"Decoy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is—don't forget it's a confidential one, but I'm devilish right about it, young Georgie!—it's this: Fanny uses your mother for a decoy duck. She does everything in the world she can to keep your mother's friendship with Eugene going, because she thinks that's what keeps Eugene about the place, so to speak. Fanny's always with your mother, you ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... through which they had already passed, the bell of which was already sounding their death-knell. The constabulary, by turning into the narrow lane at the left, unconsciously approached the very ambush into which the people, or rather their more disciplined leaders, had intended to decoy them. This lane was enclosed by walls, and on one side the ground was considerably elevated and covered with stones, thus affording to their assailants every possible opportunity of completing their destruction. The unfortunate men were pressed by a crowd on their right, composed ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... in the Atlantic States, the gun, decoy and net are brought into operation against them, and very considerable numbers of them are taken. In some seasons they may be purchased in our markets for one dollar a hundred, and flocks have been known to occupy two hours in passing, in New Jersey and the adjoining States. Many thousands ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... punish them for anything they do, whether it is monopolising a necessity of life and starving thousands of people to death, or whether it is an attack upon a defenceless woman. There are rich men in this city who make it their diversion to answer advertisements and decoy young girls. A stenographer in my office told me that she had had over twenty positions in one year, and that she had left every one because some man in the office ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... prince, and, if the accounts they had repeatedly received on their march were true, had ever regarded the coming of the Spaniards with an evil eye. It was scarcely possible he should do otherwise. His soft messages had only been intended to decoy them across the mountains, where, with the aid of his warriors, he might readily overpower them. They were entangled in the toils which the cunning ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... does you credit; pretty girl, curly head. good manners. Well, she's off. Good trick, too. She was the decoy. Banin stood in the shadow with club. She brought gentleman into alley, friend did work. That's Banin's story. Perhaps a lie. You have a brother in Algiers? Thought so. Girl went out there once? So I was told. Probably there now. African officers say not; but they're a sleepy lot. If I was a criminal ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... of children more delicately nurtured. They had known every degree of hunger and nakedness: during the first few years of their lives they had often been compelled to subsist for days and weeks upon roots and herbs, wild fruits, and game which their fathers had learned to entrap, to decoy, and to shoot. Thus Louis and Hector had early been initiated into the mysteries of the chase. They could make dead-falls, and pits, and traps, and snares; they were as expert as Indians in the use of the bow; ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... sugar from being captured, so that the gain was all on his side. So far as the West Indies were concerned, the French expedition ended not only in a dead loss, but was a humiliating fiasco, unless, as I have stated before, it was a preconceived decoy for some other purpose. But whether it were strategy or decoy, it taxes one's intelligence to conceive why the French fleet did not proceed to bombard the British possessions on arrival, then steal into safe ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... was Carver Doone's passport (as I heard long afterwards), which Charleworth Doone had imitated, for decoy of Lorna. The sentinel took me for that vile Carver; who was like enough to be prowling there, for private talk with Lorna; but not very likely to shout forth his name, if it might be avoided. The watchman, perceiving the danger perhaps of intruding on Carver's privacy, not only retired along ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... knew that there would be an immediate and hot pursuit in their rear; and these circumstances led their leader to adopt the singular expedient of hiding Eveline in the tomb, while one of their own number, dressed in her clothes, might serve as a decoy to deceive their assailants, and lead them, from the spot where she was really concealed, to which it was no doubt the purpose of the banditti to return, when they ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... closely, but the old scout takes such unexpected finds in the light of serious warning. Nothing appears more suspicious to him than something which seems to have been accidentally dropped on a trail over which hostile Indians are retreating. He forthwith thinks of a decoy, and is careful not to approach. For Topanashka it was doubly significant, for had the object purposely been placed there, it led to the disagreeable inference that the Tehua was aware of his pursuit. In that case he was sure to lie in wait for him, and upon nearer ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... little neighbouring Rill; That from out the rocky ground Strikes a solitary sound. Vainly glitters hill and plain, And the air is calm in vain; Vainly Morning spreads the lure Of a sky serene and pure; Creature none can she decoy Into open sign of joy: 90 Is it that they have a fear Of the dreary season near? Or that other pleasures ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... South American station a very pleasant one. I might have found Rio dull, but that I was constantly sent away in the Liberia, which did good service by capturing several slavers. We used to make her look like what she formerly was, and in that way she acted as a decoy, and entrapped several slavers who approached her without suspicion. We had one long trip round Cape Horn, and visited the coast of Chili and Peru. That was the most interesting we took. I feel that I have ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... A falconer's decoy, formed of feathers with their tips in base, and joined by a cord and ring, No. 257; also bells with straps to be ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... attention to outward attire. Hence Augustine says (De Serm. Dom. in Monte ii, 12) that "not only the glare and pomp of outward things, but even dirt and the weeds of mourning may be a subject of ostentation, all the more dangerous as being a decoy under the guise of God's service"; and the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 7) that "both excess and inordinate defect are a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... conversation, to which I have not added a word. We shall see soon how Madame de Maintenon kept her word to me, and if I am not right in owing her a grudge for this promise with a double meaning, with which it was her caprice to decoy me ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was reminded of it, was not this, perhaps, but a device of the enemy's to decoy him from the comparative safety of ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... scoundrel!" Then taking up the empty bottle, he dashed it against the woodwork of the sofa and broke it to pieces. "Who was he?" he went on, in increasing rage; "a chaffering jack-pudding. I have made him what he is, the noodle. If I whistle, he dances; he is only the decoy, I am the bird-catcher." Here Hippus tried to whistle a tune, and to execute a few steps. Again the cold sweat rained from his brow, and, taking out his handkerchief, he dried his face, and carefully replaced the rag ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the jury," said Bill, "the case before you is one aboundin' in horror and amazement. Persons of the lowest morals has disguised themselves in pot-hats in order to decoy a Puddin' of tender years from his lawful guardians. It is related in the archives of the Noble Order of Puddin'-Owners that previous to this dastardly attempt a valuable bag, the property of Sir Benjimen Brandysnap, had been stolen and the said Puddin'-owners invited to ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... new principle employed in this lesson—that of the decoy—and that the method of hunting by means of the drive makes use of various ideas ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... Decoy the wight that late an' drunk is: The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkeys Delude his eyes, Till in some miry slough he sunk is, Ne'er mair ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... continued for two reasons. In the first place, every house, as in Paris, was a fort; and, secondly, the Neapolitan commander could not possibly trust the white flag immediately after he had lost a whole battalion by a false flag being hoisted to decoy them into ambush, where the ground was mined. But no single fact of needless cruelty has been proved against the King of Naples, though I know, from a person attached to our Navy, and in those ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... completely before she enters the life. Because she may, at any moment, escape into the city which she knows so well, it is necessary to obtain her inner consent. Those whose profession it is to procure girls for the white slave trade apparently find it possible to decoy and demoralize most easily that city girl whose need for recreation has led her to the disreputable public dance hall or other ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... if wisdom it were and not chance, is gained only by experience. It took at least one brood of young herons, sacrificed to the appetite of lucivee or fisher, to teach Quoskh the advantage of that decoy nest to tempt hungry prowlers upon the bare tree hole where she could have a clear field to spear them with her powerful bill and beat them down with her great wings before ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... mistaken for a small bit of speckled granite and passed by. In the summer of 1866, a friend and myself had a long search for the eggs of a pair we saw and were certain had eggs, as they practised all the usual devices to decoy us from them, till my friend, actually thinking one of the birds to be badly wounded, set his dog at it; after this all chance was over: this was in a small sandy bay, called Port Soif, near the Grand Rocques Barracks. I mention this as I am certain these birds had eggs or young somewhere ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... guns with grapeshot, and that we might the more readily procure some intelligence of the state of these islands, we showed Spanish colours and hoisted a red flag at the foretop masthead, to give our ship the appearance of the Manila galleon, hoping thereby to decoy some of the inhabitants on board us. Thus preparing ourselves, and standing towards the land, we were near enough at three in the afternoon to send the cutter in shore to find out a proper berth for the ship, and we soon perceived that a proa came off the shore to meet the cutter, fully persuaded, ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... call,' said Zarando, 'A call to decoy the wild creatures Into the range of my arrows, Yet few are deceived by the pretense. Teach ...
— The Legends of San Francisco • George W. Caldwell
... man, with a coat buttoned clear to the neck, and a countenance like a funeral sermon, with no more expression than a wooden decoy duck, who was smoking a briar-wood pipe that he had picked up on a what-not that belonged to the host, knocked the ashes out in a ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... so situated that I could leave them unnoticed. I thought it well, however, to leave behind a small number of burghers as a decoy, so that the English should not pursue us ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... we heard the 'turkeys' gobbling. Then he followed the sound of one and I went after the other. When I came near the place I saw it was a warrior trying to decoy us." ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... cats often counterfeiting sleep, to decoy their prey near them, and then suddenly spring ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... until Lone appeared and fed the flames more wood, and sat down where the light shone on his face. Swan grinned again. Warfield had probably decided that Lorraine would be less afraid of Lone than of them and had ordered him into the firelight as a sort of decoy. And Lone, knowing that Al Woodruff might be within shooting distance, was probably much more ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... them into the stockade just as another hunter had espied the parent leopards. The rifle shot had frightened one of the wild elephants. With a mighty plunge he had broken the chain which held him prisoner to the decoy elephant and pushed through the rotten stockade, heading straight for ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... irritating that after a walk in the grounds had been planned in Deronda's hearing, he did not present himself to join in it. Grandcourt was gone with Sir Hugo to King's Topping, to see the old manor-house; others of the gentlemen were shooting; she was condemned to go and see the decoy and the waterfowl, and everything else that she least wanted to see, with the ladies, with old Lord Pentreath and his anecdotes, with Mr. Vandernoodt and his admiring manners. The irritation became too strong for her; without premeditation, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... a corranto-coiner; a decoy; an exchange man; a forrester; a gamester; an hospitall-man; a iayler; a keeper; a launderer; a metall man; a neuter; an ostler; a post-master: a quest-man; a ruffian; a sailor; a trauller; an vnder sheriffe; a wine-soaker; a Xantippean; a yealous ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... M. Benoit, the concierge. His astonishment was undoubtedly genuine; possibly as much at her brazen denial as at his own error in believing her a police decoy. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... the schoolroom, but nothing will be of any use but your coming away at once, and appearing in society with me, so you had better send the children to Acton Manor, and come to me next week. If there are any teal in the decoy bring some, and ask Mervyn where he ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... must, especially in its transcendental forms, have had a great charm for a Platonic thinker. Our author was entirely devoted to study, and resisted every inducement to leave what he called his 'Paradise' at Cambridge. His friends once tried to decoy him into a bishopric, and got him the length of Whitehall to kiss the king's hand on the occasion; but when he understood their purpose, he refused to go a single step further. His life was a long, learned, happy, and holy dream. He was of the most benevolent disposition; and once observed ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in a way peculiar to himself. Nature, education, circumstances, and habit kept me apart from all that was rude; and though I often came into contact with the lower classes of people, particularly mechanics, no close ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... fox borrowed the terror he inspired from the tiger is more than a simile; but that the tiger has his decoy is something we read about in the story books, and grandfathers talk about a good deal, too. So there must be some truth in it. It is said that when a tiger devours a human being, the latter's spirit cannot free itself, and ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... straight out to you, grandfather. I'm willing to help as far as it's in my poor power. But I want you to tell me that I'm not being used as a decoy-duck ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... your country. Well, you can serve it much better by watching the movements of the enemy, and carrying word of it to the commander. Then, sometimes, we can have a little enterprise of our own—cut off a post of the enemy, or manage to decoy them into lanes where we know their guns ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... canon cast upon Chiquon a glance full of malice, like a decoy bird would have thrown upon a little one to draw him into her net. The fire of his flaming eye enlightened the shepherd, who from that moment had his understanding and his ears all unfogged, and his brain open, like that of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... became evident she was no pirate. Indeed, she made no secret of what she was, for the British flag was run out to her peak, at once proclaiming her a British vessel of war. It is true a pirate might have used that signal for a decoy; but, considering the time and place, it was not likely, and the Pandora's people did not entertain the thought of its being one. The cutter was a British cruiser beyond doubt. That was their full ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... 21 And it came to pass that Moroni, having no hopes of meeting them upon fair grounds, therefore, he resolved upon a plan that he might decoy the Lamanites out of ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... compass. By this time one had reached the tree and I fired killing him. Hastily reloading, I was just in time to fire as the second one responded to the first one's howl; he fell dead; then the third arrived and shared the same fate. Having allowed the first one to live as a decoy, his turn came last; then I descended and looked over my work—four full-grown bears lay dead ...
— California 1849-1913 - or the Rambling Sketches and Experiences of Sixty-four - Years' Residence in that State. • L. H. Woolley
... account. As this commander was destined to cruise upon the French in the latitude of Martinico, his stem and quarters were adorned with white fleurs-de-lis, and the whole shell of the ship so much disguised for a decoy to the enemy, that it was no wonder my uncle did not know her, although he had sailed on board of her many years. We kept company with her four days, during which time the captains were never asunder, and then parted, our ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... invitations to you to enter and rest. Not beautiful these damsels, if judged by our standard, but the charm of Japanese women lies in their manner and dainty little ways, and the tea-house girl, being a professional decoy-duck, is an adept in the art of flirting,—en tout bien tout honneur, be it remembered; for she is not to be confounded with the frail beauties of the Yoshiwara, nor even with her sisterhood near the ports open to foreigners, and to their corrupting influence. For, strange as it seems, our ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... first time, however, that he had realized that a long, tapering tail has its disadvantages as well as its uses. As a controllable balancing-pole, there is probably nothing to equal it. As a parachute, it serves its purpose in a precipitate leap. As a decoy, it frequently disturbs the enemy's aim. But, when once it is firmly jammed, it is liable to congestion, and this is ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... of James W. Wadsworth, son of the famous general, and recently state-comptroller, likewise became a decoy for Folger. Wadsworth himself had no understanding with that wing. He was absolutely independent and unpledged. But the Stalwarts, in districts opposed to them, promoted the choice of such so-called Wadsworth delegates ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... advancing to relieve the place, in the course of which a handful of British troops rendered themselves as conspicuous for valour, as the noble Tecumseh did for valour and clemency united, the siege, (a second time attempted,) was, after a final but fruitless attempt to decoy the enemy from his defences, abandoned as hopeless, and the expedition re-embarked and directed against Fort Sandusky, a post of the Americans, situate on the river of that name, and running also ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... long pomp, the midnight masquerade, With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed— In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain, The toiling pleasure sickens into pain; And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy, The heart distrusting asks if this ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... idea was ridiculous. At most he had been careless. Yes, he was certainly to blame. He ought to have seen the trap so carefully prepared and into which he had walked as if blindfolded. That extra $50,000 worth of stock, on which he had never received a cent interest, had been the decoy in a carefully thought out plot. They, the plotters, well knew how ignorant he was of financial matters and he had been an easy victim. Who would believe his story that the stock had been sent to him with a plausibly-worded letter to the effect that it represented a bonus on his own investment? ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... the chasseur, with intense relish. A sinister man with very black hair (probably in collusion with the decoy) was looking ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... and faithful protege—now in command of a company of the 49th, disguised as a settler, penetrated the enemy's camp, and was convinced a night attack would be successful. While the advance guard of the enemy was driving in the British decoy pickets, 800 of Vincent's force, under Harvey, surprised and charged them in the darkness, capturing two American generals, 120 prisoners, and four cannon, without ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... and meadows; returning again with the dawn of the morning. Had this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted round with thick covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... country, the Copperhouse Volunteer Rifles; and just below the bridge the sluggish water becomes a little lake, having probably at some time been artificially widened, and there is a little island and a decoy for ducks. On the present occasion carriages were drawn up on all the roads, and horses were clustered on each side of the brook, and the hounds sat stately on their haunches where riflemen usually ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... for them the hunter placed the traps either in the water or on the bank at a spot where they were in the habit of going ashore, and to decoy them to that landing Oo-koo-hoo rubbed castoreum on the branches of the surrounding bushes—just in the same way as he did for mink or otter. Another way he had of setting traps was to cut a hole in the side of a muskrat's house, so that he could thrust in ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... tinged the lake with the soft green reflections from which it took its name. In a creek at the south end, the boats were kept—my own pretty sailing boat having a tiny natural harbor all to itself. In a creek at the north end stood the great trap (called a "decoy"), used for snaring the wild fowl which flocked every winter, by thousands and ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... snare," observed Macfarlane, sententiously, "a snare and a decoy to both soul and body!" He laughed and rubbed his hands,—then added with some eagerness, "I say, how ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... be to one side of the unicorns to kill them," Schroeder said, "it only calls for a man to be the decoy and let the unicorns chase him between the hidden bowmen. If there's no more than one or two unicorns and if the decoy doesn't have to run very far and if the bowmen don't miss it ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... Peyrade, "you made a sort of decoy of Celeste to attract young bloods to your salon. All the world has not the forbearance of Monsieur Godeschal, who forgave his rejection and generously managed that affair ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... the Pharo Bank in the great room, but had so few and such poor punters that Charles and Richard was (were) obliged to sit down from time to time as decoy ducks. The Bank won, as Hare said, about a hundred, out of which the cards were to be paid. I do not think that the people who frequent Brooks's will suffer this pillage another campaign. Trusty was there to go into the chair, when he should be called upon. I told him that I was extremely ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... see it till broad daylight!" he panted, pressing. "And by that time the Gentleman, if he's hanging about, will see it too. If they haul it down then and run up the tricolour, he'll think it's a decoy." ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... garroters and thieves. Hundreds of strangers, coming to the city, follow them to their rooms only to find themselves in the power of thieves, who compel them on pain of instant death to surrender all their valuables. The room taken by the decoy is vacated immediately after the robbery, the girl and her confederate disappear, and it is impossible to ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... a Sermon. It is a lure to decoy other Ramblers, and the bait is something to ramble for. It also provides ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... little knowing how close death had come to him, but inwardly reproached because of his passionate outbreak, he firmly believed that he had had a narrow escape from the net of the great fowler, whose decoy the old woman was, commissioned not only to cause his bodily death, but to work in him first such a frame of mind as should render his soul the ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... carry on the same enterprises with Sertorius, having indeed the same forces and the same means, only wanting the same skill and conduct in the use of them. Pompey therefore marched directly against, Perpenna, and finding him acting merely at random in his affairs, had a decoy ready for him, and sent out a detachment of ten cohorts into the level country with orders to range up and down and disperse themselves abroad. The bait took accordingly, and no sooner had Perpenna turned upon ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... people on the earth Doomed with doom of too great worth. Look on Helen not with hate, Therefore, but compassionate. If she suffer not too much, Seldom does she feel the touch Of that fresh, auroral joy Lighter spirits may decoy To their pure and sunny lives. Heavy honey 't is, she hives. To her sweet but burdened soul All that here she doth control— What of bitter memories, What of coming fate's surmise, Paris' passion, distant din Of the war now drifting ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... the latter. "Why, it is George Leland's negro; he wouldn't decoy us into danger. Let us ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... dealt a thrust at Georgiana, Sylvia seems to have turned in the spirit of revenge upon her mother; and when she came home some days ago she brought with her a distant cousin of her own age—a boy, enormously fat—whom she soon began to decoy around the garden as her mother had been decoyed by the general. Further to satirize the similarity of lovers, she one day pinned upon his shoulders ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... up the cheque, paused. He seemed to find himself at fault for a moment. The jungle beast, that hears the twig crack beneath the foot of the man with the express rifle, pauses like that over his bloody meal on the carcass of the decoy goat. ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... bound to the northward. The pilots imagined the Bonhomme Richard to be an English ship of war, and, consequently, communicated to me the private signal which they had been required to make. I endeavoured by this means to decoy the ships out of the port, but the wind then changing, and with the tide becoming unfavourable for them, the deception had not the desired effect, and they wisely put back. The entrance of the Humber is exceedingly difficult and dangerous, and, as the Pallas ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... purity, and modesty of our countrywomen. That they are guilty of a design to deceive is certain. Otherwise why so much art? and if to deceive, wherefore and with what purpose? Certainly either to gratify vanity of the silliest kind, or, which is still more criminal, to decoy and inveigle, and carry on more successfully the business of temptation. Here, therefore, my opinion splits itself into two opposite sides upon the same question. I can suppose a French woman, though ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... language of some persons. . . . You cannot avoid remarking, my dear Mason, and I hope not without some indignation, the unparalleled singularity of my situation. Was ever a man before me expected to enter into formal, direct, and undisguised slavery? Did ever man before him confess an attempt to decoy a man into such an alleged contract, not to say anything of the impudence of regularly pleading it? If such an attempt be wicked and unlawful (and I am sure no one ever doubted it), I have only to confess his charge, and to admit myself his dupe, to make him pass, on his own showing, for the most ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... one of whom was the drunken fool who had blabbed his secret days ago, had I only heeded it, in my sick cabin. Finding me stubborn, and further passage barred, they sheered off with a curse and hastened forward. I durst not follow them; for it might be a feint to decoy me from my post. So, with all the haste I could, I threw up an out-work of lumber, sails, spars, and boxes across the deck some distance in front of the poop, and, relieving my two fallen assailants of their knives, I stood ready ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... perhaps it would be best to keep a watch of the shores ahead, to prevent running carelessly into danger. There might be Indians concealed or lurking in the vicinity, and he would be easily drawn into a decoy, should he ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... of the Emperor the greatness of that assistance which he still retained in his hands. Convinced that an army raised by his name alone would, if deprived of its creator, soon sink again into nothing, he intended it to serve only as a decoy to draw more important concessions from his master. And yet Ferdinand congratulated himself, even in having gained so ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... the Countess Ingomede; he was prepared to play upon that admiration for the success of his efforts. The Countess disappeared on a recent night, leaving the court in extreme doubt as to her fate. Later a decoy telegram was sent by a Marlanx agent, informing Tullis that she had gone to Schloss Marlanx, never to return, but so shrewdly worded that he would believe that it had been sent by coercion, and that she ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... inclination to attack and its power to destroy little birds has been doubted; but it has been seen to kill a bird as large as a finch, and is not unfrequently caught in the clap-nets of London bird-catchers, having struck at their decoy-birds;" and Mr. Hewitson says—"Seeing a red-backed shrike busy in a hedge, I found, upon approaching it, a small bird, upon which it had been operating, firmly fixed upon a blunt thorn; its head was torn off, and ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... say so. But Tony Babington always was a fool, and a wrong-headed fool, who was sure to ruin himself sooner or later. You remember the decoy for the wild-fowl? Well, never was silly duck or goose so ready to swim into the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the various wireless agents who were relaying the spy messages to Mexico, several were caught by decoy messages and shared the fate of Sanders ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... was astounded, and believed for a minute that his friend had been put forward as a decoy, and that his captors were immediately behind him. But that dread was removed the next moment by the appearance of the young Irishman, who, advancing jauntily, called out in ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... is the home in fiction of adventuresses and profligacy and Bohemian supper-parties; often have I read about those foreign Countesses, of unknown history and incredible fascination, who decoy handsome young officials of the Foreign Office to these villas, and rob them, in dim-lit, scented bedrooms, of important documents. But I at least have never too harshly blamed these young diplomatists. Silent is the street as the mysterious brougham pauses, ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... Christ had written a decoy letter to the woman to whom he said: "Go and sin no more," and if he had disguised himself and visited her house and had then lodged a complaint against her before the police and testified against her, taking one of his disciples with him, I do not think he would have ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... engaged for the evening announced Monsieur and Madame Giraud; whereupon there entered a little—little couple, very fair, very plump, and very like each other. This was Mr. Love's show couple—his decoy ducks—his last best example of match-making; they had been married two months out of the bureau, and were the admiration of the neighbourhood for their conjugal affection. As they were now united, they had ceased to frequent the table d'hote; but Mr. Love often invited them ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... came from the neck of a Hottentot woman—a black Vanus, be Jove! We were trekking up country before the second Kaffir war. Made an appintment—could not go—orderly duty—so sent a trusty man to tell her. He was found next day with twenty assegais in his body. She was a decoy duck, bedad, and ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... we used to have wild duck on the island. . . . There were lagoons on the east side, fairly teeming with them, and we fixed up a decoy. I don't pretend that we fixed up an orange salad like this, with curacao: but in the beginning we practised with limes, and later on I invented one of sliced bananas, with a sort of spirit I brewed from the fruit. Also we found bait in the pools, not so much unlike the whitebait ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to your decoy," rejoined Angelica in a positive tone. "You just went down there yourself one day and exploded some long words at the ducks, and, naturally, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... de Montauban is not ill-looking," Maurice remarked, to decoy her into some more open expression; "and he is sufficiently agreeable,—do ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... defiance which an already victorious general could assume, Orange marched into Brabant, and took up a position within six thousand paces of Alva's encampment. His plan was at every hazard to dare or to decoy his adversary into the chances of a stricken field. The Governor was entrenched at a place called Keiserslager, which Julius Caesar had once occupied. The city of Maestricht was in his immediate neighbourhood, which was thus completely under his protection, while ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the defendant had given to the complaining witness and in which he held himself out as a veterinary. The testimony of the complainant stood uncontradicted. The complainant was not an accomplice and his testimony did not have to be corroborated. A decoy wasn't an accomplice. That was the law. Neither was what had passed between the complainant and defendant privileged as a confidential communication, because the complainant was not a physician. That was all there ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... him your money openly, in a big purse, as you would to a local pasha, you go about it indirectly. The man is fond of pictures. He is constantly having dealings with Schwalbach, who employs him as a decoy for his Catholic clients. Well, you offer him some picture—a souvenir to hang on a panel in his study. The whole point is to make the price quite clear. But you will see. I will take you round to call on him myself. I will show you how the thing ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... too hot a reception, the whites kept a more respectful distance. Hovering now just out of reach of the hurtling hatchets, they, with a view to the close encounter which must soon come, sought to decoy the blacks into entirely disarming themselves of their most murderous weapons in a hand-to-hand fight, by foolishly flinging them, as missiles, short of the mark, into the sea. But, ere long, perceiving ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... horses from his stable; fine, quick, surefooted beasts, with a driver who was unsurpassed in all that region for his skill and dash. The sleigh was a large one, and we fitted it with a good supply of robes and straw, and put a healthy young pig in it to serve as a decoy. We each had a gun, and carried a couple of spare guns, with plenty of ammunition, so that we could kill as many wolves ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... monastic life of the sick-room. One does not escape from being a patient because of being also a physician, and for my part I am glad to confess my sense of enjoyment in such visits, and how I have longed to keep my doctor at my side and to decoy him into a protracted stay. The convalescence he observes is for him, too, a pleasant thing. He has and should have pride in some distinct rescue, or in the fact that he has been able to stand by, with little interference, and see the disease run its normal ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... an old counterfeit ten-dollar bill for a decoy. I shut my eyes and imagined myself stuffing big bundles of them into the pigeon-holes of ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... have been B's own, in which case he were the more unpardonable but from the closeness of his intercourse with the chief justice, as well as from the terms used in the interview, men judged otherwise. It was proposed that A should simulate a renewal of the friendship, decoy Mataafa to a suitable place, and have him there arrested. What should follow in those days of violent speech was at the least disputable; and the proposal was of course refused. "You do not understand," was the base rejoinder. "You will ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... widow of Giovanni de' Medici, "delle Bande Nere," who resided near Lorenzino, certainly heard loud cries which terrified her, but it was not an unusual occurrence. Lorenzino had, in his villainous scheme, devised a cunning decoy to accustom neighbours and passers-by to noisy behaviour. He had repeatedly gathered in his house groups of young men with swords, whom he instructed to cross their weapons as in serious self-defence, and to cry out "Murder!" "Help!" ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... finish what I have to say," he went on. "I know that every one will wish me to. We are all here to look for the truth and nothing else, and, thanks to Miss Abbeway, we have stumbled upon it. These peace proposals, which look so well on paper, are a decoy. They were made to be broken. Those signatures are affixed to be repudiated. I say that Freistner has been a prisoner for weeks, and I deny that Fenn has received a single communication from him during that time. Fenn asserts that he has, but has destroyed them. ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... encounter. When Captain Barry afterwards "asked them why they did not come down during the action, they answered they thought they might have been taken, and the signal known; that the action was only 'a sham to decoy him.'" ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... what my life was like with Ladislaus?" she hissed. "A plaything for his brutal pleasures, to begin with; a decoy duck to trap the other men, I found afterwards; tortured and insulted from morning to night. I hated him always, but he seemed so kind beforehand—kind to my darling mother, whom you were leaving to die."—Here Francis Markrute winced and a look of pain came into his hard face while he raised ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... arch-jade, and, being used to this decoy, had her cue perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy, and asked me to walk up with her; and accordingly showed me a neat room, two pair of stairs backwards, in which there was a handsome bed, where Martha told me I was to lie with a young gentlewoman, a cousin ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... fading away. The whole party was concealed in a dense canebrake which fringed the stream. Two of the Indians were sent forward as a decoy—a shameful decoy—to lure into the hands of two hundred warriors an unarmed man, two women, and eight or ten children. The Indians picked out some of their best marksmen and hid them behind trees and logs near the river. They were to shoot down the Indians whom others ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... he was a po-lice,' said the fellow with a grin; 'and whin ye ride with ladies, ye must turn the decoy side.' ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... water was as dark and rank As ever a Company pumped, And the perch that was netted and laid on the bank Grew rotten while it jumped; And bold was he who thither came At midnight, man or boy, For the place was cursed with an evil name, And that name was "The Devil's Decoy"! ...
— English Satires • Various
... sherbet vender, on the hill of Pera, who is so well described in "The Armenians" of Macfarlane; and whose little fountain of water, flowing through machinery, and setting wheels, circles, and bells all in motion together, is no slight decoy to the thirsty passenger. I have read "The Armenians" with great pleasure. The description of the locale, as well as of the manners, customs, and general appearance of the native and foreign inhabitants of Constantinople, is given with admirable ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... the madness that came to the young warrior, of how year after year he followed the trail of wolves, wreaking his vengeance on their breed. And last he thought of Wolf—how Mukoki and Wabigoon had found the whelp in one of their traps; how they tamed him, grew to love him, and taught him to decoy other wolves to their riffes. Wolf had been their comrade of a few months before; fearless, faithful, until at last, escaping from the final murderous assault of the Woongas, he had fled into the forests, while his human friends fought their ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... gestures.) You filthy pimp, you mud-heap, you common dung-hill, you besmirched, corrupt, law-breaking decoy, you public sewer, ... ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... said the little female politician. "You may go round," and round we went, not a little amused at such an exhibition of enthusiasm. I remember very well the excitement during the campaign of 1840; and I did my share with the New Hampshire boys in getting up decoy cider barrels to humbug the Whigs as they passed in their barouches to attend some great convention or hear Daniel Webster. But it seems to me there is much more political excitement during this campaign than there was in 1840. Flagstaffs and banners abound in the greatest profusion in every ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... that the penetrating Hamlet perceives, from the strange and forced manner of Ophelia, that the sweet girl was not acting a part of her own, but was a decoy; and his after speeches are not so much directed to her as to the listeners and spies. Such a discovery in a mood so anxious and irritable accounts for a certain harshness in him;—and yet a wild up-working of love, sporting with opposites in a wilful self-tormenting strain of irony, is ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... apprehensions always upon you; and that it may be presumptuous to trust too much to our own strength; and that you are but very young; and the devil may put it into his heart to use some stratagem, of which great men are full, to decoy you: I think you had better come home to share our poverty with safety, than live with so much discontent in a plenty, that itself may be dangerous. God direct you for the best! While you have Mrs. Jervis for an adviser and bed-fellow, (and, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... fields, and for its greater advantage employed Monsieur La Notre, the famous French landscape-gardener. Amongst the improvements this ingenious man effected were planting trees of stately height, contriving a canal one hundred feet broad and two hundred and eighty feet long, with a decoy and duck island, [The goodnatured Charles made Monsieur St. Evremond governor of Duck Island, to which position he attached a salary much appreciated by the exile. The island was removed in 1790 to make room for fresh improvements.] and making a pleasant pathway bordered ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... the finches together and sells them at the rate of an obolus for seven. He tortures the thrushes by blowing them out, so that they may look bigger, sticks their own feathers into the nostrils of blackbirds, and collects pigeons, which he shuts up and forces them, fastened in a net, to decoy others." That is what we wish to proclaim. And if anyone is keeping birds shut up in his yard, let him hasten to let them loose; those who disobey shall be seized by the birds and we shall put them in chains, so that in their turn they may decoy ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... are sent back to their departmental holes, where they shall serve as agents and missionaries.[1146] There is no further mention of putting the Constitution into operation; this was simply a bait, a decoy, contrived for fishing in turbid waters: the fishing ended, the Constitution is now placed in a conspicuous place in the hall, in a small monument for which David furnished the design.[1147]—The ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine |
