas were calling. Instantly she suspected a trap. ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... "A begging interview? For, if so, take my advice—don't try it. It would be no use. Mr. Grimes never gives anything away. He wouldn't even bait a rat-trap ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... kept steadily to his seat, and though powerless to check the animal's course was able to guide it; but in spite of all his efforts the trap was at last upset, and he was thrown violently to the ground. He had no groom with him, and the accident took place on a lonely road, so that it was not till an hour later that help came, in the shape of a farmer returning from market in his cart. He found Sir Edward unconscious, ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... But every day in the cabin the terror grew that someone would pass, some one, unnoticed, would observe the stranger. The whisper would reach Tomo—the posse would come again, and the second time the trap was sure to work. He must get away, but no ordinary horse would do for him. If he had had a fine animal under him Bill Dozier would never have run him down, and he would still be within the border of the law. A fine horse—such a ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... it understood, however, that I am not writing a novel, and have nothing of intricate plot, or marvellous adventure, to promise the reader. The Hall of which I treat, has, for aught I know, neither trap-door, nor sliding-panel, nor donjon-keep; and indeed appears to have no mystery about it. The family is a worthy, well-meaning family, that, in all probability, will eat and drink, and go to bed, and get up regularly, from one end of my work to the other; and the Squire is so kind-hearted an old ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... night at his late brother's residence. My sojourn at the dwelling, that night, gave me my first opportunity to see how it was fortified. The lower story was protected by thick planks, bullet-proof. The stairway was fixed with a trap door, which could be let down, by its hinges, from above; and then no one could go upstairs without forcing his way against great odds. There was a plentiful supply of firearms with abundant ammunition. Twenty men could resist successfully a ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... Fred, cheerfully; "your sight is still good, and your hand does not tremble. A bushranger at forty rods is as good as slain when you draw a bead on him, and yet you talk of yielding up your life because we have been caught in a trap by ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... trap upraised, by rope from thence suspended For such a need — the Grecian cavalier, With lighted flambeau in his hand, descended, Where, straitly bound, and without sun to cheer, Rogero lay, upon a grate extended, Less than a palm's breadth of the water clear: ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... toward the "long white street of Beauport," across the St. Lawrence. "It's very lonely country, entirely wild, Indian hunting-ground yet. These two Hurons, Rafael and his brother-in-law, were on a two months' trip to hunt and trap, having their meagre belongings and provisions on sleds which they dragged across the snow. They depended for food mostly on what they could trap or shoot—moose, caribou, beaver, and small animals. But they had bad luck. They set many traps but caught ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... the chief recreations for his leisure hours. Vexed at last by the variety and vigor of his sketches, Beelzebub, to be revenged, assumed the form of a lovely maiden, and crossed under this guise the path of the friar, who being of an amorous disposition, fell at once into the trap. The seeming damsel smiled on her shaven wooer, but though nothing loth to be won, would not surrender her charms at a less price than certain reliquaries and jewels in the convent treasury—a price which the friar ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... himself, knowing what he knew, it is not wonderful that his love burned at white heat. Passion with him was in a trap and fighting for an hour of life. What is wonderful is, that he never betrayed in any other way that he had the end in sight from the beginning. It was "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" with him. But Gudrid did not see it. She was too happy to see it. Her doom ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... She created neighbours. And, as the grandeur of her insignificance rose before him, his own great Scheme for Disabled Thingumabobs that once had filled the heavens, shrank down into the size of a mere mouse-trap that would go into his pocket. In its place loomed up another that held the beauty of the Stars. How little, when announcing it to Minks weeks and weeks ago, had he dreamed the ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... catch the Hidalcao in this trap, called a Moor by name Cide Mercar, who had been in his service for many years, and bade him take forty thousand pardaos and go to Goa to buy horses of those that had come from Persia. Crisnaro wrote letters to our Captain ... on purpose so that ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. I give one coarse instance of what I mean. Suppose some mathematical creature ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... well that he was being followed. He had been aware of it almost from the first. He felt an exultant triumph in the thought that they had outwitted the astute Sir James, and that his emissaries were following the wrong man, falling into the trap which had been laid ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... color to her cheeks, and she hesitated before answering it, realizing that it was a trap. "Do you feel any the worse, miss, from the experiences of last night?" ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... girls were draped in gaudy hues, and ablaze with metal charms and ornaments on forehead and arms and ankles. They showed their flashing teeth and smiled from time to time in frank wonder, whereas the boys, superbly savage, like young panthers caught in a trap, kept their eyes downcast or threw distrustful, defiant glances round them. Here they sat in silence, smoking tobacco and taking deep draughts out of a pitcher of milk which was handed round from one to the other. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the implications, Mr. Silk," Stonehenge said. "I can't believe that was how it happened. In the first place, Colonel Hickock isn't that sort of man: he doesn't use his hospitality to trap people to their death. In the second place, he wouldn't have needed to use people like these Bonneys. His own men would do anything for him. In the third place, he is one of the leaders of the annexation movement ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... of the stairs, as he surveyed in dismay the seven seas of soapy water that occupied the floor, aroused her. She sat back suddenly on her heels and looked her fill of him, with her blue Irish eyes very wide, and her mouth a trap. He bowed politely. Pansy saved herself from falling over backwards by a supreme effort, scrubbed her hair out of her eyes with a very wet hand, and gave him "Good-marrin', Misther Dooncan," in a brogue as rich as you ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... brother were accustomed to set traps in the woods to catch partridges. One day, when he was about six years old, he went to look at the traps early in the morning, and finding his empty, he took a plump partridge from his brother's trap, put it in his own, and carried it home as his. When his brother examined the traps, he said he was sure he caught the bird, because there were feathers sticking to his trap; but Isaac maintained that there were feathers sticking to his also. After ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... trapdoor," the gentleman, in whose house they were, said, and led the way upstairs at full speed. As he was unbolting the trap, Walter ran into a bedroom and seized an armful of blankets, then ran up the ladder to the trapdoor, and stepped out on to the roof. The door was closed behind him, and he heard the bolts drawn, and then his host ran downstairs and told the frightened servants to ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... Scanno; Olevano Censorship Department, gratifying interview at Cervesato, A. Chamois Chaucer Children, good company neglected in war-time China, fatal morality of pre-Tartar period Ciminian forest Cineto Romano Circe, nymph Cisterna, a death-trap Civilization, its characteristic Civitella Coal-supply, a sore subject in Italy Coliseum, flora and fauna of Collepardo Conscience, national versus individual Consumption on Riviera; at Olevano Conterano, lake Corsanico Corsi, F. Crapolla, ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... 2, and 3, the letter A indicates the germinating cases; B, Saladin's patent turning screws; C A, air channels; D, passages; E R, main driving shafts; e, pulleys; F, metal recesses to fit turning screws; G, elevators; H, trap doors; I, air channels; J, openings to growing floor for air; K S, engines and fan room; L N, fans, supply and exhaust; T, boiler; U, chimney; f, well. The capacity of the malting is 130 qr. malt every day. This is equivalent to an ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... this proposal, had to give way in face of the promise that they would be back within a quarter of an hour. Only, as the distance seemed long, he on his side insisted on taking a trap which was standing at the bottom of the Plateau de la Merlasse. It was a sort of greenish cabriolet, and its driver, a fat fellow of about thirty, with the usual Basque cap on his head, was smoking a ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... enough. Let 'em call ye a liar atter this! Ef ary one o' them bulls had hit ye ye'd have had no hoss; an' ary one was due to hit ye, or drive ye against the other, an' then he would. That's a trap I hain't ridin' inter noways, ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... to her mistress's vacated rooms. She did not see him and he heard that she muttered under her breath: "Ah! par exemple! C'est trap fort, ma parole d'honneur!" ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... and flanks, artillery and machine-guns opened fire upon them. They were terribly exposed; possibly they had been lured into a trap. At any rate, the process of "isolation" had not been carried far enough. One thing, and only one thing, could have saved them from destruction and their enterprise from disaster—the support of big guns, and big guns, and more big guns. These could have ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... was low, projecting over the eyes, and the sandy hair was plastered down over it and then brushed back at an abrupt right angle. The chin was heavy, the nostrils were low and wide, and the lower lip hung loosely except in his moments of spasmodic earnestness, when it shut like a steel trap. Yet about those coarse features there were deep, rugged furrows, the scars of many a hand-to-hand struggle with the weakness of the flesh, and about that drooping lip were sharp, strenuous lines that had conquered it and taught it to pray. ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... elastic a contractor's agreement could be, he would certainly have thought twice about ordering so many changes—he would have steered a middle course, and been satisfied with half the improvement—but as it was, he had put himself in a trap. Now that the work was partly done, it would have to be completed. There was no way out of it. And from day to day, as the arrears of labour heaped up, and cost was piled on cost, Henry began to lose a trifle of his ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... toward them. "So it's really you. I thought it might be a trap, but Three wouldn't listen. Word came from Antares that Montano had been arrested and his ship confiscated for illegal landing on Lharillis. I thought you ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... came a rattle-trap hack gharry at the heels of a pair of galloping ponies. The reins were broken, a yelling soldier sat helpless on the driver's seat and several of his comrades were inside the rocking vehicle. The animals, maddened with ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... said, "the law didn't figure on this. But I reckon you heard Big Bill say once that the law could be handled. I'm handling it now. But I reckon that lets you out—you ain't in on this and the mourners'll be after you to-morrow if you open your trap again!" ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... also be the duty of the owner, agent, or lessee of each of such establishments to provide or cause to be provided, if, in the opinion of the Inspector, the safety of persons in or about the premises should require it, such proper trap or automatic doors, so fastened in or at all elevator ways as to form a substantial surface when closed, and so constructed as to open and close by action of the elevator in its passage, either ascending or descending, but the requirements of this section shall not apply to passenger ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... of the day's great pleasure perhaps was my grave sense of being an instrument in the hands of the powers toward the safe consignment of this young woman and her boxes. When once you have really bent to the helpless you are caught; there is no such steel trap, and it holds you fast. My rather grim Abigail was a neophyte in foreign travel, though doubtless cunning enough at her trade, which I inferred to be that of making up those prodigious chignons worn mainly by English ladies. ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... here by the trap, let us take a good look at him. We find that he has a coat of fine fur, which he always keeps clean, and a long tail that has no hair. He has whiskers like the cat; sharp claws, so that he can run up the side of a house, or climb anything that is a little ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... heavy eyebrows contracted; the lines of his face all turned downwards, and his long, clean-shaved upper lip closed sharply upon its fellow, like a steel trap. He turned his grey eyes upon John's averted face ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... in bed at the time sleeping like an innocent cherub and smiling in his sleep. He was dreaming of a great invention: he would set a figure-4 trap near his fireplace and snare Santa Claus by the foot. Then from a safe ambush under the bed, he would assail the old gentleman with his nigger-shooter till he laid him low, whereupon he could rifle the entire pack at his leisure, and select what he wanted. ...
— Mrs. Budlong's Chrismas Presents • Rupert Hughes
... the room perfectly dark, and the manager would do his utmost to turn the table on end, or side, with the legs out in the room. Before the "grabber" could get the lay of things and get past it, the spooks would have gone through the trap, closed it, pulled up the ladder, and the "grabber" would have found the medium writhing and groaning and bleeding from the mouth. The bleeding was for effect, and was caused by sucking very hard on ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... off to the stables, followed by the footman and Durant. Among them they forced Polly into the trap, and led her dancing to the porch, where Miss Chatterton stood, prepared for ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... this play? Queene The Lady protests too much. Ham. O but shee'le keepe her word. King Haue you heard the argument, is there no offence in it? Ham. No offence in the world, poyson in iest, poison in [F4] King What do you call the name of the play? (iest. Ham. Mouse-trap: mary how trapically: this play is The image of a murder done in guyana, Albertus Was the Dukes name, his wife Baptista, Father, it is a knauish peece a worke: but what A that, it toucheth not vs, you and I ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare
... began to review the situation. Evidently he was to be locked up in the room through the night, while Jack and Marlowe were robbing the house on Madison avenue. In all probability they would be arrested, and prevented from returning. But suppose one or both escaped from the trap in which they were expected to fall. If their suspicions of his fidelity were aroused now they would be confirmed by the discovery of the police. Knowing the desperate character of both, Julius reflected ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... you questions, sometimes seemingly trivial, sometimes obviously of the gravest importance.... It is up to you to find out whether you are face to face with your spy chiefs, or if, on the contrary, you have not fallen into a trap set by the police to catch spies.... You cannot go to a rendezvous with a quiet mind: how do you know that you will not be returned between two gendarmes!... It is impossible to ask for information: equally impossible to ask ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... of that hero, if truly represented. Over the door were a row of hat-pegs, and on each side bookcases with cupboards at the bottom, shelves and cupboards being filled indiscriminately with school-books, a cup or two, a mouse-trap and candlesticks, leather straps, a fustian bag, and some curious-looking articles which puzzled Tom not a little, until his friend explained that they were climbing-irons, and showed their use. A cricket-bat and small fishing-rod stood ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... prefect of police, the reproduction, or rather the invention, of new tortures and improved racks; the oubliettes, which are wells or pits dug under the Temple and most other prisons, are the works of his own infernal genius. They are covered with trap-doors, and any person whom the rack has mutilated, or not obliged to speak out; whose return to society is thought dangerous, or whose discretion is suspected; who has been imprisoned by mistake, or discovered to be innocent; who ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... peering out of a tiny window of the garage, awaiting the expected motor-car. In his eagerness minutes seemed like hours. As time passed and no motorcar came, he began to believe that none would come, that the spies had learned of the trap set for them, and that they had discontinued their work or devised some new plan of operation. So impatient did Henry become that he could hardly refrain from running into the street to see if any motor-cars were approaching. At last his anxiety ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... very unexpectedly like a steel trap going off. I stared at her. How provoking she was! So I went on to finish my tirade. "She struck me at first sight as the most inconsiderate wrongheaded girl ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... that passed between them on the way, Mountclere became more stubborn than ever in a belief that this was a carefully laid trap of the fair Ethelberta's to ensnare his brother without revealing to him her family ties, which it therefore behoved him to make clear, with the utmost force of representation, before the fatal union had been contracted. ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... spake with a dastard's smile, 'O guest, thine hands are heavy; now rest them for a while!' So I stretched out my hands, and the hand-gyves lay cold on either wrist: And the wood of the wolf had been better than that feast-hall, had I wist That this was the ancient pit-fall, and the long expected trap, And that now for my heart's desire I ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... Dr. Stebbing, who had preserved an anonymous character, "to catch this Eel of Controversy, since he hides his head by the tail, the only part that sticks out of the mud, more dirty indeed than slippery, and still more weak than dirty, as passing through a trap where he was forced at every step to leave part of his skin—that is, his system." Warburton has often true wit. With what provoking contempt he calls Sir Thomas Hanmer always "The Oxford Editor!" and in his ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the king how he would trap the hero. Let all men evermore avoid such foul treason. When the false man had contrived his death, they told all the others. Giselher and Gernot were not hunting with the rest. I know not for what grudge they warned him not. But they paid dear ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... mum, when we come through the Gate," said I. "Sure, I thought Skipper Tommy might miss the Way, an' get t'other side o' the Tooth, an' get in the Trap, an' go t' wreck on ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... first hard sentence against me. Said he, "That fellow is a runaway I know; put him in jail a few days, and you will soon hear where he came from." And then fixing a fiend-like gaze upon me, he continued, "if I lived on this road, you fellows would not find such clear running as you do, I'd trap more of you." ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... Bristol, and had only just returned upon the morning of last Monday, the 3rd. My father was absent from home at the time of my arrival, and I was informed by the maid that he had driven over to Ross with John Cobb, the groom. Shortly after my return I heard the wheels of his trap in the yard, and, looking out of my window, I saw him get out and walk rapidly out of the yard, though I was not aware in which direction he was going. I then took my gun and strolled out in the direction of the Boscombe ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... narrow stairway, rather dark, but the first thing to catch my eye was a small clod of yellow dirt on the second step, and this was still damp—the foot from which it had fallen must have passed within a very short time. I had the fellow—had him like a rat in a trap. Oh, well, there was time enough, and I closed the ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... his daughter to stand behind the door, and softly to push back the bolt each time the attempt was made to prise it open, Frank snatched down, and loaded with slugs, his old musket. Then very quietly he let himself down through the trap-door into the cow-house, which in all, or nearly all, old peel towers formed the lower story of the building. Cautiously unclosing the door of the cow-house, which opened on the outer air close to the flight of stone steps leading up to the main door of the tower, he stepped out. ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Then he is instructed to pass it on to the sub-conscious mentality by an effort of the Will, which effort is aided by forming a mental picture of the subject as a material substance, or bundle of thought, which is being bodily lifted up and dropped down a mental hatch-way, or trap-door, in which it sinks from sight. The student is then instructed to say to the sub-conscious mentality: "I wish this subject thoroughly analyzed, arranged, classified (and whatever else is desired) and then the results handed back ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... five years of age), after much search she found it drowned in a well in her cellar; which was very observable, as by a special hand of God, that the child should go out of that room into another in the dark, and then fall down at a trap-door, or go down the stairs, and so into the well in the farther end of the cellar, the top of the well and the water being even with the ground. But the father, freely in the open congregation, did acknowledge it the righteous hand of God for his profaning ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... and listened. The rosary fell to the floor. Her eyes watched the wreckage of the doorway closely, suspiciously, like an animal before a trap. The shadows encircled her, they were here, there, everywhere; but none moved, ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... larger numbers than usual, they no longer saw her in her old place on the settle, where Rhoda's pretty face had made so strong a contrast with her aunt's. Miss Priscilla, after Rhoda's foolish flight, always retreated to her bedroom overhead, in which there was a small trap-door, made when her mother was bedridden, that she might hear the prayers and the sermon and the singing in the kitchen below. It was some weeks before old Nathan, who looked every Sunday if the trap-door was open, saw that ...
— The Christmas Child • Hesba Stretton
... open wicker car is the worst possible boat for the luckless voyagers, while to leave it and cling to the rigging is but a forlorn hope, owing to the mass of netting which surrounds the silk, and which would prove a death-trap in the water. There are many instances of lives having been lost in such a dilemma, even when help was ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon |
