"Cat's-paw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the absorption of a lifetime's experience. I know that it was Mrs. Bliven's husband—we always called her that, of course—who expected to arrest the pair of them as they crossed the Dubuque ferry; and that I was made a cat's-paw in slipping her past her pursuers and saving Bliven from arrest. I know that Buckner Gowdy was a wild and turbulent rakehell in Kentucky and after many bad scrapes was forced to run away from the state, and was given his huge plantation of "worthless" land—as he ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... such times, simply an oven, the air of which is too hot to breathe! Under such circumstances with what eagerness does the long-enduring seaman scan the polished surface of the sleeping ocean in search of the little smudge of faint, evanescent blue, the cat's-paw that betrays the presence of some wandering eddy in the stagnant air which, even though it be too feeble and insignificant to move the ship by so much as a single inch, may at least afford his fevered body the momentary relief of a suggestion of comparative ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... most Americans, when a hard and fast alliance with Great Britain is suggested to them, usually formulates itself in the statement that they have no wish to be made into a cat's-paw for pulling England's chestnuts out of the fire. America has no desire to be drawn into England's quarrels. Until less than ten years ago, there was justification for the point of view; for while England seemed to ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... Amsterdam were far too busy to attend to my affairs. They were in the midst of equipping an armament to land on Irish shores and strike at England with the cat's-paw of an Irish rebellion. The place was full of Irishmen, some of whom honestly enough looked to see their country redeemed by Dutch saviours; others, hungry hangers-on, seeking what profit to themselves they could secure from the venture. A few faces, even during the ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... him keenly, with hesitating suspicions. "Ah! Duke Stephen's cat's-paw! I remember you—well!" But before the words were fairly out of her mouth, ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... interdict the Parliament. In short, the exercise of power had made the woman mad. De Retz reflected. If the queen designed to punish him, she should have something to punish him for. He was not the man to be made a cat's-paw of. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... and worthier women were sweltering three in a stuffy box below, it had cost but a smile. The captain had repented him of his magnanimity before the lights of Honolulu faded out astern. The General began to realize that he had been made a cat's-paw of and, his amour propre being wounded, he had essayed for a day or two majestic dignity of mien that became comical when complicated with the qualms of seasickness. There was even noticeable aversion on part of ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... marriage over a runaway couple. I knew you wouldn't come of your own free will; therefore, I took the trouble to ascertain about those little expectations of yours from Mrs. Holywell, and used that good lady, whose health, I trust, is no worse than usual, as a cat's-paw. You must pardon the deception, dear sir, and you must perform the marriage ceremony without inconvenient scruples, or hesitation, or questions. Be thankful, for the sake of morality, we see the propriety of getting married at all. You are listening to me and paying attention ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... Directly she mentioned Dion Leith to me and asked me to invite him to the Embassy and be kind to him I understood. But I didn't know Dion Leith then. If I had thoroughly known him I should never have been a willing cat's-paw in a very ugly game. But once I had begun—I took them both for a yachting trip—I did not know how to get out of it all. On that yachting trip—I realized how that man was suffering and what he was. I have ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... the proud, obstinate fighting blood of the Guiscards got up in him. He would not be made a cat's-paw. If she exasperated him further he would forget about being a gentleman, and act as a savage man, and seize her in his arms and ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... the Legislature had been really brought about by a lifelong friend of Colonel Langdon, the senior Senator from the State, James Stevens, who had not hesitated to flatter Norton and use him as a cat's-paw. This use the Hon. Charles Norton seemed to consider an honor of large proportions. Not every first-term Congressman can hope for intimacy with a Senator. Norton believed that his work for Langdon would win him the family's gratitude and thus further his ambition to marry Carolina, the planter's ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... "That's what you called 'em. . . . It took us a whole day to work past the tides of the Start. Then, about sunset, a light draught off the land helped us to Bolt Tail, and after that we mostly drifted all night, with here and there a cat's-paw, down across Bigbury Bay. By five in the morning we were inside the Eddystone, with Plymouth Sound open, and by twelve noon we was just in the very same place. It ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... those of distinguished people, and the last thing he counted on was the murder of the scribe who had promised him columns of descriptive matter in the press. The pert musician was not the first, nor would he be the last, to find that the role of cat's-paw is apt to prove more exacting than was anticipated. To his chagrin, he saw himself changed suddenly from a trusted agent into a dupe, and his utter collapse on hearing of the murder fitted in exactly with the theory taking ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... but that Palmerston could not. This was the diplomatic tradition, especially held by the Russian diplomats. Possibly it was sound, but it helped in no way the education of a private secretary. The cat's-paw theory offered no safer clue, than the frank, old-fashioned, honest theory of villainy. Neither the one nor the ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... him at a gaming-table, inclined to appear sceptical as to the story that Levake had killed an unoffending brakeman. When Scott repeated Stanley's demand that Levake be arrested, the sheriff slammed down his cards and declared he would not be made a cat's-paw for any man; that the brakeman, according to accounts reaching him, had been killed in a fair fight and he would hear no more of it. Then, as if his game had been unreasonably interfered with and his peace of mind injured, he rose from the ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... has made out of June Holiday Home!'—'And that's no small sum, I'll warrant!' the man replied.—'Small!' she exclaimed; 'she's robbing them every day of her life! But she's in a terrible fix now, and I guess she knows it! I can't be thankful enough that for once she didn't make a cat's-paw of me! I said, 'When there's any flogging to be done, you will do it!' She was mad, and I half expected her to discharge me on the spot, but I know too much for her to dare to go too far. I've done piles of dirty work for Amelia Sniffen!'—'Better ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... his hands, and with the stretched forefinger tapping me on both hands, which were clenched as in prayer, addressed to me these identical remarkable words, "My dear fellow, the licence is a mere watchword of the day, and they make a cat's-paw of you." ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... inaction, while his friends were being plundered, and perhaps murdered by a gang of miscreants before his eyes! How eagerly and repeatedly did he scan the horizon for the coming breeze! How did Hope raise her head at the slightest cat's-paw that ruffled the surface of the glassy waters! Three successive gales of wind are bad enough; but three gales blowing hard enough to blow the devil's horns off are infinitely preferable to one idle, stagnant, motionless, confounded calm, oppressing you with the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... is a very pretty scheme of yours; but it seems to me that I am to be nothing more than a cat's-paw in the affair. You have only given me half your confidence. You must give me the whole of it before I can agree to act as you wish. I want to hear the whole history of the case, and how you came to be mixed up in it. Further, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... and King Philip ordered his sister to bed. They got her out of the room after a painful scene, and fell to wrangling again, trying to screw some resolution into the white prince whom they all intended to use as a cat's-paw. About eight o'clock in the morning—they still at it—came a shatter of hoofs in the courtyard, which made Count John jump in his skin. A herald ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... only sufficient occasion to bring into play. Notwithstanding the polite tone which Mr Bellamy had cunningly adopted in placing his mission before him, even he, the ignorant and obtuse Brammel, could not fail to see that he had been made the tool, the cat's-paw in a business from which his partners shrank. Now, had the young man been as full of courage as he was of vulgar conceit, he might, I verily believe, have turned his hatred, and his knowledge of affairs, to very good account. Lacking the spirit of the smallest ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various |
