"Last straw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the last straw. Mrs. Cairnes took her cat in her arms and moved majestically out of the room, put on her rubbers, and went out to tea, and did not come home till the light up stairs told her that Mrs. Maybury had ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... his chair. This was the last straw! If he had told Mrs. Ball once that he was never to be disturbed in the morning on any pretext whatsoever, he had told her twenty times. It was simply too infernal to be endured if his work time was to be cut into like this. Ashe ran over in his ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... last straw. Maxwell's embarrassment had reached such a pitch that he could bear no more. He murmured some unintelligible words, and bolted from the room, and the other two boys lost no ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... pay much respect to the gentleman who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant when he knows there are no elephants in the country. We may concede that a straw may break the camel's back, but we like to know that it really is the last straw and not ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... into a woman, not because of the special demand for strength made at that time, but because the demands on the general system for strength have been, for twelve or fifteen years, greater than the system could supply. It is not the last straw that breaks the camel's back, but it is all the straws. The mother who has educated her daughter into a healthy appetite for food, as to quality and quantity; who has educated her into a healthy appetite for sleep; who has, through constant watchfulness ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... submission to injustice, a pleasure in watching the bolt of Nemesis descend when his hands were guiltless of the launching. And as he struggled with himself, hunting in retrospect for some excuse for what his passion railed at as weakness, a last straw fell into the scale, for he thought of the faded ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... seems only to mock them. Many are beset by definite intellectual difficulties and so are tempted to a general cynicism. Envy of others will suggest itself, and though it be sternly repressed, it still adds to the general strain, while good advice from others will seem just the last straw which cannot be borne. ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... the last straw! Both sons gone, and now our horse! Who's going to bring in our crop? ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... classified. There was a day's hard work ahead, and it was already past noon; but the woman was not done yet, and after rummaging about inside the house for a while longer she appeared with another armful of papers, which she emptied on top of the others. This was the last straw; and finding it impossible to examine in detail such a mass of material we contented ourselves with picking out the sacred formulas and the two manuscript books containing the town-house records and ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... back in her chair with a gesture which signified: "This is the last straw!" and remained motionless, apparently overwhelmed, with her face covered by one hand, but furtively watching the face of ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... smooth and firm, the Duke of Wellington condescended to march out of her citadel. There was no smallest sign of haste in her movements; she stood and eyed the track critically, as if doubtful as to whether she would use it, after all. Her hesitation proved the last straw to her enemy's endurance. With an inarticulate cry of rage Sandy McQuarry sprang toward her. The Duke was tall and stately, and of no light weight, but he caught her up as if she had been a child, and with a few mighty strides bore her along the pathway. Reaching the road, he planted her in ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... the Last Straw—a bewildered Rufus with a Letter of Introduction. That took 40 Minutes. When Rufe walked out, the Busy Man fell with his Face ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... letter following the impecunious captain to his peaceful retreat alarmed the lovers, for the appearance of a bailiff in the respectable house in Hart Street would, for Mr. Blandy, have been, as the phrase goes, the last straw. Fortunately, Mary had retained against such a contingency the balance of Mrs. Mounteney's loan; and with another fifteen pounds of that lady's in his pocket, the captain left for London ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... of the pursuit was the last straw. I gave up hope, and my intentions were narrowed to one frantic desire—to hide the jewels. Patriotism, which I had almost forgotten, flickered up in that crisis. At any rate Laputa should not have the Snake. If he drove out the white man, he should not ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... Baschi fell into the duke's hands and was immediately hanged. One story says that Campobasso was among the interceders for his life and received a box on the ear for his pains, an insult that proved the last straw in his allegiance to Charles. Commines, however, declares that the Italian urged the death of the captive, fearful of the premature betrayal ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... England had long been dissatisfied with Howe's way of conducting the war. Time and again he had seemed to lose his chance of crushing the rebellion and now this idle and gay winter in Philadelphia seemed the last straw. Such bitter things indeed were said of him that he resigned his commission, and went home, and the supreme command was given to ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... It was the last straw, the final piece of humiliation. Code stiffened as a soldier might to rebuke. A deadly, dull anger surged within him and took possession of his whole being—such an anger as can only come to one who, amiable and upright by nature, ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... Then he straightened. "That is the last straw," he whispered hoarsely. "I am the Terrestrial Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. Magnan has told me that we've been studiedly insulted, repeatedly, since the moment of our arrival. ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer
... learned self-containment in a hard school, looked up at him, and said: "Spanish filly! Do you mean that girl we saw dancing in the Pandemonium Ballet? Well, you are a thief and a blackguard." It had been the last straw on a sorely loaded consciousness; reaching up from his chair Dartie seized his wife's arm, and recalling the achievements of his boyhood, twisted it. Winifred endured the agony with tears in her eyes, but ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... suppressed glee. He made a desperate effort to master the situation, and jumped up to reach for some Russian cigarettes as an incentive to conversation, but was foiled by the cactus, to whom again he fell a prey. The last straw was added. ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... his departure from Vierzschovnia, the object being to secure a certain sum of ready money to clear off indebtedness. And it has been sometimes asserted that this labor, coming on the top of many years of scarcely less hard works, was almost the last straw which broke down Balzac's gigantic strength. Of these things it is never possible to be certain; as to the greatness of La Cousine Bette, there ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... This was the last straw. A collapse forthwith occurred. In the scramble for shares in the few remaining funds every one gained something, except the author, who was to have received L12 for each performance for the first twenty-five ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... wanting, however, that last straw which renders a burden intolerable. It was laid on at the time ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... women can stand! Even the convoy cannot mend the pains of the new V.A.D. I dare not speak to her: she seems, poor camel, to be waiting for the last straw. ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... day, and, though not usually fastidious, the supper was not to their liking. The hash was burnt; the venison, for one of them had shot a deer, had been hung too long; while the dessert, a great pie of desiccated fruits, had been baked to a flinty hardness. That was the last straw; for in the Mountain Province the lumber and railroad gangs as a rule work hard and live well; and when the cans of green tea had been emptied the growls culminated in ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... The old man stared at each word as if it had been written in fire. She said she had not gone with Cowperwood. It was possible, just the same, that he had run away from Philadelphia and taken her with him. This was the last straw. This ended it. Aileen lured away from home—to where—to what? Butler could scarcely believe, though, that Cowperwood had tempted her to do this. He had too much at stake; it would involve his own and Butler's families. ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... that the number of freckles to the square inch was too many to be tolerated in the highest social circles, she wound up operations by applying a little Bristol brick from the knife-board, which served as the proverbial "last straw," from under which the little Ruggleses issued rather red and raw and out of temper. When the clock struck four they were all clothed, and most of them in their right minds, ready for those last touches that ...
— The Bird's Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... This was the last straw. Slow to wrath as he always was, Aleck had thus far kept his temper. But this charge filled him with sudden anger and resentment. He turned his eyes, blazing with fury, toward the boy by the rear wall, whom he knew ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... to be "the last straw." "She might have better put me in the primary grade in the beginning," the ranch girl said, spitefully. "Then I wouldn't have been among those who despise me. I hate them all! I'll just get away ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... removed in order to be threshed on the upland part of the holding, they are carried away at either end of a pole on a man's shoulder or are piled up on the back of an ox, cow or pony. The height of the pile under which some animals stagger up from the paddies gives one a vivid conception of "the last straw." ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... last straw!" groaned papa, with all the wretchedness of a father learning that his daughter was ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... opportunity, that would encourage her to hope for safety, when once the attempt should be made. Until, however, she was convinced that her two children were to be sold, she could not quite muster courage to set out on the journey. This threat to sell proved in multitudes of instances, "the last straw on the camel's back." When nothing else would start them this would. Mary and her children were the only slaves owned by this Ennis, consequently her duties were that of "Jack of all trades;" sometimes in the field and sometimes in the barn, as well ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... last straw. Mr. Rushton's indecision vanished at the recital of Teddy's latest prank. Before he slept that night he had written to Dr. Hardach Rally, asking for his catalogue and terms, intimating that if these proved satisfactory, he would ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... over his figures, was comforted by the ever-springing hope that this intrusion might serve as the last straw ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... elements. But his difficulties are great, and his long suffering diplomacy has at least this merit, that if America enters the War it will be as a united people. Germany's decision to resort to unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1 is the last straw: now even Mr. Henry Ford has offered to place his works at the disposal ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... demanded that the municipal treasure should be given up to him. Not content with taking away the privileges of the burghers, he wished to lay his hands on the public purse as well. This was indeed the last straw, and the sluggish blood of the burghers was at ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Lady Meadowcroft cried, clutching at the last straw. I could see she was registering a mental determination to go straight up-country the moment ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Rebecca on, but they daunted poor Emma Jane, who had no little thrills of excitement and wonder and fear and longing to sustain her lagging soul. That her interview was to be entered as "minutes" by a secretary seemed to her the last straw. Her blue eyes looked lighter than usual and had the glaze of china saucers; her usually pink cheeks were pale, but she pressed on, determined to be a faithful Daughter of Zion, and above all to be worthy of ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... That was the last straw. The younger boy wheeled about and retraced his steps in a slow, ominous manner. Thrusting his angry face close to Billiard's, and shaking his clenched fist under his nose, he said quietly, "Say that again if ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... the last straw. The Cabin-boy reached for Marmaduke's neck, and would surely have choked him then and there, if Freddie had not caught his arm and ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... sex-prerogative, she made their lives unendurable. She no longer considered the dogs, and because she was sore and tired, she persisted in riding on the sled. She was pretty and soft, but she weighed one hundred and twenty pounds—a lusty last straw to the load dragged by the weak and starving animals. She rode for days, till they fell in the traces and the sled stood still. Charles and Hal begged her to get off and walk, pleaded with her, entreated, the while she wept and importuned Heaven ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... heaven a gesture of despair; it seemed to him the last straw that Fanny should have chosen this particular time to come and sob in his room ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... the pencil between his fingers and hurled the pieces across the lab, where they clattered, rolled from the bench to the floor, and were still. For a moment he sat leaning against the desk, his hands trembling. He wasn't sure just when the last straw had been added, but he was sure that he had had enough. The restrictions, red tape, security measures of these government laboratories seemed to close in on his mind in boiling, chaotic waves of frustration. What was the good of his work, all this great installation, all the gleaming expensive ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... said Patty. "Every new present that comes in, she sits and looks at it helplessly, as if it were the very last straw!" ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... It isn't for my own sake alone, John, that I pray the Union will give in before my people begin to think of violence. You remember '94 in Chicago? Well, we don't want anything like that in Kenton City. It would be the last straw! Alleghenia has a big enough burden of disgrace to carry, as ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... the last straw which provoked the retaliatory legislation. But, alone of the seemingly unadjustable disputes pending between the United States and Great Britain, it was on the blacklist issue that the latter had an unanswerable defense. The British stand left official Washington's complaint bereft of foundation ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Everything I could do for it has been a satisfaction. And I looked forward to giving this parish-house. In ordinary years a theft of five thousand dollars would not have prevented me, but there have been complications and large expenses of late, to which this loss is the last straw. I shall have to postpone the parish-house,—but it shall be only postponed, Mr. ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... "The last straw was his bringing that ridiculous charge against Buck Green," Mrs. Archer interrupted with unexpected spirit. "That stamped him for what he was; because a nicer, cleaner, better-mannered young man I've seldom seen. He could no more have stolen ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... old fellow. The youngest of the girls at the same moment gave him a push under the arm with the end of her rake-handle. It was the last straw which broke the back of Tim's temper. Swearing, he dropped the rake and seized a prong, and hobbled after the girl, who danced away half in delight ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... advise all sensible people to keep in mind the following truth: Violated hygienic laws predispose to disease; then, when resistance is broken down, the immediate and exciting cause may be anything capable of laying on the "last straw." ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... responded, chokingly. She sobbed a little longer from pure inertia of grief; then she raised herself, shaking off Rose's hand. "It's all right," said she; "I needn't have minded; I know you didn't mean anything. It was just—the last straw, and—when you said that about ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... war broke out in Europe, with millions of working-men flinging death and misery at one another, men like Chaplin, the world over, regarded it as the last straw. Was it not bad enough that these exploited creatures should be used as factory-fodder? Must they be cannon-fodder too? Why should they fight to increase the economic power of German traders? of British manufacturers? The war was a capitalist war between capitalist nations. What interest had the ...
— Bars and Shadows • Ralph Chaplin
... "Platitudes—the last straw!" exclaimed Mr. Marston tragically. "There's an old darky preacher up at Richmond who says it does, and I'm sure I think more of his old fog-horn blasts than I do of your parrot tones. Ah! Si, this is the last time ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... secure the help of the Italian Government. She was convinced that the ill treatment meted out to them at Massowah had only confirmed the old gentleman's determination to best his opponents at all costs. The burking of his cablegrams, made known by the Baron, was the last straw in an aggravated load. The yacht was going to Aden to enable him to lodge a complaint with the proper authorities, but she would leave almost at once for French—Somaliland, where a kafila would be collected and a dash made across the Italian frontier. And Dick ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... moral effect of the sequestrations in France and England, but particularly in England. They acted as the last straw, coming as they did on the top of the flogging system which had already enraged the English public mind to the highest degree. The Prince Consort wrote in March to his brother: 'To give you a conception of the maxims of justice and policy which Austria has ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... perjury was only "the last straw." Already Al-Fazl bin Rabi'a, the deadliest enemy of the Barmecides, had been entrusted (A.D. 786) with the Wazirate which he kept seven years. Ja'afar had also acted generously but imprudently in abetting ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... busy," said Judith, turning scarlet and blinking to keep back the tears of mortification at this last straw. ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... last straw so far as Asher Merriwell was concerned, and he straightway proceeded to disown Carlos, and cut him off ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... last straw; she went away and threw herself, dressed, on her bed, sobbing as if her heart would break. And only this morning she thought she was miserable because her new dress ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... the bedside and resumed the consultation. It was evidently a case of nervous breakdown, to which the cab accident had, no doubt, contributed. As to the other antecedents, they were no concern of mine, though Mr. Bellingham seemed to think otherwise, for he resumed: "That cab business was the last straw, you know, and it finished me off, but I have been going down the hill for a long time. I've had a lot of trouble during the last two years. But I suppose I oughtn't to pester you with the details of ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... he did not rise to it. His weary, spiritless, uninterested: acceptance of it astonished her to the last degree. To him her entanglement with the Cora affair—for at once he saw the trend of it all—seemed the last straw. Not even his own home was sacred. His spirit was so bruised and wearied that he actually could not rise to an explanation. He seemed to realize an utter hopelessness of making her see his point of view. This was not so strange when it is considered ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... understood what it all meant till the other night when old Lady Grosville took and told me—more at any rate than I knew before. The Grosvilles are on the war-path, and they regard the coming of this poor child as the last straw." ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... however, in the best of places; but it became a really possible trail, along which he could have made good time if he had not been worn out, if he had had light with which to pick his steps, and if it had not been for Bondell's gripsack. To him, in his exhausted condition, it was the last straw. Having barely strength to carry himself along, the additional weight of the grip was sufficient to throw him nearly every time he tripped or stumbled. And when he escaped tripping, branches reached out in the darkness, ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... the incident at the gate, it nevertheless rankled. He read prayers that night in a distinctly unprayerful mood. It seemed to him that it would be lucky if he could get through to the end of the term before Mr Kay applied that last straw which does not break the backs of camels only. Eight weeks' holiday, with plenty of cricket, would brace him up for another term. And he had been invited to play for the county against Middlesex four days after the holidays began. That should have been a soothing thought. But it really ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... in a moment. Beatrice and Benedick were alone in the church now; and when Beatrice said, "Kill Claudio," Glory leaped up again and clapped her hands. But Benedick would not kill Claudio, and it was the last straw of all. That wasn't what she called being a great actor, and it was shameful to "sit and listen to such plays. Lots of disgraceful scenes happened in life, but people didn't come to the theatre to see such things, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... the Colosseum. Resignation, obstinacy and defiance—all nicely blended under a turn-the-other-cheek exterior. He looked woebegone, and his thin, handsome face betrayed a sleepless night and a breakfastless morning. I could feel that my presence was the last straw ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... the last straw. The barkeeper took a bung-starter and felled him as flat as a felled seam—and all present agreed that it served ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... confront her with as grim defiance as if they had been bayonets. How could she get Ruth over? The gate, which was at another end of the lot, was always kept padlocked, and even if she had remembered this at first and had carried the child there, she could not have undone the bolt. This was the last straw! She felt frustrated and defeated, and a low sob of complete discouragement broke from her. It was useless to dream of getting Ruth over alone. The only way that remained was to secure help, that was plain. She looked about wildly, but not a soul was in sight, ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... an effort to improve; but the habits of years are not effaced in a few weeks, and she still scandalized the authorities considerably. Ulyth could tolerate her when she kept to her own side of the bedroom, but to have meddlesome fingers interfering with her private possessions was the last straw to her ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... seemed to grow sulky and sullen, when he was longing to cast himself upon his mother's neck. The poor woman felt indignant at her son's conduct, and the last straw which broke the camel's back was laid on the top of the load by Kitty, who, moved by a desire to do good, made matters far worse by running across to Don, and in an impetuous way catching ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... afterwards, he discovered a heavy deficit in his cash book, kept by Santi Priya, which that rascal failed to explain, and next day the trusty manager did not attend office. Indeed he has never been heard of since. This new calamity was Chandra Babu's "last straw". He hastened to realise outstanding debts and left the village, bag and baggage, to the intense relief of its inhabitants, who celebrated his exit by offering puja or namaz (Mohammadan prayers) according to ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... responsibility of my keeping. They were paid for looking after me, therefore it was to their interest to keep me alive. But the less this cost them, the greater gainers were they. They knew also that if, by accident, they starved the donkey for the lack of the last straw, a paternal Government would not make the ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... which frightened the townsfolk, and sent them home in silence, used to fill our hearts with peace, for it was to us the crown and triumph of the year. We were not dismayed by the leaves that fell with rustling sound in Tochty woods, nor by the bare stubble fields from which the last straw had been raked by thrifty hands, nor by the touch of cold in the northwest wind blowing over Ben Urtach, nor by the greyness of the running water. The long toil of the year had not been in vain, and the harvest ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... governess, came down at this point, saying she had had a dream about a hat with pink roses. The peace-making lady said, "Bad little thing, she's quite frisky this morning." Hilary, to whom Mademoiselle was the last straw, left the room. ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... that absolutely nothing could be done with a man who was trying to show off his shrewdness to his listening superiors. He said disgustedly: "That's the last straw. Go ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... reform, and President Wilson several times sharply criticised the actions of the Mexican dictator. But Huerta did not reform and nothing sufficient happened to him; it began to look as if watchful waiting might continue indefinitely when a trivial incident furnished the last straw. ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... he was about to swoon, that he had suffered just as much as a man could suffer, and that Fate was dropping the last straw on the camel's back. His head fell forward. He was beaten for that day by too many mysteries and too many tortures. And then he observed that the pretty young woman who had stolen the cup of tea from the Indian judge was hastening towards him with the cup of ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... it as easy as if he was passin' the morning with Ferguson, but I seen that it was the last straw with Sandy. He hefted out both guns and trained ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... he growled. "These preachers of new creeds are the last straw, if one were wanting! They choose the one soft place where Mohammedan and Hindoo think alike, and smite! If I wanted to raise hell from end to end of Hind, I too would preach a new creed, and turn good-looking women loose to wander on the country-side!—Ah!" He drew ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... insisted on the "young people" having some of that; finally she saw them off at the door, and came running back to Georgie. "I've been a cad," she said, "because I hinted that you were in love with Mrs Weston. My dear, it was simply perfect! I believe it to have been the last straw, and if you don't forgive me you needn't. Wasn't it clever? He simply couldn't stand that, for it came on the top of your being ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... had been waterless for thirty hours and that we ourselves were hungry, thirsty, and very weary, was worse, but that the pernicious fog should have prevented us from loosing off at any rate one round was the last straw. ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... "This seems the last straw!" sobbed Joan, for Raymond had told her that day at the Brier Bush that important business was ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... comically. "Generous as ever! But I'm a rotten villain, Jake. I never could keep it up, and your virtuous presence is the last straw. Good-bye—and many thanks!" ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... make my acquaintance shows, no doubt, that I have sailed into his ken, and that he wishes to add me to his collection. I felt myself singularly unrewarding. I am not a talker at the best of times, and to feel that I am expected to be witty and suggestive is the last straw. Lord Wilburton discoursed fluently and agreeably. Lady Harriet said that she envied me my powers of writing, and asked how I came to think of my last brilliant book, which she had so enjoyed. I did not know what to say, and could not invent ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... history of the British Parliament, and it secured for the Canadians the freedom of that worship so dear and so precious to them. So great was the tolerance granted to the Catholics of the North, that your fellow-colonists flew to arms lest a similar concession be made here. It was the last straw that broke the bonds of unity. For, henceforth, it was decreed that only a complete and independent separation from the British Parliament could secure to the people the practice of ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... ordinary and accustomed things attracted him strongly. But now he was too conscious of a smarting spirit. Mr. and Mrs. Orde were talking busily about something. He could not even get a chance to ask a question; and that seemed the last straw. His lips quivered, and he had to remember very hard that he was not a little girl in order to keep ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... much without complaint, but Harthouse's proposal had been the last straw. Added to all the insults she had suffered at her husband's hands, and her fearful suspicion of Tom's guilt, it had proven too much for her to bear. She had pretended to agree to Harthouse's plan only that she might the more quickly rid herself ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... and make shirt waists for me and aprons of the scraps for Lovey, and lots of things for Lovey out of his old trousers, only he says that he has to wear them himself until he feels ashamed of his appearance whenever he meets anybody; but my own skirts are what seem the last straw, or rather the bricks that I haven't any straw to make. The last one was made out of some dead Somebody Byrd's black cashmere shawl, I don't know whose, but I can't see the next even in the ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... horror]. No: this is the last straw: I cannot consent. It is impossible, utterly, eternally impossible, that a daughter of the Imperial House should speak to any one alone, were it even ...
— Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress • George Bernard Shaw
... "gentleman" had taken possession of it. He even complained to the landlord, and asked if the room belonged to a single customer or to the whole company. This invasion of his realm was indeed the last straw. Men were brutes, and he conceived an unspeakable scorn for humanity when he saw Logre and Monsieur Lebigre fixing their eyes on Florent with rapt attention. Gavard with his revolver irritated him, and ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... doctors as the war dragged on made it harder and harder to man our far-off stations. The draft in America was the last straw, doctors having already been forbidden to leave England or Canada. Dr. Charles Curtis had taken over Dr. Little's work at St. Anthony, and stood nobly by, getting special permission to do so. Dr. West, who had succeeded our colleague, Dr. Mather Hare, at Harrington, when ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... same time with news of the Battle of Leipzig came letters from home which informed Gallatin that his nomination as envoy had been rejected by the Senate. This was the last straw. To remain inactive as an envoy was bad enough; to stay on unaccredited seemed impossible. He determined to take advantage of a hint dropped by his friend Baring that the British Ministry, while declining mediation, ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... Carolina was not the event of a day. It is not anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of the fugitive slave law. It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years. The election of Lincoln and Hamlin was the last straw on the back of the camel. But it was not the only one. The back was nearly ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... But the last straw had not yet been laid upon the camel's back. McClernand was beaten, but the hardy men of Kentucky, East Tennessee and the northwest still offered desperate resistance. Conspicuous among the defenders was the regiment of young pioneers from Nebraska, hunters, Indian fighters, ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the end of a silence. "Let's go back, for it's late. We will return to-morrow." And he was relaxing his fishing when he noticed another cask at his right, this one very small, and which stood on end, turning on itself like a top. That was the last straw for the nets and the jambins. No one even spoke of them any longer. The "Zephir" gave chase to the little barrel, which ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola
... delight. Only Victor and he were left. They knew how to take their liquor, the old hands. His pride of achievement was great. He would see Victor under the table, too, he told himself. He stood over the trader while the latter drank a bumper. Then he, himself, drank to the dregs. It was the last straw. He swayed and lurched to the outer door. There he stood for a moment, then the cold night air did for him what the rum had been powerless to do. Without warning he fell in a heap upon the doorstep as unconscious as though he ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... was the proverbial last straw to Mrs. Bertram. It haunted her by day and night; she dreamt of it, sleeping, she pondered over it, waking. Six short months would speedily disappear, and then she would be ruined; she could not meet the bill, exposure ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... seen trekking away about 7000 yards distant. Men and horses had been at it since 6 a.m. the day before, and any further pursuit was out of the question. Indeed, an extra two or three miles that had to be done to reach a better camping-ground almost proved the last straw. The right half-battalion had marched thirty-three miles in the twenty-four hours, and only slept on one night out of the last three, while the left half-battalion had done twenty-six ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... you've decided to stay, little girl. Somehow it would be about the last straw to have you leave now. I'd miss you in any case, of course; but if I have got to be home here and round the house it does not seem as if I could stand it to ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... the last straw. 'Mysterious?' the doctor cried, his face purple with indignation. 'Leave the room, sir! You are not sane, sir! By God, you ought to be shut up, sir! You ought not to be allowed to go about. Do you think that you are the only person who wants to see His Majesty's Minister? Here ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... was in it; nothing broke down Mrs. Pepper's resolve, until, at last, the old gentleman wrote one day that Jasper, being in such failing health, really depended on Polly to cheer him up. That removed the last straw that made it "putting one's self under an obligation," which to Mrs. Pepper's ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... she knew that the jarring and jolting so unavoidable on African roads would put her nerves on edge for the evening. So there was nothing further to be said, but she felt, as she flung herself into the seat beside Tryon, that this was verily the last straw. For a time she showed her displeasure with and disdain of Tryon by sitting half turned and conversing with Druro, who was obliged to lean forward uncomfortably to answer her remarks. But she soon tired of this, for the strong wind caused ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley |
