"Flea" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sand-flea, which penetrates and breeds under the skin of the feet, but particularly at the toes. It must be removed, or it occasions dreadful sores. The operation is effected by a needle; but the sac which contains the brood ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... as these homebred vapours? What fugitive, what almsman of any foreign state, can do so much harm as a detractor, a libeller, a scornful jester at home? For as they that write of poisons, and of creatures naturally disposed to the ruin of man, do as well mention the flea as the viper[170], because the flea, though he kill none, he does all the harm he can; so even these libellous and licentious jesters utter the venom they have, though sometimes virtue, and always power, be a good pigeon to draw this ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... snake which used to suck on the lowest joint of its forefinger; and, when they (inquiring where) pointed to other places, it told them not there but here, pointing on the lowest joint of the forefinger, where they observed a deep red spot about the bigness of a flea-bite. They asked it who gave it that snake, whether the black man gave it: the child said no, its mother gave it. I heard this child examined ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... hemisphere;" if a botanist, they send him a cow-cabbage, or a root of mangel-wurzel, with a serious note, stating, that they hear it is a great curiosity in his line; if an entomologist, they are sure to send him away "with a flea in his ear." If he affects poetry, the fast fellows make one of their servants transcribe, from Bell's Life, Scroggins's poetical version of the fight between Bendigo and Bungaree, or some such stuff; and, having got the slow fellow in a corner, insist upon having his opinion, and drive ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... bare foot of a Wrestler and bit him, causing the man to call loudly upon Hercules for help. When the Flea a second time hopped upon his foot, he groaned and said, "O Hercules! if you will not help me against a Flea, how can I hope for ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... Minnie, over at Clayton, has just had her hundredth descendant. She had sixteen children of her own and all of them have had their share of children and grandchildren. I know it's so because I just sold one of the great-granddaughters some hair straightener and a box of flea powder and she thought of getting some talcum powder for the new baby, but decided to use ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... Daphne sounds somehow floral, but this Daphne was equipped with one eye and several pairs of legs, and practised abrupt jumpy flights through the water. In short, she was a branchiopod, to be vulgarly precise, a water-flea. The succulence of Daphne led to experiments on Cyclops—Cyclops is her first cousin—and the taste, once acquired, ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... flea-bite. Let her keep it. You're in for it now, and you'd better say nothing about money. He has a decent solicitor, and let him arrange about the settlements. And look here, Jane;—get it done as soon ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... thinking how to give greater power to the leg-muscles of the flea, that he may more easily escape from his enemies. The balance of attack and defence is broken.... It ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... as flea-bane and wolf's-bane, refer to the reputed property of the plant to keep off or injure the animal named,[5] and there is a long list of plants which derived their names from their real or imaginary medicinal virtues, many ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... sub. Then a provisional Varsity was formed and the Second Team began doing business with Bi at right guard again. The left guard on the Varsity was Bannen—"Slugger" Bannen. He didn't weigh within seven pounds of Bi, but he had springs inside of him and could get the jump on a flea. He was called "Slugger" because he looked like a prizefighter, but he was a gentle, harmless chap, and one of the Earnest Workers in the Christian Association. He could stick his fist through an oak panel same as you or I would put our fingers ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... so busy catching a new kind of flea, or a rare specimen of mud turtle, that he has forgotten all about writing," suggested Bob. ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... solidity and sense. The body, however, was but a pompous trifle, and I had for many a day held his observes and admonishments in no very reverential estimation. So that, when I heard him address me in such a memorializing manner, I was inclined and tempted to set him off with a flea in his lug. However, I was enabled to bridle and rein in this prejudicial humour, and answer him in ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... lady. Another wit, desirous of emulating him, and for a literary bravado, continued the same subject, and pointed at this unfortunate fair three hundred more, without once repeating the thoughts of Brebeuf! There is a collection of poems called "La PUCE des grands jours de Poitiers." "The FLEA of the carnival of Poietiers." These poems were begun by the learned Pasquier, who edited the collection, upon a FLEA which was found one morning in the bosom of the famous Catherine ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... galaxy,' he said; and, having reduced me by one glance to the proportions of a performing flea, rather poorly trained, he gave his ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... fain fort fowl mien write mown sole drafts fore bass beat seem steel dun bear there creak bore ball wave chews staid caste maize heel bawl course quire chord chased tide sword mail nun plain pour fate wean hoard berth isle throne vane seize sore slight freeze knave fane reek Rome rye style flea faint peak throw bourn route soar sleight frieze nave reck sere wreak roam wry flee feint pique mite seer idle pistol flower holy serf borough capital canvas indict martial kernel carat bridle lesson council collar levy accept affect deference emigrant prophesy sculptor plaintive ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... performances each evening—and he always had some audience. So that Alvina had opportunity to come into contact with all the odd people of the inferior stage. She found they were very much of a type: a little frowsy, a little flea-bitten as a rule, indifferent to ordinary morality, and philosophical even if irritable. They were often very irritable. And they had always a certain fund of callous philosophy. Alvina did not like them—you ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... particularly discreet in all that he says: and next, he should have known that the Gallic shrug over matters political is volcanic—it is the heaving of the mountain, and, like the proverbial Russ, leaps up Tartarly at a scratch. Our newspapers also had been flea-biting M. Livret and his countrymen of late; and, to conclude, over in old England you may fly out against what you will, and there is little beyond a motherly smile, a nurse's rebuke, or a fool's rudeness to answer you. In quick-blooded ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... said Mir Jan to Suleiman, 'should this rat-flea escape, thy soul and thy body shall pay, for I will put out thine eyes with glowing charcoal and hang thee in the skin of a pig, if I have to follow thee to Cabul to do it—yea, to Balkh or Bokhara. See to it.' And Suleiman ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... under which he had been lodging; he thought he felt something dropping on his head,—some moss belike. Alas for Thor and his weapon! For once he found himself worsted, and his mightiest efforts regarded as mere flea-bites; for Skrymir's talk about leaves and acorns and moss was merely a sly piece of humor, levelled at poor crestfallen Thor, as he afterwards acknowledged. After this incident, Thor and his two companions, the peasant's children, Thjalfi and Roeska, and Skrymir went their ways, and came to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... straight. What I'm going to do or not going to do in the Cathedral to-morrow is none of your business: and if I catch sight of you hanging about the place to-morrow after your work's done, I'll send you home with a flea in your ear. Now you mind that.' Of course I said I was very sorry and that, and equally of course I went off and laid my plans with Evans. We knew there was a stair up in the corner of the transept which you can ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... sun was still sleeping an Elf came up from below, tickling an oak-tree's foot, skipping like a flea, and whispering ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... his wages. Suspicions were excited; but again they remained vague. The autopsy showed a state of things not precisely to be called peculiar to poisoning cases the intestines, which the fatal poison had not had time to burn as in the case of the d'Aubrays, were marked with reddish spots like flea-bites. In June Penautier obtained the post that had been held by the Sieur ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... le Garcon, he is. He slept here—he didn't find your bed comfortable—he came to us to complain of it—here he is among my men—and here am I ready to look for a flea or two in his bedstead. Renaudin! (calling to one of the subordinates, and pointing to the waiter) collar that man and tie his hands behind him. Now, then, gentlemen, let us ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... "Why should I play a trick on you? Come, sir, and you will see her presently, all dressed up and decked with jewels. Her damsels and she are all covered with diamonds, and rubies, and cloth of gold. And what is more, they are riding three flea-bitten gambling hags, the like of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... enjoyed was turning himself into some small commonplace creature to plague his friends on board—a mouse, one day, a flea the next, a fly on the third. Quite naturally, no one suspected his ability to adopt such fantastic disguises. So little did they guess—he had one or two narrow escapes from ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... welcomed all over town, for nobody believed any longer in their late idol. The simpletons and poltroons—all the fellows of Bezuquet's stamp, whom a flea would put to flight, and who could not fire a shot without closing their eyes—were conspicuously pitiless. In the club-rooms or on the esplanade, they accosted poor Tartarin with ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Turks, let us consider his false sleight, for this tale he telleth us to make us forget him. But let us remember well that, in respect of himself, the Turks are but a shadow. And all that they can do can be but a flea-bite in comparison with the mischief that he goeth about. The Turks are but his tormentors, for he himself doth the deed. Our Lord saith in the Apocalypse, "The devil shall send some of you to prison, to tempt you." He saith ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... moste of suche handkerchers, is compted the valeauntest manne. There are many also that sowe together these skinnes of menne, as other doe the skinnes of beastes, and weare theim for their clothyng. Some of them flea the right hand of their enemies beyng slaine, so that the nailes also remain vpon the fingres, and make couers ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... assistance—. I will not trust in my own selfe, and Isa's health will be quite ruined by me—it will indeed." "Isa has giving me advice, which is, that when I feel Satan beginning to tempt me, that I flea him and he would flea me." "Remorse is the worst thing to bear, and I am afraid that I will fall a marter ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... necessary things that appertained to a good housewife indifferently for them both, as in making cleane their Cabin, and euery other thing that appertained to his ease: for when he was seasicke, she would make him cleane, she would kill and flea the dogs for their eating, and dresse his meate. [Sidenote: The shamefastess and chastity of those Sauage captiues.] Only I think it worth the noting, the continencie of them both: for the man would neuer shift hemselfe, except ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... Jolly Miller lived on the River Dee; He looked upon his piller, and there he found a flea: "O Mr. Flea! you have bit' me, And you shall shorely die!" So he scrunched his bones against the stones— And there ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... was flat—very flat, like a rug made of chetah skin. He had some shreds of elephant-hide tangled in his claws. It looked to me as if he'd gotten desperate with hunger and had pounced on big Bahut—pshaw! the story was in plain print: "Ouch!" says big Bahut. "A flea has bitten me. Here's where I play dead," and—rolls over. Result: one neat and very flat rug made ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... we ain't deaf and dumb and blind and silly,' said the cook. 'Here's that nurse. You be off, Mr. Philip, without you want a flea in ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... truth and vivacity than of historical recollections compiled out of histories, or filched out of handbooks. But to speak of the best inn in a place needs no apology: that, at least, is useful information. As every person intending to visit Gibraltar cannot have seen the flea-bitten countenances of our companions, who fled from their Spanish venta to take refuge at the club the morning after our arrival, they may surely be thankful for being directed to the best house ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cry you mercy, sir; I saw not you. I think I have sent the scholar away with a flea in his ear. I trow, he'll come no more ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... safety. Sancho and the gentleman made still another attempt to bring him to his senses, but all their pleas were in vain. Sancho left his master with the tears falling down his cheeks, and Don Quixote ordered the gentleman to speed away on his flea-bitten mare as fast as he could, if he was afraid to be ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Under a poppy's spreading shade. The jealous queen started in rage; She kick'd her crown, and beat her page: "Bring me my magic wand," she cries; "Under that primrose, there it lies; I'll change the silly, saucy chit, Into a flea, a louse, a nit, A worm, a grasshopper, a rat, An owl, a monkey, hedgehog, bat. But hold, why not by fairy art Transform the wretch into— Ixion once a cloud embraced, By Jove and jealousy well placed; What sport to see proud Oberon stare, And flirt it with a pet en l'air!" ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... to salute him in the darkness was his next in command, Barry Whalen. They had been together in the old Rand Rifles, and had, in the words of the Kaffir, been as near as the flea to the blanket, since the day when Rudyard discovered that Barry Whalen was on the same ship bound for the seat of war. They were not youngsters, either of them; but they had the spring of youth in them, and a deep basis of strength and force; and they ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... also brought a few things which he wishes he had left behind. The Hessian fly, the wire-worm, the flea, and grubs and scale insects thrive mischievously. The black and grey rats have driven the native rat into the recesses of the forest. A score of weeds have come, mixed with badly-screened grass-seed, or in any of a hundred other ways. The Scotch thistle seemed ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... were all determined not to leave little Inez in these poor lodgings. "Goodness knows," Bess remarked, "if she gets out of our sight now we may never find her again. She's just as elusive as a flea!" ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... swiftest pace; Whether a pulse beat in the black 305 List of a dappled louse's back; If systole or diastole move Quickest when he's in wrath or love When two of them do run a race, Whether they gallop, trot, or pace: 310 How many scores a flea will jump, Of his own length, from head to rump; Which SOCRATES and CHAEREPHON, In vain, assay'd so long agon; Whether his snout a perfect nose is, 315 And not an elephant's proboscis How many diff'rent specieses Of ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... hoss and den de flea, Nex' come de hoss and den de flea, Nex' come de hoss and den de flea, De camomile and de bumblebee. Do you belong to Gideon's Band? . . . . . . ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... with dove-coloured eyes manages to squeeze out a tear and at the same moment depart in wrath to her room and lock the doors, refusing to answer—the trouble being why in heaven's name must a pound-and-a-half spaniel called Monster, nothing but a flea-bearing dust mop, do nothing but sit and yap for chocolates?—what man is going to dare do otherwise than suppress a little profanity and then go and ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... the expressions of apology from McGregor, on learning what he had done, and patronisingly cool were the assurances of Ivor that the injury was a mere flea-bite. And intense was the astonishment when it was discovered that a stag and a hind had fallen to old MacRummle with that "treemendious" repeater! And great was the laughter afterwards, at lunch time on the field of battle, ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... infested with a species of flea, Ctenophthalmus sp. Seldom or never is a specimen taken in reasonably fresh condition without some of these parasites present on its body, though of course they desert the body of the host after it becomes cold, and hence dead specimens left too long may be free from them. The ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... shame. In his perplexity, he always finds relief in endeavoring with his paw to scrape a supposititious fly from the side of his nose. He then deals with what I suppose to be an equally imaginary flea; after he has thus gained a few seconds for readjustment, he welcomes me joyously. All this is so thoroughly human-like, that even the naturalist, the professional doubter, is forced to believe that the dog's mind works substantially as his own, and that the feelings ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... bands were in the immediate neighborhood. It has been a long, hard summer's work for the troops, and the Indians have been, to all commands that boasted strength or swiftness, elusive as the Irishman's flea of tradition. Only to those whose numbers were weak or whose movements were hampered have they appeared in fighting-trim. But combinations have been too much for them, and at last they have been "herded" down to the Elk, have crossed, and are now seeking to make their way, with women, children, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... rest of the civilised world. From having been the prey of the inexpressible foreigner in his shooting season, it suddenly becomes, and remains during about five months, the happy hunting ground of the silent flea, the buzzing fly and the insinuating mosquito. The streets are, indeed, still full of people, and long lines of carriages may be seen towards sunset in the Villa Borghesa and in the narrow Corso. Rome ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... lose most of the stuff, and put a flea in his ear to the effect that you think Carson is the guilty party. This will cause the fellow's room to be searched and the stuff will be found. You must be on hand to ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... death, repli'd bold Mustapha, At your command I'le clime a steepy rocke, Then headlong tumble downe into the sea, Or willingly submit me to the blocke, Disrobe my nature, and my body flea: Yet in that tyranny I'le speake my minde, And boldly like a Souldier stand deaths shocke, Concluding, lust can ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... people who are healthy. In this way the disease-producing organism is introduced into the body of the healthy person, and beginning to multiply, brings about the symptoms of the disease. Malaria is transmitted in this way by the anopheles mosquito; typhus fever by lice, and plague by the rat flea. These are all diseases greatly to be dreaded in ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... the stranger went on, trying to make his coarse voice sound friendly. "I just had in mind puttin' a flea in your ear. Because it is the wrong time of year to be goin' west, in the first place, and the woods are full of Indians and the roads alive with cutthroats, in the second place. If I was you young shavers I'd sell out and wait a year or two, or till next spring anyhow, before goin' any further. ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... things which on the face of them are of the same class, are really divided by an impassable gulf, and that the lower are regulated, while the higher are not. You would, for example, be forced to contend that the number of articulations in a flea's hind leg has engaged the direct superintendence of the Creator, while the mischance which killed a thousand people in a theatre depended upon the dropping of a wax vesta upon the floor, and was an unforeseen flaw in the chain of life. This ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... end, all was arranged satisfactorily, but the knight, who had a flea in his ear, as soon as he rose, went to his companion, to whom he related the adventure at full length, and demanded from him two promises; the first was that he should strictly promise to say nothing of the matter, and the second that he should never meet ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... have a drag net out. All the roads, all the railroads, all the airports are guarded. The river and the water front, every wharf in New York and New Jersey is taken care of. You would think a flea couldn't get through. They've picked up hundreds ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... appearance and the bulging saddle-bags. But he did not stop. Neither did he return. The young man with the old horse looked to him like a fighter—and even if the saddle-bags were stuffed with gold they would prove but a flea bite to the stake which ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... persistence, even though he was a pest. Johnny saw more in him than his companions could find, and had quite a little sport with him: he made fine practice for roping, for he was about as elusive as a grasshopper and uncertain as a flea. Johnny was in the same general class and he could sympathize with the irrepressible nuisance in its efforts to stir up a little life and excitement in so dull a crowd; Johnny hoped to be as successful in his mischievous deviltry ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... chops in their slobbery rest, Nor our mirth be stirred at his solemn looks, As wise, and as dull, as divinity books. Our old friend's dead, but we all well know He's gone to the Kennels where the good dogs go, Where the cooks be not, but the beef-bones be, And his old head never need turn for a flea. ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... watch were all back at their loopholes, the rest were busy loading the spare muskets, and everyone with a red face, you may be certain, and a flea in his ear, ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... answer, Nay, 'but beside all this,' you must be handled worse. We will serve you thus these twenty years together, and after that we will fill your mangled body full of scalding lead, or run you through with a red-hot spit; would not this be lamentable? Yet this is but a flea-biting to the sorrow of those that go to hell; for if a man were served so there would, ere it were long, be an end of him. But he that goes to hell shall suffer ten thousand times worse torments than these, and yet shall never be quite dead under them. There ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... niece about him this morning,—and the poor girl has been making quite a fool of herself over him, you may have observed. Mrs. Spofford owns quite a block of stock in our institution, so I considered it my duty to put a flea in her ear, if you see ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... to argue it; and what are we to think of the Admiral of the Ocean Seas and Viceroy of the Indies who thus takes what can only be called a mean advantage of a poor seaman in his employ? It would have been a competence and a snug little fortune to Rodrigo de Triana; it was a mere flea-bite to a man who was thinking in eighth parts of continents. It may be true, as Oviedo alleges, that Columbus transferred it to Beatriz Enriquez; but he had no right to provide for her out of money that in all equity and decency ought to have gone to another and a poorer man. His biographers, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... laughing knowledge, on the plans of an universal monarchy attributed to the late king, or, it may be, to the aventures galantes of a financier with a ballet girl. M. Blaizot was never tired of listening to him. This M. Blaizot was a little old man, dry and neat, in flea-coloured coat and breeches and grey woollen stockings. I admired him very much, and could not think of anything more glorious than, like him, to sell books at ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... sake, aunt," he said, "'twouldn't be no manner of good if it come down to a runnin' chase. Nearest depot's fifty mile' across the county line. Racin' this car ag'in' the sheriff's 'ud be like matchin' a flea ag'in' a grasshopper. Dern it, she's balked ag'in." He wrestled with the crank, conquered it and the machine shivered like a hunting dog while his aunt adjusted spark and gas. She nodded to him to start and they ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... this conversation they were overtaken by a man who was following the same road behind them, mounted on a very handsome flea-bitten mare, and dressed in a gaban of fine green cloth, with tawny velvet facings, and a montera of the same velvet. The trappings of the mare were of the field and jineta fashion, and of mulberry colour ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... into the mouth of the nations, when they are crying like babies, in order to silence them, and thereupon pull the wool quietly over their eyes. But it is true, the nations really are like babies; they do not become reasonable and wise, and the accursed word 'liberty,' which Bonaparte puts as a flea into their ears, maddens them still as though a tarantula had bitten them. They have seen in Italy and France what sort of liberty Napoleon brings to them, and what a yoke he intends to lay on their necks while telling them that he wishes to make freemen of them. But they do not become wise, ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... ask the minister about her shoes, an' what do you think, Mrs. Lathrop, what do you think! The minister had clean forgot himself! He was sittin' there on his piazza advisin' Mrs. Brown to make her pound-cake by sayin' 'One, two, three, Mother caught a flea,' the flea bein' the butter, an' Mrs. Macy says it was plain to be seen as he was n't a bit pleased at her comin' in that way to have his memory system ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... want to do one thing, and that is to give up my keys as soon as possible. I am tired of this profession of jailer. Besides, I shall not be able to stay here much longer. This escape has put a flea into the ear of the authorities, and they are going to give me an assistant, a former police sergeant, who is as bad as a watchdog. Ah! the good days of M. de Boiscoran are over: no more stolen visits, no more promenades. He is to be watched day ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... nervous," said the observant Andrew from the rear. "You watch him go for that flea in the leg ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... times we went to the white folks' church. Marster was a Catholic, but we went to the Methodist Church[7], Edenton Street Methodist Church. My marster would not allow anyone to whip his Negroes. If they were to be whipped he did it himself and the licks he gave them would not hurt a flea. He was good to all of us and ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... sweep of the surf, the darting of the fishes, the drifting of the snow, the white crystals of the frost, the shrieking of the ice, the boom of the bittern, the barking of the sea lions, the honk of the wild geese, the skulking coyote who knows that each beast is his enemy and has not even a flea to help him "forget that he is a dog," the leap of the salmon, the ecstasy of the mocking-bird and bobolink, the nesting of the field-mice, the chatter of the squirrel, the gray lichen of the oak, the green moss on the log, the poppies of the field ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... from being rational, our notions on cleanliness are in the highest degree superficial. We make a great fuss over a flea; hardly mention it in polite company; but we tolerate the dirty housefly on all our food. We eat high game which our cook's more natural taste calls muck. We are only just beginning to realise the indescribable filthiness of carious teeth, than which anything ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... some cases, the water flea, for example, for the female to produce young without the necessity of fertilization by the male. In order to perform the necessary work to insure food supplies for the winter other insects have ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... only have been sojourners with no name, in debt, in disgrace, a pair of braggart adventurers, who had worked a master-man of the island for a ship, and money and men, and had lost all except the ship! Though to be sure, the money was not a big thing—a, few hundred pounds; but the ship was no flea-bite. It was a biggish thing, for it could be rented to carry sugar—it was, in truth, a sugar-ship of four hundred tons—but it never carried so big a cargo of sugar as it did on the day when that treasure-box was brought to the surface ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that he would give me a written character of the very best description, whenever I chose to apply for it. "You're honest," he said; "you're willing, though lazy; you would pull, if you had the strength of a flea; and, though a monstrous coward, you don't run away." My own demurs to these harsh judgments were not so many as they might have been. The idiocy I confessed; because, though positive that I was not uniformly an idiot, I felt inclined to think that, in a majority ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... shore," said a voice behind them and Professor Sandburr's bony, spectacled face was thrust forward. "I would not have missed it for a great deal. I would like to capture a specimen of a Patagonian alive and take him home in a cage. The Patagonian dog-flea, too, I understand, is ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... boy laughed disdainfully, thinking his question satisfactorily answered. "I guess those ole Rebels couldn't whipped a flea! They didn't know how to fight any ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... commonly known by the designation of "The Industrious Fleas." He had there seen many fleas, occupied certainly in various pursuits and avocations, but occupied, he was bound to add, in a manner which no man of well-regulated mind could fail to regard with sorrow and regret. One flea, reduced to the level of a beast of burden, was drawing about a miniature gig, containing a particularly small effigy of His Grace the Duke of Wellington; while another was staggering beneath the weight of a golden model of his great ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... or if it be raining briskly, it may then be sown over. Should the patches be suffering for rain, put five pounds of Peruvian guano in twenty gallons of water, and sprinkle it over with a watering-pot. To destroy the flea, bug, or fly, put dry leaves around the patch, and set fire to them at night, which will attract and destroy them if they are disturbed with a broom ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe. House of Correction, a place of reward for political and personal service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations. House of God, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it. House-dog, a pestilent beast kept on domestic ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... am Pride. I disdain to have any parents. I am like to Ovid's flea; I can creep into every corner of a wench; sometimes, like a perriwig, I sit upon her brow; next, like a necklace, I hang about her neck; then, like a fan of feathers, I kiss her lips; [81] and then, turning myself to a wrought smock, do what I list. But, fie, what a smell is here! I'll not ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... on red roan steeds—or, to be more explicit, on a paint and a flea-bitten sorrel—two wooers. One was Madison Lane, and the other was the Frio Kid. But at that time they did not call him the Frio Kid, for he had not earned the honours of special nomenclature. His ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... who, about the year Fifteen Hundred, made a box with a glass cover that magnified the contents. This great man would catch a flea and show it to the people. Then he would place the flea in the box and show it to them, and they would see that it had grown enormously in an instant. The man could make it big or little, by just taking off and putting on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... charmed with the splendid accommodations of your fancy ship?" whispered the mischievous Jim. "There is not room for a flea to hop, without giving him ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... Little John," one of the oldest inns between York and London. We called at a cottage for tea, and here we heard for the first time of the Yorkshireman's coat-of-arms, which the lady of the house told us every Yorkshireman was entitled to place on his carriage free of tax! It consisted of a flea, and a fly, a flitch of bacon, and a magpie, which we thought was a curious combination. The meaning, however, was forthcoming, and we give the following interpretation ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... the bottom of the bowl appeared a little brown spot, no bigger than a tiny seed. However, it was moving. It was a flea! First there were cries of astonishment and then shouts of laughter. A flea! Well, that was a good joke, a mighty good one! Caniveau was slapping his thigh, Cesaire Horlaville snapped his whip, the priest laughed like a braying donkey, the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the preparation of the spray a pound of fresh lime to each pound of the arsenical should be added; or, better yet, Bordeaux mixture should be employed as a diluent instead of water. This mixture has some insecticidal value, is a most valuable fungicide, and is also a powerful deterrent of flea-beetle attack, acting to a less degree against other insects which are apt to be found on the tomato. In applying any spray a sprayer costing not less than $7 ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... quite a boy, but with plenty of science in him. These were the three favorites. Day Star ran them close, the property of Durham Vavassour, of the Scots Greys, and to be ridden by his owner; a handsome, flea-bitten, gray sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that looked a trifle string-halty, but noble shoulders, and great force in the loins and withers; the rest of the field, though unusually excellent, did ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Picayune defines a quandary thus:—"A baker with both arms up to the elbows in dough, and a flea in the leg of his trowsers." We have just heard a story which conveys quite as clever an idea of the thing as the Picayune's definition. An old gentleman, who had studied theological subjects rather ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... said, "Madam, you must perceive that Mr. Bluebeard never intended the fortune for you, as it was his fixed intention to chop off your head! It is clear that he meant to leave his money to his blood relations, therefore you ought in equity to hand it over." But she sent them all off with a flea in their ears, as the saying is, and said, "Your argument may be a very good one, but I will, if you please, keep the money." And she ordered the mourning as we have before shown, and indulged in grief, and exalted everywhere ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... comes here! He sha'n't see her, if I don't, 'foregad—Curse me, but he shall go away with a flea in his ear. ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... and then finding that in her excitement she took no notice of us, I beckoned to one of the servants, and bade him tell his mistress that a gentleman would speak with her. The man went with the message; but she sent him off with a flea in his ear, and screamed at him so violently that for a moment I thought she was mad. Then it appeared that the object of her attention was a door at that side of the hall; for, stopping suddenly ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... fairy tales, boy. That steer was all right. He broke away from the drove, but he wouldn't hurt a flea." ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... feather-weight, and quite a boy, but with plenty of science in him. These were the three favourites; Day Star ran them close, the property of Durham Vavassour, of the Scots Greys, and to be ridden by his owner; a handsome, flea-bitten, grey sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that looked a trifle string-halty, but noble shoulders, and great force in the loins and withers; the rest of the field, though unusually excellent, did not find so ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... crime be effaced and atoned for by a thousand good deeds? For one useless life a thousand lives saved from decay and death. One death, and a hundred beings restored to existence! There's a calculation for you. What in proportion is the life of this miserable old woman? No more than the life of a flea, a beetle, nay, not even that, for she is pernicious. She preys on other lives. She lately bit Elizabeth's finger, in a fit of passion, and nearly bit ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... takin' o' it. That'll be eezy work; an' when the time comes, we'll have it all our own way. We could toss the four overboard in the skippin' o' a flea. But then, how's the ship to be navvygated without the skipper ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Evangelist had sent their latest luxury and style to flout the tombs of the past with the ghastly flippancy of to-day. The cheap tripper was there—the latest example of the Darwinian theory—apelike, flea and curio hunting! Shamelessly inquisitive and always hungry, what did he know of the Sphinx or the pyramids or the voice—and, for the matter of that, what did they know of him? And yet he was not half bad in comparison with the "swagger people,"—these people ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... "The command to do no manner of work is absolute and emphatic. The killing of a flea on the Sabbath is as heinous as the butchering of a bullock. The preservation of life itself is inhibited. Moses had the son of Shelomith stoned to death for gathering sticks on it. Shammai occupied six days of the week in ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... teeth. Dear me! if he looked for a lady that had never been talked about, Caesar might have searched London for a wife in vain. Good Mr. Lumley professed a great affection for me, and would occasionally favour me with long and technical dissertations on the interior economy of the flea, for example; and once in the fullness of his heart confided to his wife that "Miss Coventry was really a dear girl; it's my belief, Madge, that if she'd been a man she'd have been a naturalist." These little dinners were indeed vastly agreeable. Nobody had such a comfortable ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville |
