"Spick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the long and shapely lines of her—the yellow beams shining with varnish; the tall mast at the bow, with its stout cordage; the brand-new stove, that was to boil their tea for them in the long watches of the night; the magnificent oars; the new sheets and sails—everything spick and span. And this great mass of ruddy netting lying in the shed, with its perfect floats and accurate sinkers—this was not like the makeshift ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... work again, put away the remains of the tramp's dinner, washed the telltale dishes, and had the kitchen in its usual spick and span order when the rest of the large family returned an hour later from their sojourn to the river. If their consciences pricked them a little for their deception, they said nothing, not even to each other; and it was several days before the ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... after a month that personal cleanness and neatness in Germany were not particularly considered as next to godliness. The gold braid, spick and span uniforms and other showy gear, were apt to cover dirty bodies and soiled underwear. Alas, the Germans could not wash in beer. He wondered why his old enthusiastic mentor had never given him a hint of these things. Likely he did not know. Distance often increases ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... of a thousand crowns, crammed with all the vulgar magnificence that money can buy, occupied the first floor of a fine old house between a courtyard and a garden. Everything was as spick-and-span as the beetles in an entomological case, for Crevel lived ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... most probably due to folk-etymology. Titmus is of course for tit-mouse. Dialect names for the woodpecker survive in Speight, Speke, and Spick, Pick (Chapter III). The same ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the eastern down. As they were emerging, they saw on the left hand an extraordinarily spick and span red bungalow. The low roof of dusky red sloped down towards the coolest green lawn, that was edged and ornamented with scarlet, and yellow, and white flowers brilliant ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... said Mr. Squincher, As in contemplative pose, He stood before the looking-glass And burnished up his nose, And brushed the dandruff from a span- Spick-splinter suit of clothes,— "Why, bless you, Mr. Squincher, You're as handsome as ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... proudest moment of his life. No. 999 was the crack locomotive of the system, brand new and resplendent. Its headlight was a great glow of crystal, its metal bands and trimmings shone like burnished gold, and its cab was as spick and span and neat as the private office ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... wandered up to the rooms which had been Evadne's. They were kept very much as she was accustomed to have them, but there was that something of bareness about them, and a kind of spick-and-spanness conveying a sense of emptiness and desertion which strikes cold to the heart when it comes of the absence of someone dear. And Mr. Frayling felt the discomfort of it. The afternoon sunlight slanted across ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... well-brushed and spick and span. He opened a conversation about the politics of the day. It was with difficulty that Cousin Hans could even give short and commonplace answers; it seemed as though all that had interested him in Captain Schrappe had entirely evaporated. And now ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... mother have been at it with your scrubbing and dusting!" he said, as they came through the "living-room." "I don't know I ever did see the house so spick and span before!" His glance fell upon a few carnations in a vase, and he chuckled admiringly. "Flowers, too! So THAT'S what you coaxed that dollar and a half out o ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... are going the rounds. Verry's room beats all possessed, don't it? It is cleaned spick and span every three months. She calls it inaugurating the seasons. She is as queer as Dick's hatband. Have you any ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... for the first time in the academical toga and trencher, marches most majestically across the grass-plot in the quadrangle of his college, is summoned before the master, who had caught sight of him from the lodge-windows, and reprimanded. His gown is a spick-and-span new one, of orthodox length, and without a single rent; he caps every Master of Arts he meets; besides a few Bachelors, and gets into the gutter to give them the wall. He comes into chapel in his surplice, and sees it is not surplice-morning, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... child, it will seem all the more home-like to her if it's not all spick and span! Don't pick them up, Esther. I like to see them. It was good of you to come over, Rob, for I'm not myself at all without a boy in the house, and it does me good to see your dear dirty boots," cried Mrs Asplin, and blinked her eyes, ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... wheelbarrow has never been seen. The grass grows thick among the broken stones, and men and beasts have made a narrow beaten track along the extreme outside edge of the precipice. The new bridge which was standing in all its spick and span newness when you came last year, is a ruin now, washed away by the spring freshets. A glance tells you that the massive-looking piers were hollow, built of one thickness of stone, shell-fashion, and filled with plain earth. Somebody must have cheated. Nothing new in that. They ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... discipline" of Berlin. Only a people of inferior imagination, a base materialist people, could so maintain its attention upon precision and cleanliness. Benham was roused to defence against this paradox. "But all exaltation neglects," said Prothero. "No religion has ever boasted that its saints were spick and span." This controversy raged between them in the streets of Irkutsk. It was still burning while they picked their way through the indescribable filth ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... them were worse, for one of them had inflicted such damages on his trousers that, although he was able to face the public, he had to retire as from the royal presence; nor was it at all unlike the motherly mind to conceive a malignant dislike to the few boys who were spick and span, and to have a certain secret pride even in their boys' disorder, which at any rate showed that they were far removed from the ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... mercifully given to boys of the Lower School who are too tall to wear with decency the short Eton jacket; he possessed a trouser-press; and his "bags" were perfectly creased and quite spotless. From tip to toe, at all seasons and in all weathers, he looked conspicuously spick and span. Chaff provoked the solemn retort: "One should be well groomed." He spoke impersonally, considering it bad form to use for first person singular. Amongst the small boys he ranked as the Petronius ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... to recommence;—the play, Will be the last of seven, and spick-span new— 'Tis usual here that number to present. A dilettante did the piece invent, And dilettanti will enact it too. Excuse me, gentlemen; to me's assign'd, As dilettante to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... neglected; and his habits in the use of his horses being fitful—sometimes, it would be midnight even, when he scoured from his home, seeking the comfort of desert as well as solitary places—it is not surprising if at times, going to the stable to saddle one, he should find its gear not in the spick-and-span condition alone to his mind. It might then well happen there was no one near to help him, and there be nothing for it but to put his own hands to the work: he was too just to rouse one who might be nowise to blame, or send a maid to fetch him ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... doorway a group of men, mauled and sullen, some wearing bandages, others with blood yet trickling down their faces, stood listening to an altercation between M. Etienne and a couple of spick-and-span British officers. As their Commandant's body came through the doorway they drew together with a growl. Love was in that sound, and sorrow, and helpless rage. One ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Jack, after a careful examination of the papers. "As to speed, we should get twenty-three knots on a pinch. Her fighting equipment is excellent, everything is spick and span, and I was impressed with the officers and crew. Yes, she ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... Cape Town, to get us passages on board this ship. Of course we were delighted, and early next morning we embarked. It was the first time I had ever been on a troopship, and every moment was of interest. As spick and span as a man-of-war, with her wide, roomy decks, it was difficult to imagine there were 2,000 souls on board the Victoria, and only in the morning, when the regiment paraded, appearing like ants from below, and stretching in unbroken ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... questioned by a picket before coming to the main body; the sentry knew enough not to shoot until he had asked for the countersign. Passing the picket, they came in full view of the Canadian force, the men of which looked very spick and span in uniforms which seemed painfully new in the clear light of the fair June morning. The guns, topped by a bristle of bayonets which glittered as the rising sun shone on them, were stacked with neat precision here and there. The ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... the night and early hours of this bright, beautiful morning—and it was bright and sunny overhead despite the old fellow's precautionary umbrella—had helped turn out the spick and span gentleman who was now making his way carefully over the unpaved road which ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... open-house of the unknown "Krewe," a composite host that vanished on the stroke of twelve, many of "Old Rough and Ready's" retinue mingled with the gathering, their uniforms, well-worn, even shabby, unlike the spick and span regimentals from the costumier. With bronzed faces and the indubitable air of campaigns endured, they were the objects of lively interest to the fair maskers, nor were themselves indifferent to the complaisance of their entertainers. Hands, burned ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... this rare August afternoon, were at the flag station to meet the "Wanderer"—the banker's private car, with a spick-and-span three-seated buckboard and a fast team of bays. Aboard the car were Alice and Margaret, ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... which he found himself. It was barely furnished, and a window, thick with dust, looked out on the dingy back-wall of a bank or some public building. The floor was uncovered, the walls were hung with yellow maps of gold-mines all in the West African district. Da Souza himself, spick and span, with glossy boots and a flower in his buttonhole, was certainly the least shabby thing ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and fell in with his wish. He'd promised to eat his Christmas dinner along with them and Joey; but the pup was to come as a rare surprise next morning, and though Minnie Ford didn't much hold with a young dog about her spick and span home, she couldn't withstand the little silky creature, nor yet Teddy's wish to pleasure ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... again toward evening they began to laugh at seeing each other as spick and span and smart as on the day of a grand review. The commandant's hair did not look so gray as it was in the morning, and the captain had shaved, leaving only his mustache, which made him look as if he had a streak of fire under ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... and chains and all the scraps of steel and brass twinkle and wink in bright and shining splendour. The ropes of the traces—the last touch of pride in perfection this, surely—are scrubbed and whitened. The whole battery is as spick and span, as complete and immaculate, as if it were waiting to walk into the arena at the Naval and Military Tournament. Such scrupulous perfection on active service sounds perhaps unnecessary or even extravagant. But the ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... Mayflower, so new, and strong, and spick, and span, and that rotting hulk which, for lack of custom now, was daily growing blacker and more worm-eaten! The old woman seemed to vision in the future a day when the Mayflower might drift ashore, cracked ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... decks was spick and span, and young Horatio gazed with wondering admiration at the neatness of the white decks continually scraped and holystoned until they fairly glistened in the sun, at the imposing size and length of the long lines of black cannon, the special pride of every officer, ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... blue bag. There was Dr. Percival, the father of all them that cast the angle in Glen Conquhar, who now fished little in these degenerate days, but instead told tales of the great salmon of thirty years ago—fellows tremendous enough to make the spick-and-span rods of these days, with their finicking attachments, crack their joints even to think of holding the monsters. Chiefly and finally there was "Old Royle," who came in March, first of all the fishing clan, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... by the music, shouted "A-more! A-more!" so we went on, disregarding Whinnie and the bunk-house window and Struthers' acrid stare from the shack-door. I was in the middle of Fay Templeton's lovely old Rosie, You Are My Posey, when Lady Alicia rode up, as spick and span as though she'd just pranced off Rotten Row. And as I'd no intention of showing the white feather to her ladyship, I kept right on to the end. Then I looked up and waved the banjo at her where she sat stock-still on her mount. There was an enigmatic look on her face, but she ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... trust you won't object to my giving you sixpence to carry my box to the carriage when it comes, and let the morality of this transaction devolve entirely upon me. Unless," he continued, even more gravely, as a spick and span brougham, drawn by two thoroughbreds, dashed out of the mist up to the platform, "unless you prefer to state the case to those two gentlemen"—pointing to the smart coachman and footman on the box—"and take THEIR opinion as to the propriety of my proceeding any further. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... his ablutions. I was strolling carelessly and solo from the cook-wagon toward one of the two tents—which protestingly housed some forty huddling Americans by night—holding in my hand an historic morceau de chocolat, when a spick, not to say span, gentleman in a suspiciously quiet French uniform allowed himself to be driven up to the bureau, by two neat soldiers with tin derbies, in a Renault whose painful cleanliness shamed my recent efforts. This must ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... Carey—he was the handsomest specimen. His hair looked so spick—his shoulders were so big and broad—his teeth so white—and his skin, well, Miss Carey, if you'd seen him, I'll bet you'd have just gone crazy to kiss him yourself. (MISS CAREY, who is drinking tea, nearly chokes ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... policeman and went on, "Mr. Cornell will now accuse us of having washed his car to destroy the evidence. However, you'll find that as a general policy of the hotel, the car-washing is performed as a standard service. In fact, if any guest parks his car in our garage and his car is not rendered spick and span, someone is going to ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... thought that a young girl such as Miss Bessemer is—for she's very young—would have been a little embarrassed at running up against such a spick and span lot as we were. Not a bit of it; didn't lose her poise for a moment. She bowed to my sister and to me, as though from the top of a drag, by Jove! and as though she were fresh from Redfern and Virot. You know a girl that can manage herself that way is a thoroughbred. She even remembered ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... analysis. Bitter as it was, it had to be. Carpenters and joiners appeared, and the premises were completely severed. From her room in the shadows at the back the invalid heard the hammering and sawing, and suffered. W. H. Johnson came out with a spick-and-span window, and had his wife, a shrewd, quiet woman, and his daughter, a handsome, loud girl, to help him on Friday evenings. Men flocked in—even women, buying their husbands a sixpence-halfpenny tie. They could have bought a tie for four-three from James Houghton. But no, they would ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... buttons were in a straight line with those of the next boy, each shoulder-strap set at the same angle as its fellows, each gun was as well polished as its neighbor, and the spick and span appearance the line presented, after its long fatiguing march, spoke volumes in favor of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 27, May 13, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... remembrances of you. Fanny expends herself in phrases that can only be justified by her romantic nature. Mary reserves a portion of your silk, not to be buried in (as the false nuncio asserts), but to make up spick and span into a bran-new gown to wear when you come. I am the same as when you knew me, almost to a surfeiting identity. This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely there must be some other world ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... them. She was so excited that she couldn't eat her breakfast. But her chicks had no such trouble. And perhaps it was just as well that Henrietta Hen had her hands full looking after them and trying to keep them all under her eye, and spick-and-span for the journey. Otherwise she would have been in more of a ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... of age, but he was in love, and in love too with Captain Treves's wife, who, in his eyes, was spick-span perfection. In their turn Mrs. Treves's two little boys, aged six and five respectively, were in love with Dick, who appeared to them to be the model of all that a ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... had always wanted,—a little cart with a real live pony in the shafts. And the pony was all dressed in new harness, spick ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... the house, leaving no room for doubt as to its existence. There it stood, spick and span, with white window-curtains tied up with red ribbons, and rows of flower-pots on the sills, and a shining brass handle and knocker on the door, and a dark blind in the shop window through which, howsoever noses might be flattened against ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... monument to perpetuate their defeat. But the Jewish State would not even come. He had met his Viennese brethren but yesterday; in the Leopoldstadt, frowsy with the gaberdines and side-curls of Galicia; in the Prater, arrogantly radiant in gleaming carriages with spick-and-span footmen—that strange race that could build up cities for others but never for itself; that professed to be both a religion and a nationality, and was often neither. The grotesquerie of history! Moses, Sinai, Palestine, Isaiah, Ezra, the Temple, Christ, the Exile, the Ghettos, the Martyrdoms—all ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... perplexed by the implied question: If Englishmen and Americans speak the same language, how in the world are we to tell them apart and keep them apart? Then again, since there has been a revolution resulting in governmental independence, what stands in the way of a complete independence, so that the spick and span new nation may go to the language tailors and be dressed in a new suit of parts of speech? "Let us seize the present moment," he cries, "and establish a national language as well as a national ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... was comparatively small. In the darkness of the night and the storm, and viewed from the little sloop, she had looked like an ocean liner as she suddenly came upon them. Everything about her was spick and span. The decks were as clean as holy stone and water could make them, and all the brasswork shone brightly in the sun. The decks seemed strangely deserted. Suarez, the mate, paced the bridge stolidly. On the forward deck ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... of reveille every young man sprang from his bed. Then followed hasty but orderly dressing and the making of the toilet. The cadet must be spick and span. ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... all chunnicks of stone, or a Habbey, much out of repair, A skelinton Banquetting 'All, and a bit of a broken-down stair, May appear most perticular "precious" to them as the picteresk cops; But give me the sububs and stucco, smart villas, and spick-and-span shops. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... Cynthia outside the meetinghouse, for the girl seemed genuinely loved by all who knew her—too much loved, her companion thought, by certain spick-and-span young men of Brampton. But they ate the lunch Cynthia had brought, far from the crowd, under the trees by Coniston Water. It was she who proposed going to the base-ball game, and the painter stifled a sigh and acquiesced. Their way ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Spick and span in their new uniforms, they came to drill daily on our parade ground. Slowly the change took place. They were "rookies" no longer, and the adjutant's sarcasm was a thing of the past. Commands were pronounced distinctly ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... tree-topped cliffs, grew to be home-like to us. We said nothing of Cary and his boat at the Inn, for we soon saw that both were far-and-away better than common, and we were selfish. Nor did the man himself seem to care for more patronage. He was always ready when we wished to go, and jumped from his spick-and-span deck to meet us with a smile that started us off in sunshine, no matter what the weather. And with my affection for the lovely, uneven coast and the seas that held it in their flashing fingers, grew my interest in the winning personality that seemed to combine something ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... squash in Noyon, and here St Andre was delighted to meet some spick-and-span young friends of his whom he affected to treat with great contempt, as not yet having seen a shot fired. Having to cross the railway line also delayed us still more, as a long supply-train was shunting and reshunting and ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... climb ended abruptly in a level sandy road running among birch trees. At a wayside tea-house a man was sitting on a low table. He wore white trousers, a coat of cornflower shade and a Panama hat—all very spick and span. It was ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... the divers of Bathos lie drowned in a heap, And Southey's last Pan has pillowed his sleep; That Felo de se who, half drunk with his Malmsey, Walked out of his depth and was lost in a calm sea, 10 Singing "Glory to God" in a spick and span stanza, The like (since Tom Sternhold was ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... form of an amphitheatre, its lovely little bay surrounded by rich southern vegetation. The oleanders and magnolias in full bloom, gardens and vineyards, are no less strikingly contrasted with the barrenness and monotony that follows, than Banyuls itself, spick and span, brand-new, with the buried cities scattered on the way, ancient as Tyre and Sidon, and once as flourishing. There is much sadness yet poetic charm in the landscape sweeps of silvery-green olive or bluish salicornia against a ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... his whim that everything entering into the construction of "Abraham" should be spick-and-span. He watched with his own eyes a whole ream of broad glazed white paper being sliced down by the cutter into single sheets, and thrilled with a novel ecstasy as he laid his hand upon the spotless bulk, so wooingly ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... then she sent a call for aid to a couple of neighbors. Within an hour all the green shutters had swung wide on their creaking hinges, and the window-sashes were up. Out of the open windows poured some dust and a great deal of commotion. Before night the big house was spick and span from ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... Mrs. Burton declared. "I don't care for mouldy old ruins, with ivy and damp places upon the walls. I like something fine and spick and span and handsome, with a tower to it, and a long straight drive that you can see down to the road; plenty of stone work about the windows, and good square rooms. As for the garden, well, let that come. We can plant a lot of small trees ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in Hyde Park, gazing at the people in the drive, when a spick-and-span and very brand-new open carriage went by, and in it sad Mrs. Deane (that was), all alone in her glory, and looking very sulky indeed. She recognized me and bowed, and I bowed back again, with just ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... satisfaction, at the hospitable Merle Blanc, our traveller will do well to pasture his eyes on the plants in the Casino gardens. Whoever wants to see flowers and trees on their best behaviour, must come to Monte Carlo, where the spick-and-span Riviera note is at its highest development. Not a leaf is out of place; they have evidently been groomed and tubbed and manicured from the hour of their birth. And yet—is it possible? Lurking among all this modern splendour of vegetation, as though ashamed to show their ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... new-fledged; of yesterday; just out, brand-new, up to date, up to the minute, with it, fashionable, in fashion; in, hip [Coll.]; vernal, renovated, sempervirent^, sempervirid^. fresh as a rose, fresh as a daisy, fresh as paint; spick and span. Adv. newly &c adj.; afresh, anew, lately, just now, only yesterday, the other day; latterly, of late. not long ago, a short time ago. Phr. di novello tutto par bello [It]; nullum est jam dictum quod non dictum est prius [Lat.]; una ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... supper, a pipe full of tobacco and a restful evening, however, restored him, especially as Shismakoff made his appearance all spick and span after his day's work on the water. The recital of his adventures with a school of whale in mid-ocean, and the capture of one of them, occupied a good share of the evening. Eyllen's father asked ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... he reached his house and sat down to rest, he soon forgot his fright. For he had a very pleasant time licking himself clean. That was the way Sandy Chipmunk always made himself spick and span. And though there may be some people who would not consider such an act to be in the best of taste, Sandy Chipmunk thought what was left of the milk tasted very good. And since his mother did not object to what he was doing, perhaps ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... that," Cumshaw said, between puffs at his pipe. It was one of those neat little affairs with a round bowl, a spick-and-span pipe that had burnt an even color and that shone as brightly as the day he bought it. My pipe was a sorrier article; it was battered and blackened, and one side of the bowl was down beneath the level of the other, ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... glance wandered slowly over the little knots of people in the foyer. Beyond the fact that a large diamond sparkled on one of his plump fingers, and that his olive tinted face was curiously opposed to the whiteness of the uplifted hand, he differed in no essential from the hundreds of spick and span idlers who might be encountered at that hour in the west end of London. He had the physique and bearing of a man athletic in his youth but now over-indulgent. An astute tailor had managed to conceal the too rounded curves ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... sir? Something about the church? I should ha' thought the church was all spick and ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... surprising how quickly the signs of the wind and weather were effaced, until the great, square-set house was all as spick-and-span as though it had been erected yesterday. There were abundant signs that money was no consideration to General Heatherstone, and that it was not on the score of retrenchment that he had taken up ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... opened again. All were genuinely surprised this time, for a prim, spick and span, middle-aged ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... Baby, who seemed to be without other name, Betty went into the dressing-room and there washed pink and white faces and hands till they shone, and brushed silk locks till they lay straight and shining. Clean frocks were forthcoming, and two spick and span babies emerged to beam upon a transformed world no longer seen through a veil of tears. This new friend could tell the most wonderful stories, invent delightful games, and sing dozens of foolish little rhymes in a low sweet ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... Mr. Chevenix, the spick and span, had something on his mind, however, which he did not know how to put. He continued to reflect upon Mrs. Germain, but only by way of marking time. "She used to be very good fun in my young days. ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... mite," protested Candace, bobbing her own woolly head in a decided fashion. "Dear me! now I'm afraid I discomberated my turban, an' it's my spick an' span comp'ny one Mr. King give me for this yere berry occasion," and she put up both black hands to feel of it anxiously. Joel jumped to his feet and ran all around the big figure to get the ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... fellow, producing one, 'this is the infallible and invaluable composition for removing all sorts of stain, rust, dirt, mildew, spick, speck, spot, or spatter, from silk, satin, linen, cambric, cloth, crape, stuff, carpet, merino, muslin, bombazeen, or woollen stuff. Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, any stains, all come ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... or Cambridge man, or an old sailor came along—it might put years on to his life to have a pull at the oars. You remember that old sailor we saw in charge of the engine back there at the government tank? You saw how he had the engine?—clean and bright as a new pin—everything spick-and-span and shipshape, and his hut fixed up like a ship's cabin. I believe he thinks he's at sea half his time, and shoving her through it, instead of pumping muddy water out of a hole in the baking scrubs for starving stock. Or maybe he reckons ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... a new sensation for me to be steaming down comfortably on a beautifully-kept steamer, as spick-and-span as a private yacht. Her captain and co-proprietor with Col. Brazil was Captain Macedo, a man who had spent much time in Europe, and was one of the most polished gentlemen ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... spick about my cafe," she said to Miss Spencer, with her agreeable smile. "I should like it served in the ...
— Four Meetings • Henry James
... is nothing else here that I care to do, and I never leave the house except to take a little walk with Oliver on Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Midden says that I make a mistake to give a spring cleaning every day, but I love to keep the house looking perfectly spick and span, and I make hot bread twice a day, because Oliver is so fond of it. He is just as sweet and dear as he can be and wants to help about everything, but I hate to see him doing housework. Somehow it doesn't seem to me to look ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... when Cousin Ethel returned to her young guests, she found them all spick and span, in their dainty white ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... you have had a wash," she said a little enviously. "How spick and span you look! But what's ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... without either waterproof or umbrella. I refer to Jane. She suddenly appeared, as I was passing The Ladies' Tea Association Rooms, walking in front of me. She looked just the same as when I last saw her—spick and span, and—dry. I repeat the word—dry—for that is what attracted my attention most. Despite the deluge, not a single raindrop touched her—the plumes on her toque were splendidly erect and curly, her shoe-buckles sparkled, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... through the too Europeanized streets, and landed at a hotel of the same pattern. It is easy to forgive St. Petersburg, in its giddy youth of one hundred and seventy-five winters, for its Western features and comforts; but that Kieff, in its venerable maturity of a thousand summers, should be so spick and span with newness and reformation seemed at first utterly unpardonable. The inhabitants think otherwise, no doubt, and deplore the mediaeval hygienic conditions which render the town the most unhealthy in Europe, in the matter of the ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... and the tailor, and the weaver, and the wheelwright, and the blacksmith,—but, hey presto! Master Warner set his imps a-churning, and turned ye out mail and tunic, worsted and wagon, kettle and pot, spick and span new, from his brewage of vapour and sea-coal. Oh, have I not heard enough of the sorcerer from my brother, who works in the Chepe for Master Stokton, the mercer!—and Master Stokton was one of the worshipful ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the visitors entered was the neatest one in Heart's Desire. The tall, narrow fireplace of clay in the corner of the other room was swept clean, spick and span. A chair stood exactly against the wall. The parlor table—ah, appalling spectacle! the parlor table, bare and empty, held upon its surface no ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... never forget the happy spick-and-span soldiers who sang as they stepped ashore from the troopships at Boulogne and Havre, eager to reach the fighting line. These men have fought valiantly, desperately, since then, but their spirits are as high as ever, and their songs still ring down the depleted ranks as the war-stained ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... 'Master Pinch, Grove House Academy,' inscribed in faultless writing on the fly-leaf! That whiff of russia leather, too, and all those rows on rows of volumes neatly ranged within—what happiness did they suggest! And in the window were the spick-and-span new works from London, with the title-pages, and sometimes even the first page of the first chapter, laid wide open; tempting unwary men to begin to read the book, and then, in the impossibility of turning over, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... visitors that her surroundings had not the spick-and-span appearance which usually characterises a Scottish Mission station. She had, nevertheless, a real appreciation of order and beauty, and liked to have everything clean and tidy about her. How to accomplish this was ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... brick houses and insignificant streets, settles down hopelessly into the dumps when the weather is bad. Even with the sun doing its best on the eternal cloud of smoke, it is dingy and gloomy enough, and so dirty, after spick-span, shining Paris. And there is a contrast in the matter of order and system; the lack of both in London is apparent. You detect it in public places, in crowds, in the streets. The "social evil" is bad enough in its demonstrations ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... home from business to escort the travellers to the train. The trunks were packed, and everything was in readiness for their departure. Marjorie herself, in a spick-and- span pink gingham dress, a tan-colored travelling cloak, and a broad-brimmed white straw hat, stood in the hall saying good-bye to the other children. She carried Puff in her arm, and the sleepy, indifferent kitten cared little ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... which, though borrowed from the stable, carries with it only sweet and wholesome suggestions. It is "well-groomed." A well-groomed woman is not only a well-gowned woman, but one who, like a favorite mare, is always spick and span in her person, and happy in her quiet consciousness of it. And every woman, whether she possesses a maid or not, indeed, whether she has fine gowns or not, may win the admiration of all her ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... in these parts are far too proud to be hired to work in a house. Why, the best folks in town mostly does their own work; there's Mrs. Reid, so rich, just has a woman to do the charing; and Eelan—that's the beauty, you know—makes the pies and keeps the house spick-and-span. But you couldn't keep your own house clean, could you, sir?—let alone the meals; and you wouldn't live long if you ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... paused, her heart contracting painfully as the spick and span aspect of the room, its ordered absence of any trace of occupation, reminded her that its one-time owner would never again have any ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... old-time splendour and luxury. Something of impressiveness has recently been introduced into the interior by the artistic arrangement of old furniture which the house's present owner, Mr. Templeton Coolidge, has brought about. But the exterior is "spick-span" in modern ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... white-hulled Thetis dipped a farewell salute to the Spanish warships in Havana harbour as she next morning swept past them, outward bound, shortly after nine o'clock in the morning of a glorious April day. Jack was on the navigating bridge with Milsom, and as the beautiful little ship, looking as spick and span as though just fresh from the stocks, and with all her brasswork gleaming and flashing like burnished gold in the brilliant morning sunlight, brought the lighthouse abeam and gaily plunged ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... its only treasures are its Roman remains, which are of the first order. The new French fashions prevail in many of its streets; the old houses are paltry, and the good houses are new; while beside my hotel rose a big spick-and-span church, which had the oddest air of having been intended for Brooklyn ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... doubted that his soul ever rose above the collar of a coat or the brim of a hat, his letters to Mr. Raikes in the time of his poverty would settle the question. 'I heard of you the other day in a waistcoat that does you considerable credit, spick-and-span from Paris, a broad stripe, salmon-colour, and cramoise. Don't let them laugh you into a relapse—into the Gothic—as that of your former English simplicity.' He speaks of the army of occupation as 'rascals in red coats waiting for embarkation.' 'English education,' he says in another ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... helmets, and leather jackets, and with their enormous goggles on, the birdmen looked like anything but spick-and-span soldiers of Uncle Sam. But dress in the army has undergone a radical change. The "fuss and feathers" are gradually disappearing, and utility is the word. It was so in regard to the aviators. They were ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... impotence which finds its easiest outlet in violence. As he rose to take his leave, with all the outward signs of friendly ceremoniousness, he had time to be appalled at the perception that he, the middle-aged, spick-and-span New-Yorker, should so fully understand how it is that a certain type of frenzied brute can kill the woman whom he passionately loves, but who is hopelessly ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... opened, and we issued forth again into the day on the precipitous broadside of the isle. A village was before us: a Catholic church and perhaps a dozen scattered houses, some of grass in the old island fashion, others spick-and-span with outside stair and balcony and trellis, and white paint and green, in the more modern taste. One arrested my attention; it stood on the immediate verge of a deep precipice: two stories high, with double balconies, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the scrub-woman had made her last trip with the extra dishes, and the little home was spick and span. ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... half-hour of the day when Aunt Izzie was really satisfied about her charges, and that was the half-hour before breakfast, when she had made a law that they were all to sit in their little chairs and learn the Bible verse for the day. At this time she looked at them with pleased eyes, they were all so spick and span, with such nicely-brushed jackets and such neatly-combed hair. But the moment the bell rang her comfort was over. From that time on, they were what she called "not fit to be seen." The neighbors ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... already started on the court some little distance off—the players being Dorothy, Peggy and a couple of athletic, flannel-clad parsons. Marmaduke Trevor reposed on a chair under the lee of Lady Bruce. He looked very cool and spick and span in a grey cashmere suit, grey shirt, socks and tie, and grey suede shoes. He had a weak, good-looking little face and a little black moustache turned up at the ends. He was discoursing to his ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... Butte camp in a little more than three hours and found the adobe shack deserted. It was similar in size and construction to Las Vegas, but there all likeness ceased, for the interior was surprisingly comfortable and as spick-and-span as the Shoe-Bar line camp was cluttered and dirty. Everything was so immaculate, in fact, that Buck had a moment of hesitation about flicking his cigarette ashes on the floor, and banished his scruples mainly because ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... taken so much more time than they said; anyhow, he turned the carpenters out of the house the day previous to our arrival, carried in the furniture, nailed up mosquito blinds, and did many things himself, so that everything should be in spick ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the state of things when the three girls arrived at the Merrimans'. The house had truly been swept and garnished. The room where Jane had been ill was re-papered and painted, the place looked spick-and-span and beautiful, and Mrs. Merriman came out with a smiling face to welcome the arrival of ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... these quiet roads. The neighbourhood seemed to breathe a tranquil prosperity. Red-cheeked emissaries of butcher, baker, and grocer, order-book in hand, knocked cheerily at kitchen doors, and went smiling away; the ponies they drove were well fed and frisky, their carts spick and span. The church of the parish, an imposing edifice, dated only from a few years ago, and had cost its noble founder a sum of money which any church-going parishioner would have named to you with proper awe. The population was largely female, and every shopkeeper who knew his business ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... soon revived, both being merely stunned, as was Mr. Damon. They looked about in wonder, and then, feeling that they were prisoners, resigned themselves to their fate. Both men were shabbily dressed, and Tom would hardly have known the once spick and span Mr. Peters. He had no rose in ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... a'thegether sae great as they feared, and other folk thought for. The Whigs made an unco crawing what they wad do with their auld enemies, and in special wi' Sir Robert Redgauntlet. But there were ower mony great folks dipped in the same doings, to mak a spick and span new warld. So Parliament passed it a' ower easy; and Sir Robert, bating that he was held to hunting foxes instead of Covenanters, remained just the man he was. His revel was as loud, and his hall as weel lighted, as ever ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... from the bridge where Julie's journey was interrupted in 1814. It is a picturesque, white chateau, with turrets covered with fine stone carving like Mechlin lace; a chateau such as you often see in Touraine, spick and span, ivy clad, standing among its groves of mulberry trees and vineyards, with its hollow walks, its stone balustrades, and cellars mined in the rock escarpments mirrored in the Loire. The roofs of Montcontour gleam in ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... come a forward movement. A fund of twenty million dollars is to be spent in constructing a national system of telephone and telegraph. Peking is now pointing with wonder and delight to a new exchange, spick and span, with a couple of ten-thousand-wire switchboards. Others are being built in Canton, Hankow, and Tien-Tsin. Ultimately, the telephone will flourish in China, as it has done in the Chinese quarter in San Francisco. The Empress of China, after the siege of ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... with the building of it that it seemed to him as if he himself never laid a hand to it. His hut grew up as quick as thought, and it contained everything that they wanted. The man could not understand it; he could only walk about and wonder at it. Wherever he looked there was everything quite spick and span and ready for use: none in the whole village had a ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... well-lighted work-rooms, from which funnels and exhaust fans collect and carry off all dust, and improve the ventilation, so that in spite of the multitudinous operations in progress, the whole place is kept as "spick and span" as a ship of the line. But another aggressive sign of the firm's belief in the motto mens sana in corpore sano is the presence of a lady whose whole time is devoted to the physical culture of the girls. Trained in Swedish athletics, this lady and her assistant undertake ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... very uncomfortable for the enemy. On the other side I was not long in finding out Tempest, with the glow of enthusiasm on his cheek as now and again he broke through the ruck and sent the ball into quarters. Wales, too, was there, spick and span as usual, playing neatly and effectively, ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... of antiquity, which is particularly pleasant in a land where almost everything is spick-and-span new; but the rooms I thought low and stuffy, and the walls and passages had a neglected plaster-broken appearance. There are some very fine old trees in the green, which, throwing their shade over the time-worn building, help to give it a venerable appearance. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... appurtenances. All these I put away together in my mattress, where I also kept the strips of linen I had made. When day broke, I used immediately to sweep my room out; and though I am by nature a lover of cleanliness, at that time I kept myself unusually spick and span. After sweeping up, I made my bed as daintily as I could, laying flowers upon it, which a Savoyard used to bring me nearly every morning. He had the care of the cistern and the casks, and also amused himself with carpentering; it was from him I stole the pincers which I used ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Lillibridge's. The floor of the main room was bare and clean, and, in the middle, a round black stove radiated comfort on cold days. Along one side of the room ran three stalls, in which were placed tables for such patrons as might desire partial privacy. On the spick and span counter were set forth various condiments and plates of crackers. A card, tacked up on the wall, tempted the appetite with its list ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... smart horse, and a buggy that was spick and span, and it was a pleasure to ride with him. He pulled up at the gate with a flourish, and told Pen to put his suit-case under the ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... staircases; they thronged the alleys and swards. The men were negligible beside them. And they were not only fashionably and very fashionably attired—all their frocks and all their hats and all their parasols and all their boots were new, glittering, spick-and-span; were complex and expensive; not one feared the sun. The conception of what those innumerable chromatic toilettes had cost in the toil, stitch by stitch, of malodorous workrooms and in the fatigue of pale, ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... far different from the spick-and-span battleship which had left Portsmouth only six ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... some time before everyone is thoroughly washed and dressed, beds are tidied, and everything spick and span. Then the crowd of happy Cubs race off ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... process of consummation. Physically, he had improved since his undergraduate days—he was still too thin but his shoulders had widened and his brunette face had lost the frightened look of his freshman year. He was secretly orderly and in person spick and span—his friends declared that they had never seen his hair rumpled. His nose was too sharp; his mouth was one of those unfortunate mirrors of mood inclined to droop perceptibly in moments of unhappiness, but his blue eyes ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... eight or ten of his schoolmates. Little misses dressed in fine style, in dainty ruffled frocks and necklaces and bright hair-ribbons, tripped gracefully in and advanced to meet Mrs. Morris, quite like grown ladies in their manners. Behind them came several boys, spick and span in fresh white linen waists and silk ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... coats, hewed and stitched by the company tailor, or even in canvas shooting rig, as was Harris, that the young aide-de-camp, after brief siesta in the mid-day lazy hour, should have appeared among them all, fresh-shaved and tubbed, and in faultless, bran-new, spick-and-span cap and blouse and trousers, with black silk socks and low-cut patent leather "Oxford ties." Harris, hammock slung, and moodily studying 'Tonio, looked approvingly, but made no remark whatever. Stannard, ever ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... sent a boat ashore on the morning of the 12th with an invitation to come on board and lunch. I accordingly went out to the vessel and, after lunching, had a thorough look over her, mentally contrasting her spick-and-span appearance at the time with what it had been when I left her in December. I went ashore again in the afternoon and assisted the visitors to get their loads down to the boat, as they were returning to the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... was that we met and here we parted. But what a different place it was then! A lovely cape, half bleak moorland and half shaggy wood, a few rocky headlands and a great many coots and gulls, and one solitary old farmhouse standing just where that spick-and-span summer hotel, with its balconies and cupolas, stands now. So it was nineteen years ago, and so it may be again, perhaps, nine hundred years hence; but meanwhile, what a pretty array of modern ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... did—and I'll put a ring around the date. It's the first time you've condescended to pay me a compliment in a year. You men are the limit. You take it as a matter of course that a girl should be neat and spick and span. If she wasn't you'd notice it soon enough. It's easy for a girl like this Miss Burnaby. I don't suppose she ever did a day's work or anything useful in her life. She orders her clothes from the best places, and gets them fitted and sent home, and ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... was well fitted out, spick and span in fresh carpets and paint, and crowded to the utmost capacity for comfort. Every stateroom was full; each seat at the tables occupied. Not a foot of space above or below decks was left unused, but provision was made for all, and the ship ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... gallantry only, but of the long-sustained patience also, the essential monotony of military life, even on a campaign. Peril, good-luck, promotion, the grotesque hardships which leave them smart as ever, (as if, so others observe, dust and mire wouldn't hold on them, so "spick and span" they were, more especially on days of any exceptional risk or effort) the great confidence reposed in them at last; all is noted, till, with a little quiet pride, he records a gun-shot wound which ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... had not observed the teacher's noiseless return to the room after conducting her pupils down the hall, and was astonished to find the stiff figure sitting in its accustomed place behind the desk which had once more been whisked into spick and span order ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... mortifying persons in a small way; by a gesture, an expression, a look, cloaked too very often with all the character of profound deference. The old nobility of Spain delighted to address each other only by their names, when in the presence of a spick-and-span grandee; calling each other, "Infantado," "Sidonia," "Ossuna," and then turning round with the most distinguished consideration, and appealing to the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... would leave his store; And Mr. McNair with his modest bride Seated snugly and lovingly by his side, On the rural Broadway, Every pleasant day, In his spick-span ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... desert of mud, on which the young Arabs—shoeless, stockingless—are disporting themselves. It is low water, and the river steamers keep towards the middle arches of Waterloo. Up aloft the Hungerford Suspension rears itself in mid air, and that spick-and-span new bridge, across which trains run now ceaselessly, has not yet been projected. It is a bright spring day. The sunshine falls upon the buildings on the Surrey side, and lights them with a picturesque ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... with expressions of great joy. Mrs. Manoela was so happy over our coming that she embraced us in true Brazilian style. We were shown into our room, where we refreshed ourselves by brushing off the dust and bathing. How spick and span clean was everything in that room, even ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... tied the ribbons on those braids, now crossed in a "coronet" over her head, she gave the ghost of a sigh. This morning she didn't want to wear her every-day bows; but dutifully she tied them on, a big brown cabbage above each ear. When she had scrambled into her checked gingham "sailor suit," all spick and span, Missy stood eying herself in the mirror for a wistful moment, wishing her tight braids might metamorphose into lovely, hanging curls like Kitty Allen's. They come often to a "strange child"—these ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... explained to me the importance of the Bulair Lines and urged me to throw the new Divisions against them. He seems to think he is mooting to me a spick and span new idea—that he has invented something. Finally, he suggests ten shillings and a free pardon be offered to every Turk who deserts to our lines with his rifle and kit: he believes we should thus get rid of the whole of the enemy army ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... moreover, the opera-boxes, the social invitations, and the carriages of the minister. The Emperor of Russia would be thankful to be able to pay fifty thousand a year to one of these amiable constitutional poodles, so gentle, so nicely curled, so caressing, so docile, always spick and span,—careful watch-dogs besides, and faithful to a degree! But the private secretary is a product of the representative government hot-house; he is propagated and developed there, and there only. Under a monarchy ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... sat in the window looking down the road, until he came, spick and span in white flannels, with his head not yet dried from the ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... heard the rattle of a wagon, and he looked and saw a very spick-and-span new wagon, painted red, with yellow and black stripes on it, and the wheels were flashing in the ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... tell you what it is. Ladies like Miss Tredgold need their comforts. She won't find much comfort here, I'm thinking. She'll need her food well cooked, and that she won't get at The Dales. She'll need her room pretty and spick-and-span; she won't get much of that sort of thing at The Dales. My dear young ladies, you leave the house as it is, and, mark my words, Miss Tredgold will go in a week's time ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... and pray that we won't give her anything old. I want it spick, span, new; and to be absolutely up-to-date." Alexia took her chin out of her hand, and sat up decidedly. "The idea of matching up those mouldy old portraits!—and that ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... the hussars of religion, the jaunty lancers, the spick and span and primped-up Zouaves, while the good Capuchins are the humble poilus of the ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... benefit—"Always have to say that!—Here, little one," he continued, addressing his Lolotte, "this is M. Schmucke, poor M. Pons' friend. He does not know where to go, and he would like to live with us. I told him that we were not very spick-and-span up here, that we lived on the sixth floor, and had only the garret to offer him; but it was no use, ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... Geri to invite himself. So, wearing always the whitest of doublets and a spotless apron, that denoted rather the miller, than the baker, he let bring, every morning about the hour that he expected Messer Geri and the ambassadors to pass by his door, a spick-and-span bucket of fresh and cool spring water, and a small Bolognese flagon of his good white wine, and two beakers that shone like silver, so bright were they: and there down he sat him, as they came by, and after hawking once or twice, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... hut an Indian boy of ten as burden-bearer and guide, though we continued to carry most of our own stuff and to trust largely to our own sense of direction. Above came a three-hour climb through pine-forested mountains, such as the Harz might be without the misfortune of German spick and spanness. He who starts at an elevation of 7500 feet and climbs 4000 upward in a brief space of time, with a burden on his back, knows he is mounting. Occasionally a dull-gray glimpse of the hazy valley of Mexico broke through the trees; ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... at the thought of venturing with muddy boots into Mrs Jacob's 'spick and span' house, so I brought him here," said Clifton. "We have been down at the Black Pool, and I have been taking a lesson in fly-fishing. We have earned our tea, and ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... they want polishing up and arranging. I've got some new things which I've not placed. I've rather neglected them lately. Let us say to-morrow afternoon. Then they'll all be spick and ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... performances are under his direct patronage. "Victoria, the Empress of the Arena," is to-night to perform her unparalleled feats in the ring in the presence of His Excellency. This was the only tribute we saw paid in India to Her Majesty's spick-and-span brand-new title of Empress. We attended the performance, which was really creditable, but the natives sat unmoved throughout every scene; so different from the conduct of the Japanese, who scream with delight like children under similar circumstances. The Indians seem to ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... mouse-trap, wit a gin, Which women oft are taken in. Then, HUDIBRAS, why should'st thou fear To be, that art a conqueror? Fortune th' audacious doth juvare, 395 But lets the timidous miscarry. Then while the honour thou hast got Is spick and span new, piping hot, Strike her up bravely, thou hadst best, And trust thy fortune with the rest. 400 Such thoughts as these the Knight did keep, More than his bangs or fleas, from sleep. And as an owl, that ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... tea and eatables are all ready and found; and these two years that you've been there for your lessons, we've likewise effected at home a great saving in what would otherwise have been necessary for your eating and use. Something has been, it's true, economised; but you have further a liking for spick and span clothes. Besides, it's only through your being there to study, that you've come to know Mr. Hsueeh! that Mr. Hsueeh, who has even in one year given us so much pecuniary assistance as seventy and eighty taels! And now you would go and raise a row in this school-room! why, if we ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... thirty years of bloody service, a young gentleman of fifteen, fresh from a preparatory school, who can scarcely read, and came but yesterday with a pinafore in to papa's dessert—such a young gentleman, I say, arrives in a spick-and-span red coat, and calmly takes the command over our veteran, who obeys him as if God and nature had ordained that so throughout ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Christmas party after breakfast, and was handed round. Mary introduced him. He was spick-and-span, with shining cheeks and a damp and glossy top-knot, and his blue eyes stared at the strange crowd stolidly for several minutes before he suddenly crumpled up his face and uttered a howl ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... typical of thousands of working men's wives, and such women demand our admiration and respect. What matter though some of them are a bit frowsy and not over-clean? they have precious little time to attend to their personal adornment. I ask, who can fulfil all their duties and remain "spick-and-span"? ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... expressionless eyes moved continually over the crowd in the big room. Outside, the depot 'bus had just stopped in front of the hotel and a company of newly arrived guests were entering the corridor, while the bell-boys were running forward to relieve them of their luggage and lead them to the spick-and-span clerk behind ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... He looked around him: all were as before, the elder men, with thick moustaches and hair growing thin in places, with the cares of a future command already on the brow; those of his own age, easy-going and assuming nonchalant airs; and the youngest of all very spick and span and extremely correct. Just as of old the three brothers-in-law stood close together (two of them had in the meantime become fathers, and the wife of Keyl II., nee Moeller, was in an ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... conversion and enjoyment of the Ark Royal. The most prejudiced—again I speak personally—will find pleasure in the author's zestful story of how the dingy, foul-smelling Will Arding, full of cement (and worse things), was transformed into the spick-and-span Ark Royal, with a piano in the saloon and Queen Anne silver on the breakfast-table; while for the persuadable there are added plans, scales of expense and the like, which bring the whole matter to a working ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... Small wonder that Depper—his name was William Kittle, a fact of which the neighbourhood made no practical use, which he himself only recalled with an effort—preferred to the dirt, untidiness and squalor of his own abode the spick-and-span cleanliness of Dinah Brome's. Small wonder that in this atmosphere of wholesomeness and comfort, he chose to spend the hours of the Sabbath during which the public-house was closed; and other ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... met again the Albanian coachman Shan, who had served me very faithfully on my previous visits. He took me to the house of his family. A striking contrast to the Montenegrin houses, it was spick and span and even pretty, for the Albanian has artistic instincts, whereas the Montenegrin has none. Left to himself, his taste ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... roughing it de luxe with a most de-luxey vengeance! Here were three tents, or rather three canvas houses, with wooden half walls; and they were spick-and-span inside and out, and had glass windows in them and doors and matched wooden floors. . . . The mess tent was provided with a table with a clean cloth to go over it, and there were china dishes and china cups and shiny knives, forks and spoons. . . . Bill was in charge of the camp—a dark, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... under its shadow, and lift my eyes with wonder to the amazing and crowded cluster of spires and towers: its antique air, and even look of shattered dilapidation showing that the restorer has not been at his work. There was no smugness or trimness, or spick-and-spanness, but an awful and reverent austerity. And with an antique appropriateness to its functions the Flemish women, crones and maidens, all in their becoming cashmere hoods, and cloaks, and neat frills, ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... wallowing up the coast, their old tub sagging with the weight of the rails under her hatches, Mate Mayo felt considerable of a young man's ambitious envy of that spick-and-span swaggerer who had yelled anathema from the pilot-house of the Triton. It was real steamboating, he reflected, even if the demands of owners and dividend-seekers did compel a master to take his luck between his teeth ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... for the captain fixed his eyes upon him with a look of invitation to which Fitz instantly responded by closing up, colouring slightly the while with consciousness, as it seemed to him that the American captain, all spick and span in his neat naval uniform, was looking askant at the well-worn garments the lad ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... eyes were turned toward a lad who entered the room at that moment. It was Len Haley, attired in a brand new Christmas suit, and looking as spick and span as ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... know that Prince Edward is bound 'prentice to Mr. Howe.(913) All this you have heard; yet, like my cousin the Chronicle, I repeat what has been printed in every newspaper of the week, and then finish with one paragraph of spick and span. Alack! my postscript is not very fortunate: a convoy of twelve thousand men, etc. was going to the King of' Prussia, was attacked unexpectedly by five thousand Austrians, and cut entirely to pieces; provisions, ammunition, etc. all taken. The King instantly raised the siege, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... noisome mess distil, Brimming high our Brunswick broth Both with venom and with froth. Mix the brains (tho' apt to hash ill, Being scant) of Lord Mountcashel, With that malty stuff which Chandos Drivels as no other man does. Catch (i. e. if catch you can) One idea, spick and span, From my Lord of Salisbury,— One idea, tho' it be Smaller than the "happy flea" Which his sire in sonnet terse Wedded to immortal verse.[1] Tho' to rob the son is sin, Put his one idea in; And, to keep it company, Let that conjuror Winchelsea Drop but half another there, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al |
