"Prick up" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he removed the pigeon and stripped from it the scorched wrappings of leaves, it gave forth a scent so savoury as to prick up Jerry's ears and set his nostrils to quivering. When the boy had torn the steaming carcass across and cooled it, Jerry's meal began; nor did the meal cease till the last sliver of meat had been stripped and tongued from the bones and the bones crunched ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... all so trivial that I gave him but scant attention till he let a name fall which caused me to prick up my ears and even to put in a word. "The Moore ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... unto you. For, gentlemen, I am, to tell you the truth, come to show you how you may obtain great and ample deliverance from a bondage that, unawares to yourselves, you are captivated and enslaved under. At this the town of Mansoul began to prick up its ears, and what is it, pray, what is it, thought they; and he said, I have somewhat to say to you concerning your King, concerning his law, and also touching yourselves. Touching your King, I know he is great and potent, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... exactly, and who lived alone with a little girl of eight years, who knew nothing about herself, save that she had come from Montfermeil. Montfermeil! that name was always coming up, and it made Javert prick up his ears. An old beggar police spy, an ex-beadle, to whom this person had given alms, added a few more details. This gentleman of property was very shy,—never coming out except in the evening, speaking to no one, except, occasionally to the poor, and never allowing any one ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... to wearing all sorts of costumes. He was very indignant against the assassins, and gesticulated about in great excitement; but he never ceased to watch Plantat slyly, and the last words of the latter made him prick up his ears. ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... invade its woodland silence, is a little hostelry which no man possessed of a penny was ever known to pass in warm weather. Before its entrance, are certain pleasant, trimmed limes; likewise, a cool well, with so musical a bucket-handle that its fall upon the bucket rim will make a horse prick up his ears and neigh, upon the droughty road half a mile off. This is a house of great resort for haymaking tramps and harvest tramps, insomuch that as they sit within, drinking their mugs of beer, their relinquished scythes and reaping-hooks ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... ladies (the mamma no doubt and aunts), prick up their ears, and M. Kangourou translates to them, softening as much as possible, my heartrending decision. I feel really almost sorry for them; the fact is, that for women who, not to put too fine a point ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... broken and letting the wind in, he mends them and shuts out the cold. At this time, too, the Horses and Cattle stop often in their eating to listen. Even the Pigs, who do not think much about their neighbors, root in the corners nearest the Sheep-shed and prick up their ears. ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... my dear little bardlings, don't prick up your ears Nor suppose I would rank you and Bryant as peers; If I call him an iceberg, I don't mean to say There is nothing in that which is grand in its way; He is almost the one of your poets that knows How ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... prick up his ears with an amount of worldly interest which scarcely harmonised with his ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... attending to, and binding up his wounds, he told us how he had been set upon ten miles off, and been obliged to fight his way back; and, poor chap, he had fought; for there were no less than ten lance-wounds in his arms, thighs, and chest, from a slight prick up to a horrible gash, deep and long enough, it seemed to me, to let ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... neither tables nor bedsteads, so he said. But I had thought it all over and made up my mind that the first blow was half the battle. Therefore I knew better. I pushed my album under his nose, and it fell open at the extension tables. Cheap, I said, and rattled off the price. I saw him prick up his ears, but he only growled that probably they were ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... to stand and walk at his best, and to look alert, so the judge can see the shape of his ears and get his expression. Teach your dog to walk around with you, on the leash, without hanging back, and to prick up his ears and stand at attention when you tell him to. That's all he needs to do. The judge will do the rest. Have him clean and well brushed, ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... vices of modern civilization. Where am I then to find Russia? In the lower classes, perhaps, in the every-day life of the Russian peasant? But have I not been now for five days chiefly among this class? I prick up my ears and listen; I open wide my eyes and look, and do what I may, I find not the least trifle worth noting in my 'Impressions.' The country is dead; there is nothing but land, land, land; so much ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... captain and myself. I could overhear the men debate the character of Captain Trent, and set forth competing theories of where the opium was stowed; and as they seemed to have been eavesdropping on ourselves, I thought little shame to prick up my ears when I had the return chance of spying upon them, in this way. I could diagnose their temper and judge how far they were informed upon the mystery of the Flying Scud. It was after having thus overheard some almost ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne |
