"Ticklish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jack, breaking it, "it would be ticklish work for any of us to get over that fence by climbing the tree. The fence is a good ten feet high, and the strands of barbed wire curve forward at the top. That limb, besides, is twelve feet or more from the ground, and not very strong, either. It looks as if we would ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... and mature deliberation. In case such a measure should be thought of, some form of fellowship, some bond of union—must be recognized betwixt the British Conference and such a body as I contemplate. Here is a ticklish point—it is at this point that all splits and quarrels begin. But clearly the line of justice, religion, and a Christian experience may be discovered, if honestly sought. I am deeply convinced myself that the organization of such a body as I refer to must, in the nature of things develop the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... drank without the least reluctance, and said, 'Yes, miller, I am called out. 'Tis ticklish times for us soldiers now; we hold our lives in our hands—What are those fellows grinning at behind the table?—I ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... will be a horrible nuisance," Easton said regretfully; "but if one does go in for a thing of this sort it seems to me that it must be done thoroughly. And besides, it is very annoying just at the ticklish point of a game, when you would give anything to be able to catch the fellow ahead of you with the ball, to find that your lungs have given out, and that you haven't a ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... interruption to this ticklish excursion into his sacred emotions, he jumped to his feet and went out to meet the man who was riding slowly toward them, the two others in his train. Burroughs went with him, and ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... Parliament the patron of its contents. Yet, in the body of it, you insert matters contrary both to the spirit and letter of the act, and what likewise your king dared not have put in his commission to you. The state of things in England, gentlemen, is too ticklish for you to run hazards. You are accountable to Parliament for the execution of that act according to the letter of it. Your heads may pay for breaking it, for you certainly have broke it by exceeding it. And as a friend, who would wish you to escape the paw of the lion, as well as ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... down his eye for a moment. "Sir Isaac," at length he began, "we are relying very much upon you. Is there no suggestion which you can offer on this ticklish theme?" ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... fact that odious creatures possess a susceptibility of their own, that monsters are ticklish! At this word "villain," the female Thenardier sprang from the bed, Thenardier grasped his chair as though he were about to crush it in his hands. "Don't you stir!" he shouted to his wife; and, turning to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and seemed ubiquitous; added a gray gelding to his black mare, and rode them both nearly off their legs. He surveyed land in half a dozen counties—he speculated in grain in half a dozen markets, and did business in shares. His plan in dealing with this ticklish speculation was simple. He listened to nothing anybody said, examined the venture himself, and, if it had a sound basis, bought when the herd was selling, and sold wherever the herd was buying. Hence, he bought ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... have been appointed my guardian, sir. Let us consider this interview at an end. Good-night," and with that she swept out of the room, ignoring Maloney and bestowing one biting glance on Blake, who actually winced, so little relish did he have for this ticklish ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... O idiocy! There is something ticklish in "the truth," and in the SEARCH for the truth; and if man goes about it too humanely—"il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien"—I wager he ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... tight-rope again, at the most ticklish part. For he did think Dick was running Heathcote into mischief, unintentionally, no doubt, but still unmistakably, "Am I?" repeated Dick, rounding on his man, and fixing ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... satisfied with murmuring, smiling the while, as if, after all, there had been something irresistibly amusing in the sheer beauty of the painting: "It smells all right; it makes your head go round; it catches your breath; you feel ticklish all over—and not the faintest clue to how it's done. The man's a sorcerer; the thing's a conjuring-trick, it's a miracle," bursting outright into laughter, "it's dishonest!" Then stopping, solemnly raising his head, pitching his voice on a double-bass ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... is rather ticklish, as you know, and the boy is young! He has not as yet, through proper training, had time to learn all the arts by which one gains one's wishes. Now, I ask nothing more of life, for I know what it gives; therefore he shall have my wish-ring. ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... eating and drinking with Pao-ch'ai, Hsiang-yuen and the other girls, P'ing Erh turned her head round. "Don't rub me like that!" she laughed, "It makes me feel quite ticklish." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... neat. After I had made speech to crowded meeting, lot of questions put. Answered them all satisfactorily. At last one fellow got up, asked me, in voice of thunder, 'Are you, in favour of temperance?' Rather ticklish thing that, you know. As many against it as for it. Looked all round the room; seemed remarkably decent lot; the man who was heckling me a little rubicund as to the nose; but that might be indigestion. Anyhow, felt unless I could satisfy him, I'd lose his vote. 'Are you in favour ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... any more about them," said the young engineer, laughing, as he took off his wideawake and ran his fingers through his curly brown hair. "I declare my scalp feels quite ticklish already." ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... going down hill, the violent shocks frequently threw our runners completely into the air, and the wrench was so great that it was a miracle how the sled escaped fracture. All the joints, it is true, began to work apart, and the ash shafts bent in the most ticklish way; but the rough little conveyance which had already done us such hard service held out gallantly to the end. We reached Mo Myskie on the second night after leaving Sundsvall, and I was greeted with "Salaam aleikoom, ya Sidi!" from the jolly old Tripolitan landlord. There was an unusual amount ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... said Mr. Kelley, reassured. "Now suppose we trek along home and go by-by. I'll write to the Secretary to-night and make a date with him. It's a ticklish job to get guns out of New York. ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... with the Duke of Wellington, to look after business. It would not do for either of us to be gadding, while Ireland, and Turkey, and Portugal want watching. The times are getting ticklish. The stocks are rising most dreadfully, as the barometer falls; and the Squirearchy are beginning to dread that the patridges will be drowned. That will be a sad drawback from the delights of a two-shilling quartern-loaf. For ourselves, we have plenty of work cut out ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... then the window-seat, and then at last the great, stormy, faraway outside world. But sleep did not come. Oh, no! Nothing new came at all except that particularly wretched, itching type of insomnia which seems to rip away from one's body the whole kind, protecting skin and expose all the raw, ticklish fretwork of nerves to the mercy of a gritty blanket or a wrinkled sheet. Pain came too, in its most brutally high night-tide; and sweat, like the smother of furs in summer; and thirst like the scrape of hot sand-paper; and chill like the clammy horror of raw fish. Then, just as ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... pretty ticklish," Charley admitted, "but just the craft for our purpose. She's so light she will float on a good heavy dew, and then she's so easy to take to pieces and pack away. But we'd better stop our chattering, for we are getting near ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... hesitation, I maintain that it is the Asphalte. And I do not speak without experience. For many years I have picked mine up from the box-seat of a hearse, which I think my most virulent opponents will admit, from the ticklish character of its cattle, accustomed as they are to a stiff, formal and lugubrious method of progression, affords a test that must be regarded as supreme by all candid and unprejudiced inquirers ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... spoken to me. Touching this, I would say more to you about it if I were of such profession as permitted me to do so with a good conscience; I content myself, as it is, with leaving yours to do its work within you on so ticklish and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Rushing down grades with the speed of an avalanche, they ascended again without drawing rein, and as if by sheer momentum; for the heavy vehicle now seemed to have a diabolical energy of its own. It ground scattered rocks to powder with its crushing wheels, it swayed heavily on ticklish corners, recovering itself with the resistless forward propulsion of the straining teams, until the lights of Three Pine Station began to glitter through the trees. Then a succession of yells broke from the driver, so strong and dominant that they seemed to outstrip even the speed of the unabated ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... who during this conversation had sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes fastened upon the floor, "things is getting sorter ticklish down here in this neck of the woods already. Nobody don't know who ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... several years before this appropriation of the church rates could be abolished. The year 1830, with a brand new squire and parson, was too ticklish a ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... each other. I'll put them side by side, so you can see. It isn't only the decanters, but the liquor looks the same in both, and tastes so you wouldn't know the difference till you woke up in your tracks. I got the poison from a blamed Indian away west, and it's ruther ticklish stuff. So I keep the label around the trap-bottle, and only leave it out nights. That's the idea, and that's all there is to it," added Maguire, putting the labelled decanter back in the stand. "But ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... most harm to the liberty of England, he who affirms that no woman may be exalted above any realm to make the liberty of the same thrall to any stranger nation, "or they that approve whatsoever pleaseth Princes for the time." Leaving thus the ticklish argument which he cannot withdraw, but finds it impolitic to bring forward, he turns to the Queen's individual behaviour in her position as being the thing most important at the present moment, now that she has effectively attained her ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... their treatment,—skilful enough to be trusted with the manipulation of that delicate and most precious organ. I want an aurist who knows all about the ear and what can be done for its disorders. The maladies of the larynx are very ticklish things to handle, and nobody should be trusted to go behind the epiglottis who has not the tactus eruditus. And so of certain other particular classes of complaints. A great city must have a limited number of experts, each ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... didn't you, and now look yourself, and see where your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but no, no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It's a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it's no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there? —that's your gizzard! Aloft! ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... It was ticklish work for a greenhorn. Joe threw off all the turns save the last, which he held with one hand, while with the other he attempted to bring in on the painter. But at that instant it tightened with a tremendous jerk, the boat sheering sharply into ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... quo' he, 'put up your whittle, [knife] I'm no design'd to try its mettle; But if I did—I wad be kittle [ticklish] To be mislear'd— [if mischievous] I wad na mind it, no that ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... in his protest and Bud said nothing. But Sunfish's head bumped the tail of Eddie's horse many times during that ride. Once in the Gap, with a lighted lantern in his rein hand and his six-shooter in the other—because it was ticklish riding, in there with lights revealing them to anyone who might be coming through—he was content to go slowly, peering this way ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... Mr. Marsh, who was now more at her beck and call than ever, and told him she had a ticklish letter to write. "I can talk with the best," said she, "but the moment I sit down and take up a pen something cold runs up my shoulder, and then down my backbone, and I'm palsied; now you are always writing, and can't say 'Bo' to a goose in company. Let us mix ourselves; I'll walk about and ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... youngster. I didn't agree to pay till the scheme was carried out. But we've done better than we 'xpected, and, to take you out of danger, I offered to pay part down. In a business as ticklish as stocks, you don't expect a man to come down with the ready without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... they have altered or changed any thing concerning the generalitie of matters, but rather to wrest and turne the judgement of the events many times against reason, to our advantage, and to omit whatsoever they supposed to be doubtful or ticklish in their masters life: they have made a business of it: witnesse the recoylings of the Lords of Momorancy and Byron, which therein are forgotten; and which is more, you shall not so much as find the ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... will be a ticklish job to land her on this spot, but I think I can do it. I mean ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... told him with my liniment lookin' good and earnest I know, and tears almost standin' in my eyes, I told him the feelin's I felt for the Powers, how mad I'd been at 'em in the past, and how them feelin's had turned into pity, for I knowed just what a ticklish place they wuz in and how necessary it wuz for 'em to keep a cool head and a wise, religious heart, and then, sez I, "I d'no as that will save you. You Powers have got so hard a job to tackle that it don't seem to me ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... lads realized that it was a ticklish moment. Even Myra, if startled, might give the scream that would betray ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... She alighted without his help, and behind her he ascended the high steps of Miss Birdseye's residence. He had grown very curious, and among the things he wanted to know was why in the world this ticklish spinster had written ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... and construct brick buildings should never forget that they have to be handled with caution, and are really very ticklish and unstable. One or two of the methods of overcoming this to some extent may be mentioned. The first is the introduction of what is called bond. At the end of the last century it was usual to build ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... front of the Borough Dining Rooms, and the anxious proprietor, attended by his two little daughters (aproned and sleeved for hard work in imitation of their stout, perspiring mother), was accepting unusual joints from it. Ticklish weather for meat—you could see that from the man's gestures. Even on ordinary days those low-ceiled dining-rooms, stretching far back from the street in a complicated vista of interiors, were apt to be crowded; for the quality of the eightpenny ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... swung from side to side, precisely as a swing does when you jump on the board and try to steady it by the ropes. I looked at him, at the scale—that's it; it's exactly like a pair of scales, with one scale—at the deep depths below us, and at myself. I imagined the ticklish thrill which would permeate my body when we started. I fancied the glories of the prospective perspective ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... the question was becoming ticklish, led him aside and explained things so satisfactorily to him that he soon drove off, recommending that watch should be kept, and that the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... "skipper" of HMS Porpoise, "paddle sloop, 6 guns," as she was described in the Navy List—the same unaffected, jovial, good-natured sailor whom everybody liked, men and messmates alike. His only weakness was a love for practical joking, which he would carry out sometimes, perhaps, to a rather ticklish extent—for his own good, that is, as he never knowingly did anyone else ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... so confoundedly ... ticklish. Heaven only knows sometimes which way the cat is going to jump! It certainly seems to me, though, that the peculiar conditions of this case supply an element of insecurity, of possible disintegration, that does not exist in ordinary everyday life. You must ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... good earnest, were those compelled to resort who ventured upon the ticklish experiment of presenting heroic entertainments for king's palaces, where 'hanging was the word' in case of a fright; but, with a genius like this behind the scenes, so fertile in invention, so various in gifts, who could aggravate his voice so effectually, giving you one moment the pitch of ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... gossip; a wife. Kin', kind. King's-hood, the 2d stomach in a ruminant (equivocal for the scrotum). Kintra, country. Kirk, church. Kirn, a churn. Kirn, harvest home. Kirsen, to christen. Kist, chest, counter. Kitchen, to relish. Kittle, difficult, ticklish, delicate, fickle. Kittle, to tickle. Kittlin, kitten. Kiutlin, cuddling. Knaggie, knobby. Knappin-hammers, hammers for breaking stones. Knowe, knoll. Knurl, knurlin, dwarf. Kye, cows. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the captain, "I learn we are going after treasure—hear it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure is ticklish work; I don't like treasure voyages on any account; and I don't like them, above all, when they are secret, and when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the secret has been told ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had climbed upon his shelf he found that it was going to be one of those hot uncomfortable nights when pillow and sheet get ticklish and make the skin feel itchy. The air he breathed was stifling, and for a long time he lay awake listening to the rippling of the water against the sides of the ship. But at last he slept deeply and dreamlessly, to be awakened by a hand laid ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... comb, and if he should find anything there to kick up no end of a row for the honor of the family. All of which was nothing but words, reflected Roger pettishly. It all came to this, that he had a most ticklish evening ahead! On the path as a rider greeted him, his reply was ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... right with Corny now, and we had a good time together. I was going to say to him, once, that he had changed his mind about girls, but I thought I wouldn't. It would be better to let well enough alone, and he was a ticklish customer. ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... had, as he firmly believed, a knowledge that Dr Pendle was a murderer; yet although the possession of such a secret gave him unlimited power, he was afraid to use it, for its mere exercise in the present lack of material evidence to prove its truth was a ticklish job. Cargrim felt like a man gripping a comet by its tail, and doubtful whether to hold on or let go. However, this uncertain state of things could be remedied by a strict examination into the circumstances of the case; therefore Cargrim set his mind to searching them out. He had ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... " I would rather not, dear Alfred: the introduction could not be for her eternal good. Julia's soul is in a very ticklish state; she wavers as yet between this world and the other world; and it won't do; it won't do; there is no middle path. You would very likely turn the scale, and then I should have fought against her ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... "I shouldn't feel the anxiety I do if we hadn't been having trouble with those mountain people up toward Flat Rock over that girl that died at the hospital." He laughed a little ruefully. "Trying to do things for folks is ticklish business. There wasn't a man in the crowd that interviewed me whom I could convince that our hospital wasn't a factory for the making of stiffs which we sold to the Northern Medical College. Oh, it ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... off the same plate is better. If he rumples your dress a little, and imprints a kiss, in passing, on the back of your neck, let him. When, on coming home from a ball, he tears out the pins, tangles the strings, and laughs like a madman, trying to see whether you are ticklish, let him. Do not cry "Murder!" if his moustache pricks you, but think that it is all because at heart he loves you well. He worships your virtues; is it surprising hence that he should cherish their outward coverings? No doubt ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... from one hundred to two hundred pounds of Shimose explosive, and they are arranged to automatically adjust themselves to varying depths of water. The ship which strikes one of them will be done for! Having told you so much, you will readily understand that they are ticklish affairs to handle, particularly when it comes to laying them; hence my choice of you, Captain Swinburne, to supervise and execute the task. I shall be glad if you will go aboard, at your earliest convenience, and make yourself ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... is power, and the ignorant man is but an infant, and to give him knowledge is like putting a loaded blunderbuss into the hands of a child. What can an ignorant man do with knowledge? He is as likely to use it wrong end uppermost as in any other manner. Learning is a ticklish thing; it was said by Festus to have maddened even the wise and experienced Paul and what may we not expect it to do with your downright ignoramus? What ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... will be prying, of his own accord, into things of such ticklish and troublesome, not to say perilous nature—I've nothing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... dangerous scouts in enemy country this turned out to be the most ticklish. For young Lieutenant Beale, the tenderfoot, it was hair-raising. Captain Pico had known that the celebrated Kit Carson was with the Americans upon the hill, and feared him. He had placed three lines of mounted patrols around the base of the ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... who has climbed the peaks of the highest mountains, throw a stone down their very deep clefts, a sound is heard from them; or if he throw it into one of the mountain lakes, which beyond doubt are bottomless, a storm will immediately arise, just as when you thrust a straw into the ear or nose of a ticklish animal, it shakes its head, or runs shudderingly away. What so like breathing, especially of those fish who draw water into their mouths and spout it out again through their gills, as that wonderful tide! ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... this ain't a joke, with rather a bitter cream! It seems as if I'd woke from a mighty ticklish dream; And I think she "smells a rat," for she smiles at me so queer; I hope she don't; good Lord! I hope ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... Whenever was this ticklish business of the dovetailing of two lives accomplished without some small mutual effort? No more could be said than that Carlisle felt, in rare and weak moments, a certain sense of strain. An immaterial subtlety this, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... position to bombard an enemy's fixed trenches and lines, at once to find his ranges roughly all round to prominent objects by the mekometer, as it gives one added confidence and is invaluable when shooting over the heads of one's own men to cover their attack, which is often a ticklish job and to be successful must be continued up to the very last moment ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... reproached him for having kept to himself the best part of his speech,— the conclusion. He thereupon protested that the best part of a speech was persuasion, and that he who did not aim at persuasion should make no speech; for, as to conviction, that was a ticklish business. As, however, they gave him no peace, he began a Capuchinade on the spot, more comical than ever, perhaps, for the very reason that he took it into his head to speak on the most serious subjects. For with texts out of the Bible, which had nothing to do with the business; ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... him went Philip Price, who insisted on joining in the search for the hapless Alick. The young tutor had proved himself a very friend in need in 'the day of trouble' that had befallen the Bunk. What more natural then that he should persist in helping the captain in what would be a ticklish piece of work, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... was made at the ticklish rope bridge for a file of sixteen coffins, each borne by two of the Sergeant's unwilling conscripts, while the Sergeant closed ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... and somewhat full-blown blonde, Desirable, distinguish'd, celebrated For several winters in the grand, grand monde. I 'd rather not say what might be related Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground; Besides there might be falsehood in what 's stated: Her late performance had been a dead set At Lord ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... epigram so graciously sent him, to say nothing of tasting its elegances; but—the epigram was Politian's: what more need be said? Still, by way of postscript, he feared that his incomparable friend's comparison of the gnat to Venus, on account of its origin from the waters, was in many ways ticklish. On the one hand, Venus might be offended; and on the other, unless the poet intended an allusion to the doctrine of Thales, that cold and damp origin seemed doubtful to Scala in the case of a creature so fond of warmth; a fish were perhaps the better comparison, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the Lowlanders still continued to a certain degree, the former looking upon the latter as an inferior race, less brave and hardy, but at the same time, suspecting them of a disposition to take airs upon themselves under the idea of superior refinement. This made them techy and ticklish company for a stranger on his first coming among them; ruffling up and putting themselves upon their mettle on the slightest occasion, so that he had in a manner to quarrel and fight his way into ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... built at Bermuda during the war of 1814; they went through the waves without rising to them, and consequently were too ticklish for northern stations. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Conde's conduct does not do him great honour, but it is a very probable one. In the first place, if La Rochefoucauld knew how to glide so cleverly over all the ticklish points in which he could not appear to advantage, he did not, strictly speaking, tell lies; he retires rather than attacks, unless hurried away by passion, and he was never in a passion with Conde. And, further, the conduct which ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... it with you two in. The captain and we can slide down the ropes. We're used to it, but it's ticklish business for land-lubbers." And the man grinned even in ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... delicate and ticklish a point has to be negotiated. Well, thank goodness, you have a name that will be a tower of strength, Bernick. But listen now; we must make our arrangements, to some extent. Mr. Hilmar Tonnesen has written an ode to ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... father-in-law and the indulgent grandpapa, the Baron took his son into the garden, and laid before him a variety of observations full of good sense as to the attitude to be taken up by the Chamber on a certain ticklish question which had that morning come under discussion. The young lawyer was struck with admiration for the depth of his father's insight, touched by his cordiality, and especially by the deferential tone which seemed to place the two men on ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... Wife's rudeness, Monsieur. A little thing puts her out, and She is somewhat displeased at your not thinking her to be under thirty. That is the truth, is it not, Marguerite? You know, Monsieur, that Age is always a ticklish subject with a Woman. Come! come! Marguerite, clear up a little. If you have not Sons as old, you will some twenty years hence, and I hope, that we shall live to see them just such Lads ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... able to, at that," said Stone. "You're pretty slight. But it would be a ticklish proposition without any rope from above. Well, ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... their crying made me feel so bad that I was sartin there was no fight in me. Women (he added) are poor plunder to have along when going out on a war party, but Kit talked to them and then to the Indians, and put them both finally on the right trail. Wah!! but them were ticklish times." ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... stand still, and we would shoot the bear; but he cried out earnestly, "O pray! O pray! no shoot, me shoot by and then;" he would have said by and by. However, to shorten the story, Friday danced so much, and the bear stood so ticklish, that we had laughing enough indeed, but still could not imagine what the fellow would do; for first we thought he depended upon shaking the bear off; and we found the bear was too cunning for that too; for he would not get out far enough to be thrown down, but clings fast with his great ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... way of re-forming the lines, and adjusting the action of the machine—now engaged in grinding out Brassfield's nomination—so as to produce other grist just as good, if that were possible. It was ticklish business, but it must be done. The time was short, but before the caucuses met a new candidate must be found, and the word passed down the line that the dear people had changed their minds over night on the subject ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... speeches. "Mr. Speaker," he said, "I beg, Sir, to call your attention to the fact that strangers are present." The historic form of this advertisement, "I spy strangers;" is briefer still, but inadmissible in these ticklish times. One does not want to see, in the enemy Press, "British Prime ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... craft, and very apt to be took all aback by the wind o' love, as you might say—but Lord! it's only natural arter all. Ah! the rearing o' motherless nieces is a ticklish matter, gentlemen—as to nevvys, I can't say, never 'aving 'ad none to rear—but nieces—Lord! I could write a book on 'em, that is, s'posing I could write, which I can't; for, as I've told you many a time, my Lord, and you then but a bye over here on a visit, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... tail, held fast the slender steel chain by an ingenious hitch about the ever-useful swamp-hook. When Jim shouted "whoa!" from the top of the skidway, the driver did not trouble to stop the horse,—he merely let go the hook. So the power was shut off suddenly, as is meet and proper in such ticklish business. He turned and walked back, and Jenny, like a dog, without the necessity of command, followed ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... ticklish one, so to speak," he observed, vainly trying to dodge the palm leaves to the right of him; "but I think we ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... good Castilian may have had something to do with his astuteness. Once, as you may have heard, the Native Son even scored in a battle of wits with Andy Green, and scored heavily. And he had helped Andy pull the Flying U out of an extremely ticklish situation, by his keen wit saving the outfit much trouble and money. Wherefore they heeded now his warning to the extent of unsmilingly discussing the obstacle he had pointed out to them. One after another they read the paragraph which they had before passed over too hastily, and ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... trouble with a short circuit in our electric engines, and were compelled to run on the surface for several hours while we replaced one of the cam-shafts and renewed some washers. It was a ticklish time, for had a torpedo-boat come upon us we could not have dived. The perfect submarine of the future will surely have some alternative engines for such an emergency. However by the skill of Engineer ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my brains out if she likes." The captain used to remark frequently: "Ah, yes; I dare say one-third weight above beams would have been quite enough for most ships. But then, you see, there's no two of them alike on the seas, and she's an uncommonly ticklish ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... north passed the Charterhouse walls in the old coaching days, the boys not seeing any just reason why they should be debarred from the exhilarating spectacle, notched the trees and drove in spikes at ticklish points, which enabled them to mount to the upper branches, whence they could watch the coaches at their leisure. The illustration referred to is labelled, A Coach Tree, but without this explanation the reader would scarcely suspect (the letterpress ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... It was a ticklish enterprise. As is frequently the case upon these occasions, nervous tension manifested itself much more seriously at Headquarters than in the front-line trenches. The man on the spot is, as a rule, much too busy with the actual ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... sun, or the fire in winter—practises which I am accustomed to follow among the Sabines also—and I daily join a party of neighbors, which we prolong with various conversation till late at night, as far as we can. But there is not, as it were, so ticklish a sensibility of pleasures in old men. I believe it; but then neither is there the desire. However, nothing is irksome unless you long for it. Well did Sophocles, when a certain man inquired of him advanced in age whether he enjoyed venereal pleasures, reply, "The gods give me something ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... "A ticklish passage for a few yards. Stand close until I get by; now cling to the wall, and follow me. Once off this shelf we can plan our journey. Madame, take hold of my jacket. Rene, you have walked this ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... wish you people would have more to do," or on another occasion, when she had resisted being brought into the examining room, she said, "I will get out of here if I break a leg." But once when the nurse accidentally tickled her, she said, "Since I am ticklish, I must be jealous—I should worry." She also answered very few questions and such responses as she made were chiefly expressions of resentment. Thus, when one kept urging her, she finally would say "stop," or after much urging "I am going to hurt you pretty quick." Sometimes she said "Go away," ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... bureaucratical distrust and terror of the common people (a combination almost unknown in England), is French. Everybody remembers the ingenious argument in Peter Simple that the French were quite as brave as the English, indeed more so, but that they were extraordinarily ticklish. Jeffrey, we have seen, was very far from being a coward, but he was very ticklish indeed. His private letters throw the most curious light possible on the secret, as far as he was concerned, of the earlier Whig opposition to the war, and of ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... discoverers. It was pretty to see with what discretion we approached and circled round it, searching for the most favorable point of attack. So much of an iceberg is beneath the surface of the water, ballasting the whole, that it is rather ticklish business cruising in its vicinity. We lay off and on, coquetting with the little beauty, while one of our boats pulled up to it, and threw a lariat over a glittering peak that flamed in the sun like a torch. Then we drew in the slack and made fast, while a half dozen ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... see Miss Crown as soon as possible, Webster," he said. "Do you suppose she will go up in the air if I mention the fact that I know she was with Thane yesterday up in that old house? It's a rather ticklish thing to spring on ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... accurate description he knew the place. This was Duke Morgan's ranch-house, set as a fortress almost at the mouth of the Gap. To pass it unobserved was to compass the most ticklish part of his mission, and without changing his slow pace he rode on, wondering whether a bullet, if fired from any of the low, open windows—which he could almost throw his hat into as he trotted past—would knock him off his ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... rumour of Forstner's imprisonment reached the Duchesse d'Orleans, who had believed her compatriot returned to Germany. Now it was a ticklish thing for the Duchess to undertake intervention on behalf of a Protestant, for though she had joined the Church of Rome on her marriage to 'Monsieur,' still it was whispered in Paris that she had reprehensible leanings to the ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... understood) intended to be throned at Jerusalem. The Emperor himself might call, and once (being in liquor) did call Count Eudo of Saint-Pol 'cousin'; for the fact was so. You must understand that in the Gaul of that day things were in this ticklish state, that a man (as they say) was worth the scope of his sword: reiver yesterday, warrior to-morrow; yesterday wearing a hemp collar, to-day a count's belt, and to-morrow, may be, a king's crown. You climbed in various ways, by the field, by the board, by the ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... the mason? Not now! No sir! I knows him! He's a ticklish customer where his honour ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... laughter greeted him, and having got the better of his master in more ways than one, he made the most of the advantage by playfully worrying him as he kept him down, licking his face in spite of his struggles, burrowing in his neck with a ticklish nose, snapping at his buttons, and yelping joyfully, as if it was the best joke in the world to play hide-and-seek ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... with them, chasing them with my biograph, getting a series of moving pictures of that bullfight which was sure the real thing. It was a ticklish thing to do, though knowing that neither bull dared take his eyes off his adversary for a second, I felt reasonably safe. The old Weetah beat the new champion out that night, but the next morning they were at it again, and the new buffalo ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... the time when I was under the snowdrift, only it wasn't so cold," Bunny said, telling about his accident afterward. "And it was awfully ticklish!" ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... end of bootiful wimin, and a heap of good clothes. There was a good deal of hair present that belonged on the heds of peple who didn't cum with it—but this is a ticklish subjeck for me. I larfed at my wife's waterfall, which indoosed that superior woman to take it off and heave it at me rather vilently; and as there was about a half bushil of it, it knockt me over, and give me pains in my body which I hain't ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... maxim; and besides, I did not recollect that, in bestowing praise and strongly censuring in the same article, without naming the persons, the language must be so appropriated to those to whom it is applicable, that the most ticklish pride cannot find in it the least thing equivocal. I was in this respect in such an imprudent security, that I never once thought it was possible any one should make a false application. It will soon appear whether or not ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... see if his listeners caught the points, so that he often upset both his own and their equilibrium. Owing to this habit he was conscious that he did not read well, and was always uncommonly pleased if anybody else would relieve him of the task; this, however, was a ticklish thing to do, especially in the case of MSS. copy, for every word read falsely or every hesitating glance upon a word to make sure what it was went like a knife to his heart, and this effect he could not conceal. As a singer he was a ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Most of the river fell perpendicularly ten or twelve feet; but near its centre the force of the current had so far worn away the rock as to permit the water to shoot through a narrow passage, at an angle of about forty or forty five degrees. Down this ticklish descent the canoe had glanced, amid fragments of broken rock, whirlpools, foam, and furious tossings of the element, which an uninstructed eye would believe menaced inevitable destruction to an object so fragile. But the very ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... at present; at first he had only one, now, of course, he has a few more; when he has got enough he will hybridise. You don't know what that is. Cross-breed with it; use the blue with the old yellow daffodil as parents to new varieties. That's ticklish work; growers can't afford to do it till they have a fair number of the new sort; but, of course, they occasionally get something ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... has met again and the action taken by an overwhelming majority of the Assembly fills us with gratitude to God. The ticklish part of the report on co-operation was that, of course, on colored evangelization. Here the report first stated what had been the policy of the Southern Church for a separate Negro denomination, and then gave ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... landed on his voyage out of Ireland to convert the Hebrideans. And, indeed, I think he had some claim to be called saint; for, with the boats of that past age, to make so rough a passage, and land on such a ticklish coast, was surely not far short of the miraculous. It was to him, or to some of his monkish underlings who had a cell there, that the islet owes its holy and beautiful ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... promise is concerned, yet remember that a promise and a fancy are two different things. We may do what's right for the fear o' God, and not love Him either. Marmion, let the marriage bells be rung early—a maiden's heart is a ticklish thing. . ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Judges, Nae drooning a' your grudges In deep, deep draughts o' claret, and a' your senses tae, Nae chatter wise or witty On ticklish points o' dittay,— The days o' my Circuits ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... is, if you've got the pluck and the sand. But it's a ticklish place. There is a good many places in there that I ain't never explored, and don't want to; and it's safe to bet that the hoboes ain't done it, neither. I reckon, mister, that that's about all I ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... the sounds of digging now, but there was no exchange of words—doubtless the stilled sentry had been the only loquacious spirit among them. This presence of human beings laboring in silence at dead of night made his task decidedly ticklish, and minutes passed before he gained a position behind the last pile of ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... had gone back to the library for their coffee, "I am afraid this Commission is going to be ticklish business." ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... ticklish work, as the dusk deepened, getting from one wreck to another; and at last—after nearly going down into the weed between two of them, because of a rotten belaying-pin that I caught at breaking in my hand—I had to resign myself to giving ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... the root which shoots out over your head, sir, for 'tis ticklish work getting along just here. Do you feel ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... It was ticklish work paddling the raft. The logs were fastened together so insecurely, owing to the fact that all the rope was in the runaway boat, that Harry was in constant fear that they would come apart, and was obliged to paddle very carefully to avoid putting any strain on the raft. With such a craft speed ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... for which the whole nation—and London in particular—has every reason to be grateful. If I understand Colonel REAY rightly he doesn't wish bouquets to be thrown at the Specials, but he would not, I think, discourage me from saying that they performed dangerous and ticklish work with unfailing resource and tact. All of us know that they desire no other reward for their services than the satisfaction of having done their duty; but our gratitude demands to be heard; and I for one take this occasion to trumpet forth the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... whole crowd—the crowd which had just been carefully and systematically robbed—burst into laughter. But this was the end. There was Allister's whistle; Jeff Rankin ran around from the other side of the train; the gang faded instantly into the thicket. Andrew, as the rear guard—his most ticklish moment—backed slowly toward the trees. Once there was a waver in the line, such as precedes a rush. He stopped short, and a single twitch of his rifle froze the waverers in ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... "Now comes the ticklish part of the business," Costigan informed them. His helmet was slowly turning this way and that, and the others knew that through his spy-ray goggles he was studying their route. "There's only one boat we stand a chance of reaching, and somebody's ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... effect. I suppose the only way they can figure it out is that the bottom has suddenly dropped out of everything, and they are so busy lighting out for home that they haven't time to go to the root of things. But it's a ticklish job, for all that, if you're not used to it. I know when I first did it I shut my eyes and wondered whether they would bury my remains ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... dull barrister to explain: in the meantime, if any reader be impatient for the definition, a night's billeting in Covent Garden watchhouse will initiate him into its blessings; he is not so dull as to require to be told how to get there. The liberty of the press is another ticklish subject to handle— like a hedgehog—all points; but we may be allowed to quote, as one of the most harmless specimens of the liberty of the press—the production of THE MIRROR, as we always acknowledge the liberty by reference to the sources whence our borrowed wealth is taken. This ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various
... and declaring that there all who in this world had loved each other would be reunited, the girl put this question to him—"Would those meet who had loved each other, or only those whom the minister had united?" This was a ticklish question; but the reverend gentleman answered, from his own puritanical point of view, that only those could possibly love each other who were united by the church, and that it was of course impossible for those who were thus united not to love each other. But he was careful not to ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... through Rome is intensely interesting. The streets are mostly narrow and crooked, and we are always turning corners, driving across small triangular open places and in lanes where it is ticklish work to pass a vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Yet no boulevards, no great streets in the world, can rival in beauty the streets of Rome. They are skirted by old grey palaces built thousands of years ago rather than ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... the fear of being measured still possessed me, 'Take care,' said I to him, 'what you are going to do with me; I am very ticklish, I warn you.' But he, with his soft voice (for he is a courteous fellow, we must admit, my friend), he with his soft voice, 'Monsieur,' said he, 'that your dress may fit you well, it must be made according to your figure. Your figure is exactly reflected ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... facility as an orator, Lyons left this sentence incomplete in face of the ticklish difficulty of explaining that he had refrained from suggesting such a hope to a widow who had lost her husband only two years before. Yet he hastened to bridge over this ellipsis by saying, "Without such a faith a union between us ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... the swashbucklers were almost funereal in their solemnity. Passepoil, relying upon his Norman cunning, took it upon himself to explain a ticklish situation. "It is lucky we are here to help you," ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... commencement of his career—and that of journalism is a ticklish one—he had been greatly helped by Juve, whose knowledge and advice had been invaluable to him. Fandor had been involved—particularly during the last few years—in the most sensational crimes, in the most mysterious affairs, and, whether by chance or voluntarily, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... I see!" said Mr. Sherwin, rattling a bunch of keys in his pocket, with an expression of considerable perplexity; "but this is a ticklish business, you know—a very queer and ticklish business indeed. To have a gentleman of your birth and breeding for a son-in-law, is of course—but then there is the money question. Suppose you failed with your father after all—my money is out in my speculations—I ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... "It's a ticklish thing to crawl over the stern of a canoe in the spatter of slugs, with the roar of muzzle-loaders above. It's shakin' to the nerves, but the maid never flinched, not even when a bullet split the gunnel. She ripped a piece of her dress and plugged a hole under the water line ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... had more hesitation in it than usual, as he approached the ticklish topic, for he was not perfectly clear how so exalted a potentate might take it. He had doubts whether reference to any individual capital, or fortune, might not seem a wretchedly retail affair to so wholesale a dealer. Greatly relieved by Mr Merdle's affable offer of assistance, he caught ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Lacey. "I'm having a doubtful moment right now; not one, but dozens! I'm on the most ticklish errand of my life. That's what I called on Judge Trent ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... difficult to execute this order, for the current of old Missouri, thrusting against so large an object, was incredibly strong; but at last, little by little edging the heavy staging up over the limb of the snag, we got its end upon another fork and so made a ticklish support, half in and half ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... derrick, and the latter was then erected with the legs set into depressions in the ledge and the upper ends slanting outward but kept from falling over the edge by a rope tied to one of the fixed rungs set in the fissure. With this derrick we hoisted up the boards in a few hauls. The job was a very ticklish one, but Bill used the greatest care to prevent accident. The derrick, rope and tackle were carefully tested before used, and as soon as the load was attached to the lower pulley block the two who did the loading were instructed to crawl back into the ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... savage into the water was a difficult and ticklish job; but they finally succeeded, after Donald had first removed the gag from his mouth. He took the Indian's knife, and, as the latter slid into the water, Bullen held him by the scalp-lock, while Donald severed the thong that bound his wrists. In his rage, the Indian attempted to ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... were still fussing with the machine he despatched me on the rather ticklish errand of gathering together all those who had been at the Novella at the time and might possibly ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... The boat approaches the fish bow foremost, but is made sharp at both ends that it may "back off," if necessary; the whale being often dangerous to approach, and ordinarily starting, when struck, in a way to render his immediate neighbourhood somewhat ticklish. The fish usually goes down when harpooned, and the line must be permitted to "run-out," or he would drag the boat after him. But a whale must breathe as well as a man, and the faster he runs the sooner he must come up for a fresh stock of air. Now, the proper use of the harpoon and ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... whose vanity is excessively ticklish, seemed annoyed at being lectured on the threshold ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... prudence: but I do not know whether it were safe, to hint it'. especially as by this time, at least before your application could come, it must be disposed of. Lord Rochfort wishes it, Lord Huntingdon has asked it; Lord Tyrawley and Lord Bristol(859) are talked of. I am so afraid of ticklish situations for you, that in case of the latter's removal, I should scarce wish you Turin. I cannot quit this chapter without lamenting Keene! my father had the highest opinion of his abilities, and indeed his late Negotiations have been crowned with ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... been very warm—Lavalliere suspecting the lady's games, told her that Maille loved her dearly, that she had in him a man of honour, a gentleman who doted on her, and was ticklish on the score ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... which I now saw was an enormous panther, I waited until I could place a shot where I felt it would do the most good, for at best a frontal shot at any of the large carnivora is a ticklish matter. I had some advantage in that the beast was not charging; its head was held low and its back exposed; and so at forty yards I took careful aim at its spine at the junction of neck and shoulders. But at the same instant, as though sensing ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Neapolitans; and to Cardinal Perelli, remarkable for his simplicity, which quality, as may be supposed, loses nothing in passing through the hands of his present biographer. With his usual skill, M. Dumas glides from a ticklish story of which the cardinal is the hero, (a story that he does not tell, for which forbearance we give him due credit, since he is evidently sorely tempted thereto,) to an account of the Vardarelli, a band of outlaws which for some time ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... we drop into the canyon of Bear Creek. To the left are great andesite crowns on the mountain tops. Here also are more glacially polished masses and cliffs of granite, clearly indicating great glacial activity in the upper part of this canyon. The trail is ticklish in a few places, with steps up and down which our horses take gingerly, but nothing which need excite an extra heart-beat to ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... spoken—told his whole story, as he says—he is rather glad than otherwise to be relieved from the common curiosity of strangers. He's a rare bird, Gryce. If he stops to think, he must see that he stands in a more or less ticklish position. But he does not betray by look or action any doubt of our entire belief in the truth of all his statements. His only trouble seems to be that he has lost, by these inhuman means, the girl upon whom he had set his heart. To-morrow we ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... for that, Mr. Thorn," said Fleda, as the gentleman was making rather ticklish efforts to reach a superb Fuchsia that hung high,—"You are endangering sundry things ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... along the footways: "Special edition. Shocking murder of an M.P." That was the funeral oration of one friend and client; and he could not help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another should be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal. It was, at least, a ticklish decision that he had to make; and, self-reliant as he was by habit, he began to cherish a longing for advice. It was not to be had directly; but perhaps, he thought, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ticklish of all subjects to handle at this period was the position of the human species in zoological classification. "It was a burning question in the sense that those who touched it were almost certain to burn their fingers severely." ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... one.' And would you believe it, it ruined our business! And I'm always like that, always like that. Always injuring myself with my politeness. Once, many years ago, I said to an influential person: 'Your wife is a ticklish lady,' in an honorable sense, of the moral qualities, so to speak. But he asked me, 'Why, have you tickled her?' I thought I'd be polite, so I couldn't help saying, 'Yes,' and he gave me a fine tickling on the spot. Only that happened long ago, so I'm not ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Kansas cleared White Horse Island. There was a ticklish hour while Courtenay and Boyle looked for the shoal. When its long, low sandspit was revealed by the falling tide, the ship took thought of her agony there, and traversed those treacherous waters with due reverence. Thenceforth, the run was due south until eight bells, when, for the second ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... grew very thick towards the end of the march, with all signs of a blizzard. We unharnessed the ponies at the top of Ski slope—Wilson guided them down from rock patch to rock patch; the remainder of us got down a sledge and necessaries over the slope. It is a ticklish business to get the sledge along the ice foot, which is now all blue ice ending in a drop to the sea. One has to be certain that the party has good foothold. All reached the hut in safety. The ponies have admirably comfortable quarters ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... taken also, though it's hardly conceivable that the murderer waited to sort over the papers in the safe. I tell you, gentlemen, his position was a ticklish one." It was the ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... excused her beautiful appearance, to herself, by suggesting that it would not do for the husband of her sister to detest her! That was sophistry, and it was sophistry that served her now; but the subjects upon which she exercised it were becoming hourly more and more ticklish. The woman of two weeks back would have started and turned pale before the woman ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne |
