"Steel trap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is not always a bright and satisfying success, and yet there are so many little articles of vertu about a kitchen, that if you fail on the coop you can generally bring away something else. I brought away a nice steel trap ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... before falling asleep again, my mind was busy with one particular thought—that was, how I should manage in case the rat should return? How was I to destroy—or, at all events, get rid of—this most unwelcome intruder? I would at that moment have given a year of my life for the loan of a steel trap, or any trap that would take rats; but since the loan of a trap was out of the question, I set my brains to work to invent some contrivance that would enable me to rid myself of my unpleasant neighbour: neighbour I might call him, for I knew ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... river's brink—these were among the varied items of the hungry otters' food. Life was indeed hard to maintain. And, to crown the misfortunes of the ice-bound winter, Lutra's matrimonial affairs were once more cruelly disturbed: her mate was caught in a steel trap that Ned the blacksmith had baited and laid in the meadows near the village bridge. He had marked the otters' wanderings by their footprints in the snow, and had then matured ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... said the woodsman, "the steel trap we use. We ain't got no use fer the tricks of the Injuns, though I'm goin' to tell ye all them, in good time. An' we ain't much on new-fangled notions, neether. But the old, smooth-jawed steel-trap, what kin hold when it gits a grip, an' not tear ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... tried to catch her in their traps. But she was too cunning. She had had one good lesson when she was young. She had put the toes of one foot into a steel trap. The trap had snipped them off. After that she was ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... "He ain't a steel trap. I tell you beforehand," said the lady, with one of her sharp intelligent glances,—"he don't know which way to go till you shew him; but he's a clever enough kind of a chap—he don't mean no harm. I guess he'll do ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... he was after the gold, but did he know why and how? Cumshaw rather fancied he didn't. He was so sure of it that he decided that he would gain nothing by divulging the connection between himself and the late Mr. Bradby. So the mouth which was opening to speak shut up again like a steel trap, and the dark eyes turned bleak and cold. He looked Bryce steadily ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... thin as a hatchet and smart as a steel trap; Aunt Nabby, fat and easy as usual; for since the sink is mended, and no longer leaks and rots the beam, and she has nothing to do but watch it, and Uncle Bill has joined the Washingtonians and no longer drinks rum, she is quite at a ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... or brain, part is exactly that of the head, as you can easily feel by laying your hands upon it. Then come bony shells, or sockets, for the eyes and nose; and, below these, two heavy half-circles of bone, like the jaws of a steel trap, to carry the teeth. ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... plastered down over it and then brushed back at an abrupt right angle. The chin was heavy, the nostrils were low and wide, and the lower lip hung loosely except in his moments of spasmodic earnestness, when it shut like a steel trap. Yet about those coarse features there were deep, rugged furrows, the scars of many a hand-to-hand struggle with the weakness of the flesh, and about that drooping lip were sharp, strenuous lines that had conquered it and taught it to pray. Over those seamed cheeks there was ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... didn' lack ter see Dave en Dilsey tergedder ez much ez ole marster did. W'en Mars Dugal' went ter de sale whar he got Dilsey en Mahaly, he bought ernudder han', by de name er Wiley. Wiley wuz one er dese yer shiny-eyed, double-headed little niggers, sha'p ez a steel trap, en sly ez de fox w'at keep out'n it. Dis yer Wiley had be'n pesterin' Dilsey 'fo' she come ter our plantation, en had nigh 'bout worried de life out'n her. She didn' keer nuffin fer 'im, but he pestered ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... secret to keep and knows it, and is careful not to betray himself until he can do so with the most telling effect. I have known him to preserve his serenity even when caught in a steel trap, and look the very picture of injured innocence, manoeuvring carefully and deliberately to extricate his foot from the grasp of the naughty jaws. Do not by any means take pity on him, and ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... a freckled, sunburned lad of thirteen years. His neighbours all said that Danny was "as smart as a steel trap," and immediately added that they wondered where he got his smartness from—certainly not from ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... laughed. "She put it on me a little right there," he declared. "Yes, sir, I've got a steel trap clamped on my foot this minute. But what do you think of the situation now, Lyman; ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... express train beats er eight ox-team. Dyce is the safest sign-post! If she was only here now, I couldn't botch things, for she sees clare through a mill-stone, and she'd shove me the right way. If I go a huntin', I may flounder into a steel trap; if I stand still, wuss may happen. Mars Lennox is too much for me. I wouldn't trust him no further 'n I would a fat possum. I am afeard of his oily tongue. He sot out to hang that poor young gal, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... playing with a steel trap got his tail cut off. He went back the next day to get his tail, when he got his foot cut off. "Now," he said, "I will go back and get both my foot and my tail." He went back, and the third time he got his head cut off, which ended his monkeying ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... he swear with his leg in a spring-steel trap And a tongue dry-cracked from thirst? Or down on his knees at his lady's lap With the lady's lips to his own, mayhap, And his head and his heart aburst? Nay! I have listened to vows enough And never the oath could ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... rummaging about, looking everywhere for a steel trap he had once possessed, and which ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... what the mater is with my hens. i havent got 1 egg this week. father said there was a rat in the koop. i got a steel trap of Sam Diar and tonite i set it in the koop. i put a peace of cheeze on it. tomorrow morning i ges mister rat ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... jealous husband or by the jealous wife, and the traffic in poisons would need a sedulous attention—but even there the impossibility of re-marriage would operate to restrain the impatient. On the whole, I can imagine the world rubbing along very well with marriage as unaccommodating as a perfected steel trap. Exceptional people might suffer or sin wildly—to the general amusement ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... event in changing all the country. But to the man who really has studied all the story of the Missouri River, I believe that the year 1836 was about the pivotal date. And it only marks the invention of the silk hat! But that year the plow began to take the place of the steel trap in the way of making a living in the West. That was the year, I might say, when the mystery and romance of the unknown West found their end, and the day began of what we call ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... said very unexpectedly like a steel trap going off. I stared at her. How provoking she was! So I went on to finish my tirade. "She struck me at first sight as the most inconsiderate ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad |
