"Tongs" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... describes it herself, "in the little room looking on to the quay. I can see Jules now in a shabby, dirty-looking artist's frock-coat, with his cravat underneath him and his shirt open at the throat, stretched out over three chairs, stamping with his feet or breaking the tongs in the heat of the discussion. The Gaulois used to sit in a corner weaving great plots, and you would be seated ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... commotion amongst the people. Not even the dog would touch the accursed thing. So at last the sheriff called for a pair of tongs, to seize the sticks himself and fling them into the fire. Whereupon his wife screamed to prevent him; but the brave sheriff, strengthening his heart, advanced and touched them; whereupon Fixlein, as if he had never known ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... it into blood, and serveth the body and members therewith, to the use of feeding. In the liver is the place of voluptuousness and liking of the flesh. The ends of the liver hight fibra, for they are straight and passing as tongs, and beclip the stomach, and give heat to digestion of meat: and they hight fibra, because the necromancers brought them to the altars of their god Phoebus and offered them there, and then they ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... was red and pleasant-looking; still I knew he couldn't see me plainly, and I waited a minute, and lingered round, pretending I was doing something, which I wasn't; I hated to break the old way of things; and then I took the tongs and blew a coal and lighted the dip and held it up, as if I was looking for something. Pretty soon I found it; it was a skein of linen thread I was going to wind for Lurindy. Then I got the swifts and came and sat down ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... What could she say and do? Would granny be much changed? These and a dozen other questions hammered at her brain as she poured herself out a cup of tea. How she had once longed to be allowed to pour tea from that silver tea-pot, and pick up the sugar with those dainty little tongs, which granny would never allow her to touch. What a proud day it would be, so she used to think, when she might! But now—now that the day had come, she found no pride or pleasure in it, only a sort of shrinking. It seemed to her to be taking advantage ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... crew of the Anne Frances, in that expedition, built a pinnace when their vessel struck upon a rock, stock, although they wanted main timber and nails. How they made a mimic forge, and "for the easier making of nails, were forced to break their tongs, gridiron, and fire-shovel, in pieces." How Master Captain Best, in this frail bark, with its imperfect timbers held together by the metamorphosed gridiron and fire-shovel, continued in his duty, and did depart up the straights ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... intent to put her child therein, there fell out of the same a great toad, which ran up and down the hearth, and she having a young youth only with her in the house desired him to catch the toad and throw it into the fire, which the youth did accordingly and held it there with the tongs; and as soon as it was in the fire it made a great and horrible noise, and after a space there was a flashing in the fire like gunpowder, making a noise like the discharge of a pistol, and thereupon the toad was no more seen or heard. It was asked by the court, if that after the noise ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... day making a chalice (or, as another version of the legend says, a horseshoe) when the Devil appeared before him. Instantly recognising his enemy, and being aware that with such a foe prompt measures alone are useful, St. Dunstan at once pulled his nose with the tongs, which chanced happily to be red hot. Wrenching himself free, the Devil leaped at one bound from Mayfield to Tunbridge Wells, where, plunging his nose into the spring at the foot of the Pantiles, he "imparted to the water its chalybeate ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Mr. Rule still lay still, till he should see his way further cleared. Then the apparition, who the whole time spoke none, took an effectual way to raise the doctor. He carried back the candles to the table and went to the fire, and with the tongs took down the kindled coals, and laid them on the deal chamber floor. The doctor then thought it time to rise and put on his clothes, in the time of which the spectre laid up the coals again in the chimney, and, going to the ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... stopped at a florist's in New Sanderson and bought these. They did not cost much—only ten cents for all these." She took her seat opposite her father, and poured the tea. She put in the lumps of sugar daintily with the silver tongs. Her face was beaming; she was lovely; she was a darling. She looked over at her father as she extended his cup of tea, and there was not a trace of self-love in the little face; it was all love for and tender care of him. "Oh, I am so glad to be home!" ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... afternoon they proceeded to make good their threat. They went at their men hammer and tongs from the start. And the boys responded at once to this drastic treatment. There was a general brace all along the line. A new factor had been injected into the situation. The listlessness of a few days back gave place to animation, and before half an hour had passed the coach ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... more wrinkles in it than there are in a fake mermaid's tail. Do you know what kind of a game they've gone to work and rigged up on your friend, the human curling-tongs? The widder has got him to doin' chores again. It seems that she was always strong on keepin' him doin' chores. He's peckin' away at that pile of wood that's fitted and lays at the corner of the barn. He's luggin' it into the woodshed, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... the heap of ashes rose higher and higher—a thick bed of blackened leaves among which ran millions of sparks. But it was a long, a never-ending task; for when several pages were thrown on at a time, they would not burn; it was necessary to move them and turn them over with the tongs; the best way was to stir them up and then wait until they were in a blaze, before adding more. The women soon grew skilful at their task, and the work progressed at a ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... a brazen altar, whose length was twenty cubits, and its breadth the same, and its height ten, for the burnt-offerings. He also made all its vessels of brass, the pots, and the shovels, and the basons; and besides these, the snuffers and the tongs, and all its other vessels, he made of brass, and such brass as was in splendor and beauty like gold. The king also dedicated a great number of tables, but one that was large and made of gold, upon which they set the loaves of God; and he made ten thousand more that resembled them, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... seem so, ma'am, but there ain't no gettin' round the proof. We all doubts it, just like you do. So we ups and hog ties the old natural, picks him up with a pair of tongs and dips him in the crick. Which he simply lets out one bloodcurdlin' yell of despair and passes ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... man, but free. The report was, that for a trifling circumstance, for which he was in no-wise to blame, the captain had fastened him with his belly to the deck, and that, in this situation, he had poured hot pitch upon his back, and made incisions in it with hot tongs. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... than everyone, as by instinct, swore his own natural oath, and grasped his own natural weapon. A few of those of the highest rank were armed with swords, which they boldly drew; those of the subordinate orders immediately flew to such weapons as the room, kitchen, and scullery afforded—such as tongs, pokers, spits, racks, and shovels; and breathing vengeance on the prelatic party, the children of Antichrist and the heirs of d—n—t—n! the barterers of the liberties of their country, and betrayers of the most sacred trust—thus elevated, and thus armed, in the cause of right, justice, and liberty, ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... of a pair of broad-headed flat metal tongs, one of which is fitted with a solid wedge. The object of this is to permit the free end of a mount held by the tong to be bent over, moistened, applied to the back of the stamp, and pressed down, and the mount can then be released, ...
— Stamp Collecting as a Pastime • Edward J. Nankivell
... the King reply, As another glance he throws: "'Gainst the shield I ill shall fight Which the tongs ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... o'clock; their feet pressing the leather lungs which fanned the conical heaps of glowing fuel, their hands poking into the glow a thin iron rod till the end could be curved into a fiery hook; snapping it with a mallet; threading it with tongs on to the chain; hammering, closing the link; and; without a second's pause, thrusting the iron rod again into the glow. And while they worked they chattered, laughed sometimes, now and then sighed. They seemed of all ages and all types; from her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... said Anthea quickly. The minstrels had been playing off and on all the time, and their music reminded Anthea of the band she and the others had once had on the fifth of November—with penny horns, a tin whistle, a tea-tray, the tongs, a policeman's rattle, and a toy drum. They had enjoyed this band very much at the time. But it was quite different when someone else was making the same kind of music. Anthea understood now that Father had ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... you recall the times You struggled with your storyettes, I wrestled with my rhymes; Oh, we were happy, were we not?—we used to live so "high" (A little bit of broken roof between us and the sky); Upon the forge of art we toiled with hammer and with tongs; You told me all your rippling yarns, I sang to you my songs. Our hats were frayed, our jackets patched, our boots were down at heel, But oh, the happy men were we, although we lacked a meal. And if I sold a bit of rhyme, or if you placed a tale, What ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... had risen, sluggish and weary, with an ache in his bones. A half-hearted, spasmodic attempt at work had ended at eleven o'clock. He had called up Myrtle. They went that afternoon to a ball-game. Thursday morning came, bright with promise, and a profitable forenoon was spent in the old hammer-and-tongs manner. By noon he had two orders in his pocket and felt quite exhausted. The heat drank up the very marrow from one's bones. He met Myrtle on the street. They had lunch together. All that afternoon they paddled about in the river and came home with hair wet and nerves sagging. ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... contains no silver—John Chinaman takes good care of that. My mortar was a jam tin, without top or bottom, placed on an anvil; the pestle a short steel drill. The blacksmith at Mundi Mundi Station made me a small wrought iron crucible, also a pair of bent tongs from a piece of fencing-wire. The manager gave me a small common red flower pot for a muffle, and with the smith's forge (the fire built round with a few blocks of talcose schist) for a furnace, my plant was complete. I burned and crushed bones to make my bone-dust for cupelling, ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... Nanak. In the Punjab the Nirankaris constitute a separate order from the Udasis. [345] These Udasis wear a long rope of sheep's wool round the neck and iron chains round the wrist and waist. They carry half a cocoanut shell as a begging-bowl and have the chameta or iron tongs, which can also be closed and used as a poker. Their form of salutation is 'Matha Tek,' or 'I put my head at your feet.' They never cut their hair and have a long string of wool attached to the choti or scalp-lock, which is coiled up under a little cap. They ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... Therefore, "can the fitting on the pipe be placed where it is laid out when this is considered?" must be one of the many questions a plumber should ask himself. Allowance must be made for the chain tongs to swing. Whenever possible, a fitting is made up on the pipe while the pipe ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... tongs, and pushed it farther into the flames. "Sire, sire, I am the devil, and I will not allow my victim to be torn from me. My 'Akakia' was only worthy of the lower regions; you condemned it, and therefore it must suffer. I, the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... ferocity, their attempts to escape, and the bounds they gave from side to side struck the whole parsonage house community with a panic. The women screamed; the rector foamed; the squire hallooed; and the men seized bellows, poker, tongs, and every other weapon or missile that was at hand. The uproar was universal, and the Squire never before or after felt himself so great a hero! The death of the fox itself was ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... his color, this continual shunting him into obscure and filthy ways, gradually gave Peter a loathly sensation. It increased the unwashed feeling that followed his lack of a morning bath. The impression grew upon him that he was being handled with tongs, along back-alley routes; that he and his race were something to be kept out of sight as much as possible, as ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... especially for him after his own description—handcuffs, collars and belts, chains, branding irons, a block and fall, muzzles of different sizes, corkscrew picket-pins for holding the turn of a rope, and a nondescript article shaped like a huge pair of tongs, for which I feel sure there is no name in any trade, but which looked to be a handy implement for clamping the jaws of a beast. To have these things made according to specifications took time and an endless amount of running about. Besides, there was the more ordinary part of the equipment to ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... where we had to wait about two hours for the tide. They surpass those in England by far in size, indeed, they are four times as large. I often cut them in two, before I could put them into my mouth. The inhabitants usually catch them on Saturday. It is not troublesome. A pair of wooden tongs is needed. Below they are wide, tipped with iron. At the time of the ebb they row to the beds and with the long tongs they reach down to the bottom. They pinch them together tightly and then pull or tear up that which has been seized. They usually pull ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... when Caesar came running up in great exultation, with a new cloak which he had been so lucky as to find lying before the door of a deserted house in the suburb. I took hold of the infected garment with a pair of tongs, and pitched it as far as I was able from the cart, to the great dismay of Caesar, who could not understand why I should throw away a thing which he assured me was well worth twenty dollars. We set off, and soon got out of the town. Not a living creature was to be seen as far as the eye ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... department, but for the glory of France and his own was savage for war and relentless in the conduct of it, till one day in his obstinate zeal, as he threatened to lay the cathedral city of Treves in ashes, the king, seizing the tongs from the chimney, was about to strike him therewith, and would have struck him, had not Madame de Maintenon, his mistress, interfered and stayed his hand; he died suddenly, to the manifest relief ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... recommended by French for hermetically sealing the neck of a glass vessel is shown in Fig. VI. p. 80. The neck of the vessel is surrounded by a tray containing burning coals; when the glass melts it is cut off by shears, and then closed by tongs, which ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... that it had a beautiful contrivance in the conformation of its mouth. It has the power of prolongating both its jaws to nearly the extent of half-an-inch from their natural position. This is done by a most beautiful bit of mechanism, somewhat on the principle of what are called 'lazy tongs.' The cat-fish possesses a like feature, but on a much larger scale, the front part of the mouth being capable of being protruded between two and three inches when ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... time there was marked indignation in San Francisco caused by the report that the San Franciscans, in their deep-grounded prejudice, had discriminated against the Chinamen in the relief work. This report was groundless. The six Chinese companies, or Tongs, representing enormous wealth, had done such good work that but little had been necessary from the general relief committee, and, besides, the Chinese needed less. No Chinaman was treated as other than a citizen entitled to all rights, which cannot be said under normal conditions on the Pacific ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... promising young life, had dropped out of his existence, as a stone drops to the bottom of a well and is no more seen. Upon his immature shoulders rested all the worry of the goldsmith's business. He was master of Tresco's bench; the gravers and the rat-tail files, the stock-drills and the corn-tongs were under his hand for good or for evil. With blow-pipe and burnisher, with plush-wheel and stake-anvil he wrought patiently; almost bursting with responsibility, yet with anxiety gnawing at his heart. And the lies he told on behalf of his "boss"!—lies to men with unpaid accounts ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... he struck the hot turf in the grate a desperate blow with the tongs which he had in his hands, and sent the sparks and bits of ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... base, to get in rear of Vicksburg and cut off its relief. The very audacity of this plan may blind the careless thinker to its bad generalship; especially in view of the success that at last crowned its projector's hammer-and-tongs style of tactics. His reckless and ill-handled assaults upon the strong works at Vicksburg—so freely criticised on his own side, by army and by press—were but preface of a volume, so bloodily written to the ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... which the sound of the firing reached us, proved that we were rapidly overhauling the contending squadrons, and some twenty minutes later we sighted the rearmost ships on both sides, blazing away at each other "hammer and tongs." Our own cruisers were to the southward of the Russian line, therefore Kamimura led his force to the northward of the enemy, thus placing the latter between two fires, at the same time signalling us to concentrate ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... sinister and dangerous, was lurking in the shadows of that empty floor, and I remember backing away from the door and standing in the center of the room, prepared for some stealthy, murderous assault. When none came I looked about for a weapon, and finally took the only thing in sight, a coal-tongs from the fireplace. Armed with that, I made a cursory round of the near-by rooms but there was no one hiding ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... always bearing you on to the haven of Pay, whether you make any effort, or not. Working by the hour tends to make one moral. A plumber working by the job, trying to unscrew a rusty, refractory nut, in a cramped position, where the tongs continually slipped off, would swear; but I never heard one of them swear, or exhibit the least impatience at such a vexation, working by the hour. Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How sweet the flight of time seems to his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... required for subtraction or division. It is extremely handy, taking up much less room than the others. Professor Eduard Selling of Wuerzburg has invented an altogether different machine, which has been made by Max Ott, of Munich. The B-wheels are replaced by lazy-tongs. To the joints of these the ends of racks are pinned; and as they are stretched out the racks are moved forward 0 to 9 steps, according to the joints they are pinned to. The racks gear directly in the A-wheels, and the figures ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Goode and Dunmore and ascended the spiral stairway to the gunroom. Even at the desk, in the far corner of the room, he could hear them going at it, hammer-and-tongs, in the library. Sometimes it would be Nelda's strident shrieks that would dominate the bedlam below; sometimes it would be Fred Dunmore, roaring like a bull. Now and then, Humphrey Goode would rumble something, ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... up the stairs, carrying one ice cube on his shoulder, with another swinging from tongs. There was but one door to the Kilgour apartment and the girl and Dodd stood in front of it; they had evidently waited in the corridor after emerging from the elevator, and the young man ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... passed the window on horseback, and with a heavy sigh Mrs. Murray dropped her head on her hand, compressing her lips, and toying abstractedly with the sugar-tongs. ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... at last, amid a dead silence, took up the book. Mr. Gordon looked at it for a moment, let it fall on the ground, and then, with an unnecessary affectation of disgust, took it up with the tongs, and dropped it into the fire. There was a titter round ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... see what you saved me from. They've been at it hammer and tongs all the evening. Every man in town has his idea on ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... without any beauty, even without the beauty of ugliness. He was ugly, that was all; nothing more nor less; in short, he was uglily ugly. He was not humpbacked, nor knock-kneed, nor pot-bellied; his legs were not like a pair of tongs, and his arms were neither too long nor too short, and yet, there was an utter lack of uniformity about him, not only in painters' eyes, but also in everybody's, for nobody could meet him in the street without turning to look after him, and thinking: ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Shoe and Knee Buckles Fluke and Tongs, ruff and smooth Files, Bone Buckle Brushes, Freezing Punches, Binding Wire, Steel Top Thimbles, Cypher and Brilliant Button Stones, Cypher and Brilliant Ring Stones, Ring Sparks, Motto Ring Stones, Amethysts, Garnetts, Brilliant and Cypher ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... theater. The gown she wore was exquisite in its place, but it was dull and informal and it gave her no help in the ordeal she was suddenly submitted to. Her hair had not been coiffed by the high-elbowed artist with the waving-tongs. Her brains were not marceled for a beauty-contest with her rival. She was at her worst and Zada was ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... "With wooden tongs, the woman took a large coal from the fire, and laid it on the ground in front of the sacred stem. Then, while every one joined in singing a chant, a song of the buffalo (without words), she took a bunch of dried sweet grass, and, raising and lowering her ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... Aquilina, nowise disconcerted, crumpled up the letter, took it with the tongs, and held it ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... placed before the altar, whence the priest, clad in full canonicals with the exception of the cope, removed it with a pair of tongs to the fire, singing as he did so the hymn of the Three Children, Benedicite, Omnia, Opera. Over the place where the fire was he then recited the prayer: "Bless, O Lord God, this place, that there may be for us in it sanctity, chastity, virtue, and victory, ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... mouth, and it went down to his bowels, and it consumed his intestines. R. Judah said, "if he died in their hands, they did not complete in him the order of burning; only they opened his mouth with tongs against his will, and lit the wick, and cast it into his mouth, and it went down to his bowels and consumed his intestines." Said R. Eleazar the son of Zadok, "it happened with the daughter of a priest, who was immoral, ...
— Hebrew Literature
... the first occasion that it turned bell-ringer. The family had retired to rest, and in the middle of the night the parlour-bell was rung violently; the sleepers were startled from their repose, and proceeded down-stairs, with pokers and tongs, to interrupt, as they thought, the predatory movement of some burglar; but they were agreeably surprised to discover that the bell had been rung by pussy; who frequently repeated the act whenever she wanted to get out ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... machine, laughingly. "You are afraid I'm right. And why are you afraid? Because you are one of those men who take a cynical view of woman. You want woman to be a mere lump of sugar, content to be left in a bowl until it pleases you in your high-and-mightiness to take her in the tongs and drop her into the coffee of your existence, to sweeten what would otherwise not please your taste—and like most men you prefer two or ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... Scarcely one of the women but bore in her hand some uncooked meat. Such meat! Lionel drew himself and his coat from too close proximity to it. It was of varied hues, and walking away alive. Upon plates, whole or broken, upon half-saucers, upon dust-pans, upon fire-shovels, held at the end of tongs, hooked on to a fork, spread out in a coal-box; anyhow so as to avoid contact with fingers, these dainty pieces were exhibited ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of human endurance, and upsetting tongs, poker, and fire-shovel.—"What nonsense you are talking, all of you! For heaven's sake, consider what an important matter we are called upon to decide. It is not now the titles of those very respectable works which issued from ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... have a chance at the stockings, and in the morning she was up the first of anybody and went and felt them, and found hers all lumpy with packages of candy, and oranges and grapes, and pocket-books and rubber balls, and all kinds of small presents, and her big brother's with nothing but the tongs in them, and her young lady sister's with a new silk umbrella, and her papa's and mamma's with potatoes and pieces of coal wrapped up in tissue-paper, just as they always had every Christmas. Then she waited around ...
— Christmas Every Day and Other Stories • W. D. Howells
... Chamberlain, the Chancellor, the wide-seeing power beyond the throne, who very unselfishly intrigues his monarch in the way that he should go. But that sort of thing is remarkably like writing a letter by means of a pen held in lazy tongs instead of the hand. A very easily imagined series of accidents may place the destinies of Germany in such lazy tongs again. When that occasion comes, will the new class of capable men on which we have convinced ourselves in these ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... no opportunity of deriding the new fashion and its followers. The tobacco merchant was an important person in London of James the First's time—with his Winchester pipes, his maple cutting-blocks, his juniper-wood charcoal fires, and his silver tongs with which to hand the hot charcoal to his customers, although he was shrewdly suspected of adulterating the precious weed with sack lees and oil. It was his custom to wash the tobacco in muscadel and grains, and to keep it moist by wrapping it in greased leather, and oiled ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... up into neat and correct forms, and then hardened and tempered them, secundum artem, at the little furnace stove in my father's workroom, where of course there were also a suitable anvil, hammer, and tongs. I often made potent use of these steels in escaping from the ordeal of some severe task imposed upon me at school. The schoolmaster often deputed his authority to the monitors to hear us say our lessons. But when I slyly exhibited a ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... "if your worship had told me that you had left such stores of wealth as you talk of at Prudhoe Castle, Long Dickie and I would have had them off with us if man and horse could have carried them; but you told us of no treasure I wot of, save the silver tongs for turning ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... covered market basket, a fish bag with a skewer through the top, and a small japanese basket, with a lid which was kept in place by the poker and tongs laid carefully over it. ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... happy moment up in the ward when Polly opened her box of candy. Such chocolates, such candied cherries and strawberries, with tiny tongs to lift them with, the children had never seen. They chose one apiece all round, which Miss Lucy said was enough for that day, and Polly carried the box down to the Doctor's office, that he might taste her ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... the back window; telling somebody below to upset the slop-barrel and rain-water hogshead at the same time. Of course, you will attend to the mirror. The further it can be thrown, the more pieces will be made. If anybody objects, smash it over his head. Do not, under any circumstances, drop the tongs down from the second story; the fall might break its legs, and render the poor thing a cripple for life. Set it straddle of your shoulder, and carry it down carefully. Pile the bedclothes carefully on the floor, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... I'll do," ejaculated the bully, at length, and he started immediately across the field, his long legs working like a pair of tongs in his haste ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... or ill e'e should be cast upon and influence her. Just at the entering of the house, the young man's mother broke a cake of bread, prepared for the occasion, over the young wife's head. She was then led to the hearth, and the poker and tongs—in some places the broom also—were put into her hands, as symbols of her office and duty. After this, her mother-in-law handed her the keys of the house and furniture, thus transferring the mother's rights over her son to his wife. Again the ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... is gone to have another encounter with the Evil One at Glastonbury, and is fashioning a pair of tongs for the purpose," said Edwy, alluding to the legend already current amongst the credulous populace; "and I wish," he muttered, "the Evil One would get the best of it and fly away with him. But" (in a louder tone) "he cannot return ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... himself a laughing-stock. No more clubbing of Senators on account of opposite opinions! Mr. Covode of Pennsylvania, no longer brandished a weapon over the head of Mr. Barksdale of Mississippi. Grow and Keitt no more took each other by the throat. Griswold no more pounded Lyon, Lyon snatching the tongs and striking back until the two members in a scuffle rolled on the floor of the great American Congress. One of the Senators of twenty-five years ago died in Flatbush Hospital, idiotic from his dissipations. One member of Congress I saw years ago seated drunk on the curbstone in Philadelphia, ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... one of those beastly repellers was sneaking about off the cape, accompanied, probably, by an underwater tongs-boat. But as neither of these had done anything, or seemed likely to do anything, the British cruiser should be attacked without ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... he was absolutely forced to turn out of it and live in the morning-room, with all his books piled up in the dining-room. And on that great occasion Albinia abstracted two fusty, faded, green canvas blinds from the windows, carried them off with a pair of tongs, and pushed them into a bonfire in the garden, persuaded they were the last relics of the old fever. She had the laurels cut, the curtains changed, the windows cleaned, and altogether made the room so much lighter, that when Mr. Kendal again took possession, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which this was said, and thought it would be as well to speak of some-thing else. While she tried to think of what to say, the cook took the pot from the fire, and at once set to work throw-ing things at the Duch-ess and the child—the tongs came first, then pots, pans, plates and cups flew thick and fast through the air. The Duch-ess did not seem to see them, e-ven when they hit her; and the child had howled so loud all the while, that one could not tell if the blows ...
— Alice in Wonderland - Retold in Words of One Syllable • J.C. Gorham
... and he must be found deep in fictitious business. He cast one agonized glance at the mysteries of the toilet that surrounded him on every side, then clearing his throat, he said modestly but firmly, that he wanted to buy a pair of curling tongs for a lady. ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... have to look for a single thing, not even my slippers. Always a good fire, always a good dinner. Once the bellows annoyed me, the nozzle was choked up; but I only mentioned it once, and the next day Mademoiselle gave me a very pretty pair, also those nice tongs you see ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... that met her eye, to all she had known before. The chimney-piece at which she was looking as she sat there—it was odd and quaint as possible, to a person accustomed only to the modern fashions of the elegant world; the fire-tongs and shovel would have been surely consigned to the kitchen department at Ivy Lodge. Yet the little blazing fire, framed in by its rows of coloured tiles, looked as cheerfully into Eleanor's face as any blaze that had ever greeted it. All was of a piece with the fireplace. Simple to ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... with string—of which, of course, there were always plenty of bits in Tom's pockets; I believe if he'd been in a desert island for a year he still would have found bits of string to put in his pockets—to the end of the poker and to the two ends of the tongs. They dangled away beautifully; two succeeded admirably, the third unfortunately was hopelessly burnt. We repeated the operation for another set of slices, which all succeeded, then we spread them with ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... his mind is occupied with important business, I forthwith set about my work. Selecting a piece of iron which I thought would serve my purpose, I placed it in the fire, and, plying the bellows in a furious manner, soon made it hot; then seizing it with the tongs, I laid it on my anvil, and began to beat it with my hammer, according to the rules of my art. The dingle resounded with my strokes. Belle sat still, and occasionally smiled, but suddenly started up, and retreated towards ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... blasts on the fire and prepare the earthen moulds; and as Vulcan willed, the work was done. He melted the tough bronze and tin, the gold and silver, with the fire; and placed an anvil and took a strong hammer in one hand, and tongs in the other, and ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... these words, was gradually advancing to his writing-desk, which stood close to the mantel. Seating himself in his arm-chair, he turned his countenance away from the penetrating glances of De Maintenon, and began to play with the bronze shovel and tongs that lay crossed ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... bellows were of no use for the work in hand. He therefore contrived, by means of two goat-skins and a circular piece of board, to make a pair of bellows of sufficient power to fan the fire and heat the iron, and with a blue granite stone for an anvil, a pair of tongs indicative of Vulcan's first efforts, and a hammer, never intended for its present use, he successfully accomplished his task, and afterwards repaired some gun-locks, which were as essential for the comfort and success of the ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... the peak of which was lost in the clouds. Seven strong smiths wrought it with copper hammers, the handles of which were of silver, and one of their company turned it on the fire or laid it on the anvil with tongs of the purest silver, while Ilmarine himself watched every stroke ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... sugar poised above his cup with the sugar-tongs. Her astonishment was so great that she kept it there. The walls of the city which just now had seemed to be rising magically faded away again, leaving the same unbounded vacancy into which she had been ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... If you are a man, try the plan upon the next woman whom you seek to win. If she happens to be one who has full confidence in her charms, you will be surprised at the result. Women lacking that confidence are restrained by fear and doubt. But in no case have I much faith in the hammer-and-tongs process at the opening of a campaign. Later on, of course—but you doubtless are quite as well informed concerning this important subject as I. There is, however, so much blundering in that branch of science that I have a mind to endow a college at Oxford or at Paris in which shall be taught the ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... was a gold tea scoop of ancient pattern, probably once a baby's pap spoon. There were also apostle-spoons, and little silver canoes and other devices to hold cigarettes and ashes; little mysterious boxes for the toilette, to hold the tongs for curling hair, and hair-pins; mirror frames, and even chair-backs and tables—all ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... moment Winona did not realize what he had done. By the time she reached the hearth the paper was already half consumed. She made a snatch at it with the tongs, but a flame sprang up and forestalled her. She had just time to read the words "last Will and Testament of me Har—" before the whole sank into ashes. She turned to her brother with a white, ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... sparks. They spun round and round. Their fantastic shapes were marked against the wall. The miller showed Sabine's little girl how to make shadows with her hands. The child laughed and was not altogether at her ease. Sabine leaned over the fire and poked it mechanically with a heavy pair of tongs: she was a little weary, and smiled dreamily, while, without listening, she nodded to her sister-in-law's chatter of her domestic affairs. Christophe sat in the shadow by the miller's side and watched Sabine smiling. He knew that she was smiling at him. They never had an opportunity ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... replied old Wilders. "Only it can't be put off much longer. Unless I am greatly mistaken, to-morrow we shall be at it hammer and tongs." ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... the hand, the bellows-blower did not stop for the pain, but kept on until the fire roared loudly, as to make the cavern echo. Then all the gold melted and could be transformed. As soon as the dwarf-king came back, the bellows-blower took up the tongs and drew out of the fire a boar ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... certainly not dry, on the top of his own steps. The moment the butler opened the door, and the heavy hulk rolled into dock, Gibbie darted off as if he had been the wicked one tormenting the righteous, and in danger of being caught by a pair of holy tongs. Whether the tale was true or not, I do not know: with after-dinner humourists there is reason for caution. Gibbie was not offered the post of henchman to the provost, and rarely could have had the chance of claiming salvage ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... The ladies flew to secure the doors. Alas! the bolts and bars were gone! Too late the warnings returned upon the king's mind, and he knew it was he alone who was sought. He tried to escape by the windows, but here the bars were but too firm. Then he seized the tongs, and tore up a board in the floor, by which he let himself down into the vault below, just as the murderers came rushing along the passage, slaying on their way ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Vulcan: for Vulcan was celebrated principally by the Egyptians, and was a King according to Homer, and Reigned in Lemnos; and Cinyras was an inventor of arts, [298] and found out copper in Cyprus, and the smiths hammer, and anvil, and tongs, and laver; and imployed workmen in making armour, and other things of brass and iron, and was the only King celebrated in history for working in metals, and was King of Lemnos, and the husband of Venus; all ...
— The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended • Isaac Newton
... broke apart between the andirons, and falling into a bed of glowing coals beneath, sent a puff of ashes out on to the hearth. Mary leaned forward to reach for the turkey-wing hanging beside the tongs. There had always been a turkey-wing beside her Grandmother Ware's fireplace. That is why Mary insisted on using one now instead of a modern hearth-broom. It suggested so pleasantly the housewifely ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... swallow them whole. But the hornbills, being too bulky to hop among twigs, need a long reach; hence the portentous machines which they carry on their faces. The beak of a hornbill is nothing else than a pair of tongs long enough to reach and strong enough to wrench off a wild fig from its thick stem. If it were of iron it would be thin and heavy; being of cellular horn-stuff it is bulky but light. If you ask why it should rise up into an absurd helmet on the queer fowl's ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... last night that politics had sunk to such a pass in this town that no decent man would touch the City Hall with a pair of tongs," said Mrs. Mason. "That's the answer he gave a couple of men who came from Headquarters to ask him to stand. And he said that whatever decent man accepted the nomination was sure to be defeated. He doesn't care to be the ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... they represent one Hephaestus as a god, and him lame, holding hammer and fire-tongs, and working as a coppersmith for hire. So it appeareth that he is needy. But it is impossible for one who is lame and wanteth men's ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... and shamefacedly; and showed me the cockpit of the duck boat pretty well filled. The boy had, it seems, found a reef of these in a brackish arm which made inland, and dug them by the simple process of stooping down below the surface of the water, since he had no oyster tongs. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... needs trimming, my pretty Miriam," she said, shaking her head, "if you really believe this. They never forgive superiority, assumed or real; none but the noble ones, I mean; who, of course, are in the minority. Give a pair of tongs pantaloons, and it asserts itself. Trousers, my dear, are at the root of manly presumption. I discovered that long ago. A man in petticoats would be as humble as a woman. This is my theory, at least; ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... brigands is, that devils are less black than they are said to be, and brigands more dirty than people suppose. The eight bullies, who packed themselves in a circle around us, were so filthy in appearance that I should have wished to give them my money with a pair of tongs. You might guess, with a little effort, that their caps had been red; but lye-wash itself could not have restored the original color of their clothes. All the rocks of the kingdom had stained their cotton shirts, and their vests preserved ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... bedroom, which was as prosaic a place as all furnished apartments are, and approached the fire, where curling-tongs of all dimensions were heating, while from the adjoining laboratory, separated from the bedroom by an Algerian curtain, the Marquis de Monpavon submitted to the manipulations of his valet. Odors of patchouli, cold cream, burned horn and burned hair escaped from the restricted quarters; ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... for him to do but seek refuge in his shop and await their return. Like nearly every other bayman, he had a one-room shanty, which he called the "shop," and where he played at building boats, and weaving nets, and making oars and tongs. ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... turned upon him was all little sharp white angles, and the cloud of fair hair above her temples stood out stiffly, suggesting Celine and the curling tongs. She did not lose her elegance; the poise of her chin and shoulders was quite perfect, but he thought she looked too amusedly at his difficulty. Her negative, too, was more unsympathetic than he ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... have seen his face when he read it. He made a jump for the door, but I got there fust and downstairs in a tumble, and fell in a heap at the foot with everything he could lay his hands on comin' after me—tongs, shovel, and poker. ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... black boy in a turban and gold-embroidered dress held a salver with her chocolate cup; a cockatoo soliloquised in low whispers in the window; a monkey was chained to a pole at a safe distance from him; a French friseur was manipulating the Princess's profuse brown hair with his tongs; and a needy-looking, pale thin man, in a semi-clerical suit, was half-reading, half- declaiming a poem, in which 'Fair Anna' seemed mixed up with Juno, Ceres, and other classical folk, but to which she was evidently paying very ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dear," said the major, "was that spiral gentleman handed to me all hot by friend Mark, who took it sizzling out of the fire with a bit of bent stick held like tongs." ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... own side. If the visitor persists until Edison has seen both sides of the controversy, he is always willing to frankly admit that his own views may be unsound and that his opponent is right. In fact, after such a controversy, both parties going after each other hammer and tongs, the arguments TO HIM being carried on at the very top of one's voice to enable him to hear, and FROM HIM being equally loud in the excitement of the discussion, he has often said: "I see now that my ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... them nowhere, but with these snuff-dishes, that the temple may be cleared of them. Do with the snuff as the neat housewife doth with the toad which she finds in her garden. She takes the fork, or a pair of tongs, and therewith doth throw it over the pales. Cast them away, I say, with fear, zeal, care, revenge, and with great indignation, and then your church, your conversation, your fingers, and all, will be kept white and clean (2 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan |
