"Prodding" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the saddled mule hitched up behind the tent—that intended for Conchita. It is now ridden by the ex-Ranger, who, prodding it with the point of his bowie, puts ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... school reassembled and she made vague excuses. All their meetings amounted to this, that she sat on the wall, more or less in bounds as she expressed it, and let Mr. Polly fall in love with her and try to express it below. She sat in a state of irresponsible exaltation, watching him and at intervals prodding a vivisecting point of encouragement into him—with that strange passive cruelty which is natural to her sex ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... and went back to work. A few didn't even do that, but went right on concentrating on their jobs. Malone headed for a man working all alone in front of a workbench, frowning down at a complicated-looking mechanism that seemed to have neither head nor tail, and prodding at it with a long, thin screwdriver. The man was thin, too, but not very long; he was a little under average height, and he had straight black hair, thick-lensed glasses and a studious expression, even when he was frowning. He looked as if the mechanism were a student who had cut too many ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... tie Bolivar and throw him, but he escaped into a side street and watched the engines put out the fire, and he swung around with his trunk and tusks and wouldn't let anyone come near him but pa with the hook, and he seemed to enjoy the prodding, but I guess that gave him courage to ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... year that we had two great storms. This was the first one, and I remember it well, because I found in the morning that it had lifted the thatch of my pigsty into the widow's garden as clean as a boy's kite. When I looked over the hedge, widow—Tom Lamport's widow that was—was prodding for her nasturtiums with a daisy grubber. After I had watched her for a little I went down to the Fox and Grapes to tell landlord what she had said to me. Landlord he laughed, being a married man and at ease with ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... on his heel, he crept slowly down the staircase, and very soon had brought Stuart and Jules to the warm quarters he had discovered. There, indeed, they stripped off their wet clothing and hung it in front of the fire, which, by diligent prodding and by an addition of logs which lay beside it, was soon giving off a fine heat, and was crackling ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... her with a smile of amusement, before renewing his efforts with the stick, holding his bridle reins with one hand so that his horse could not follow hers. To his disappointment there seemed to be nothing in the hole, but his prodding suddenly developed an amazing fact. He was on the point of dropping the stick and mounting his horse, when he noticed a small piece of metal in the leaves and grass at the mouth of the hole. It was an empty ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... of much prodding of memory, assisted by judicious silver offerings, he finally learned that there was an apartment occupied by a couple with four children, who, it appeared, consumed large quantities of jam of all flavors. At least, their rubbish was bristling with empty jam pots, and the ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... days have been the most hectic of my life. Dozens of great physicians, flown in from every sector of the Solar System, have examined me. "I'm leaving my body to science," I told one particularly prodding group, "but you're not giving it a chance to die!" It is easy for me to die now; when you have truly resigned yourself to death nothing in life can disturb you. I have at long last reached that completely stoical moment. That is why I have recorded ...
— Man Made • Albert R. Teichner
... for you fellers to get busy, and give us something—-songs, dances, comic recitations, or something like that. That's what we brought you here for," declared the boss, rising and prodding ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... which they were just then interested continued his course entirely unconcerned. Soon, however, he seemed to feel fatigue, for he drew his feet and head within his shell, which he tightly closed, and after that no poking or prodding had ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... or else greatly mistaken," he said to himself, "for here is Dionysio fast asleep. Come, wake up!" he cried aloud, at the same time prodding the prostrate form with his toe. As there was no response, he stooped to give the sleeper a vigorous shaking; but almost with the first touch he sprang back in horror. The man lay on his back, but with his head so twisted about that only its rear ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... convenience of food, drink, or beds for the night. The following morning they were told to come out and soldiers marched them several miles into the country to a farm-house. Some of the poor creatures were faint from want of food, and others had heart disease, and fell exhausted in the road, the soldiers prodding them with their bayonets to make them get up! After several hours' detention there, they were brought back to Altheim, where the poor lady arrived a pitiable wreck! What an experience! I have been packed up ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... which charlatans go, just to prove they are supermen. The simpler explanation is that there was someone else in the alley, carefully dressed in dull black to stay invisible in the darkness. The second prodding of a gun in your spine was pure suggestion—you'd been so well-sold by that time you were ready to ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... waistcoat and said: "Bye-bye, Radley. Reg'lar meals, no smoke, and you may grow into a fine lad yet," carried himself off with the awkward leg-work of a heavy-bodied man, cheerily acknowledging the greetings of the little Sucker boys, and prodding the fattest of them in the ribs. Radley strolled away, followed by the wondering looks of boys who were told that this big man was S.T. Radley, of Middlesex. Freedham, quite recovered, returned to his day-boy roof among the endless roofs of Kensingtowe Town. ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... burned low and the fire was nearly out, yet Dr. Silence saw in a moment that the cat was in an excited state. It kneaded with its front paws into his chest, shifting from one to the other. He felt them prodding against him. It lifted a leg very carefully and patted his cheek gingerly. Its fur, he saw, was standing ridgewise upon its back; the ears were flattened back somewhat; the tail was switching sharply. The cat, of course, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... enough. And it was too high for a seat. Well, he stared at this for a moment; then he looked around again, very cautiously, and then—it sounds idiotic, but he began to prod the turf with his stick. At first he did it just casually, here and there: but, after a little, he started prodding at regular intervals, methodically. The ground was quite soft, and his stick seemed to go in like a skewer. Suddenly he seemed to hear something or somebody, for he listened very carefully, and then walked on tiptoe to the pedestal ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... Indiana, new friends made along the way. In "A Traveler at Forty" Dreiser is surely frank enough in his vivisections; he seldom forgets a vanity or a wart. In "A Hoosier Holiday" he goes even further; he speculates heavily about all his dramatis personae, prodding into the motives behind their acts, wondering what they would do in this or that situation, forcing them painfully into laboratory jars. They become, in the end, not unlike characters in a novel; one misses only the neatness of a plot. Strangely enough, the one ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... Bunder's daughter; he won Bunder by four bottles of "Three Star" brandy. When the police from a town a hundred miles away arrived at the same time as John Grier, it was to find the Grier and Belloc gangs peacefully prodding side by side. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... minutes he stubbed his clumsy toes and fell down in his efforts to keep up with the cub. On top of this his eyes were so nearly closed that his vision was bad, and the fifth time he stumbled he lost sight of Neewa entirely, and sent out a protesting wail. Neewa stopped and began prodding with his nose under a rotten log. When Miki came up Neewa was flat on his belly, licking up a colony of big red vinegar ants as fast as he could catch them. Miki studied the proceeding for some moments. It soon dawned upon him that Neewa was eating something, but for the life of him he ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... open spaces of the Park were freely used for the drill and training of soldiers, and many people used to go to watch the fresh-faced young lads springing out of the trenches they had dug and prodding with their bayonets at stuffed swinging sacks representing the enemy. There is always something going on and something to see ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... the Missing Link with her umbrella, and the terrified animal retreated to his straw. "You villain!" screamed Mrs. Spink, "you double-dyed, lyin' villain, I've got you!" She was reaching as far as possible through the bars, prodding at the man-monkey, and the audience were gazing ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... shelves ranged with packages of cereal, surmounted by a flaming row of picture advertisements, regarding them and listening with a curious abstraction, which almost gave the impression of stupidity. This man had lived boy and man in one groove of the grocer business, until he needed prodding to shift ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... you to sleep in that, my dear," she said after pounding and prodding it for a few numbers; "never—and I am sure the Commander will agree with me after I have explained to him how delicate you ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... in covering that slip, but Dryad had not seemed to notice it. She crossed back to the stove and in an absolute silence fell to prodding with a ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... noted that it was bearing toward the right. This was accounted for by the fact that Raja ran upon his left side, and unlike his mate, kept leaping for the great beast's shoul-der. The man on the lidi's back was prodding at the hyaenodon with his long spear, but still Raja kept springing up ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the time when the wild pigs were dying in large numbers, a boat-load of Kayans working up-river encountered a succession of pigs' carcases floating down, most of them in a state of decomposition and swollen with gases. A practical joker at the bow conceived the notion of prodding the carcases with his spear and thus liberating the foul-smelling gases for the benefit of those who sat in the stern of the boat, to their great disgust and the amusement of those on the forward benches. Again — a Klemantan example — a chewer of betel-nut ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... expected from a Congress which represented the commercial and landholding classes? No prodding was needed to cause it to give the fullest protection to possessions in commerce, land and negro slaves; these were concrete property. But thought was not capitalized; it was not a manufactured product like iron or soap. Nothing ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... there is an exquisite view. And a fire in one's bedroom—in war-time! Dear me, I feel I ought to protest, only I haven't sufficient moral courage; and those pine logs are too delicious. Perhaps you are burning your own timber?—ah, I thought so. That makes it easier for me to refrain from prodding up ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... Corporal JONES, of the Wessex Yeomanry; Sergeant SMITH, of the Manx Mounted Infantry. (Their swords are chalked by the Assistants.) Are you ready? Left turn! Countermarch! Engage! (The Combatants wheel round and face one another, each vigorously spurring his horse and prodding cautiously at the other; the two horses seem determined not to be drawn into the affair themselves on any account, and take no personal interest in the conflict; the umpires skip and dodge at the rear of the horses, until one of the Combatants ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... upon Mrs. Clarke's seal, which tickled the fancy of the gallant Colonel Mac Mahon, was a worn out Jack Ass, mounted by a Cupid, prodding the sides of the animal with an arrow, and the following motto, Tels sont mes ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... stroking the silky ears, patting the head, and prodding contentedly into the thick fur of the neck when suddenly with a mighty heart-quaking roar the tiger leapt up and back, and then ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... seemed to know just what to do and how to do it. Shouting, making threatening gestures with my club, and even prodding the lazy ones, I quickly cut out a score of the young bachelors from their companions. Whenever one made an attempt to break back toward the water, I headed it off. Maud took an active part in the drive, and with ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... c'n take yeh in. I'm goin' to kick yeh off'n the face of the earth," he continued, prodding uncertainly at Danvers. "Stop, I tell yeh! Why do I want yeh to walk slow? 'Cos (hic) I want to wipe the road up with yer English hide. Yeh think yeh're all ri', but yeh ain't. Yeh look's if yeh owned the town, an' yeh're ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... Kirk (ii., 156) thinks that this confiscation was only Louis's way of prodding him up ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... "Munro," said he, prodding at me with his pipe, "what I wanted to tell you is, that I am utterly, hopelessly, and ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... scrubber to comprehend, and she was filled with a longing to be good—very good. She made ardent resolutions not to "jaw" the boys so much, and to be more gentle with Iry and Go. Her conscience kept on prodding until she censured herself for not mopping the corners at ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... enjoyed watching the long line from the windows of a bedecorated wholesale house on Baltimore street. But when his eyes alighted on the float of his own firm, the anger came. And the longer it stayed with him, the worse it grew, especially as he could not escape the prodding of the friends who had invited ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... grumble. Why, I believe I am going backward. I feel ten years younger, and you are not old enough to die of old age. Betty, you must keep prodding her up." ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... and Bobby started. Down, down, they flew, Meg's small hands steering capably, Twaddles' right foot prodding her as enthusiastically as ever. Dot clung a little tighter to Bobby and gasped with cold ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... need of the Apache's prodding knife point to start him up the ladder. Though he did not relish having to act as a living shield for the attackers, he was more than willing to go first. Unluckily the tightness of his bonds had so bruised the ligaments of ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... generally occasioned by the infliction of pain upon animals. I do not remember how I first discovered that they could be evoked in this way, but I can clearly recollect many of my efforts to arouse this pleasurable excitement by abusing the dog or the cats, or by prodding the calves with a nail set in the end of a broom handle. I seldom manipulated my genitals at this time, and when I did it was for the purpose of causing sexual excitement ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... from the impregnated fibers, my real scheme. Then it was the best device of all I could think of, for it set up a local irritation of the sort most calculated to make a person clean his finger nails. The average man and woman is not very neat, Walter. I was not sure but a scientific prodding was necessary to transfer my evidence to some object I could borrow and examine ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... gross fool would see anything in his sketch of Kate Arran? He stood aside, straining after detachment, while the dealer continued his round of exploration, waddling up to the canvases on the walls, prodding with his stick at those stacked in corners, prying and peering sideways like a great bird rummaging for seed. He seemed to find little nutriment in the course of his search, for the sounds he emitted expressed a weary distaste for misdirected effort, and he completed his round ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... two very large—and very obedient young toughs stumbled in, followed by an angry officer. In addition to the marks of the fight, both had a lumbering, off-balance walk that showed that the policeman had been prodding them with his riot club. It was called an "electronic persuader"; it also doubled as a carbine. Police no longer ...
— The Circuit Riders • R. C. FitzPatrick
... squawking, honking and hissing like a bewildered orchestra. By dint of splashing the water with poles, throwing pebbles, beating the shrubs at the pond's edges, "shooing" frantically with our skirts, crawling beneath bars to head them off, and prodding them from under bushes to urge them on, we finally get the older ones out of the water and the younger ones into some sort of relation to their various retreats; but, owing to their lack of geography, hatred of home, and general recalcitrancy, they ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... it, I secured a long pike pole from its beckets, and, joined by the professor, cautiously approached the body prodding ahead of me. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... Innes, forced to a change of position by the physical discomfort caused by his wife's prodding, rose ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... would indulge in it to no one else, not even to Uncle Jerry. She was coiled up in a corner of the sofa, her eyes sparkling with admiration of his indignation and force. I confess that he had been irritated by the comments of the newspapers, and by the prodding of the lawyers in the suit then on trial ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... crude dining-room in the mountains; Drake, without his coat, his hair unkempt; Mrs. Drake in her soiled print dress and fire-flushed face, nervously waving the peacock fly- brush over the coarse dishes; Ann and George, as presentable as Dolly could make them, prodding and kicking each other beneath the table when they thought themselves unobserved; John Webb, with his splotched face in his plate; and Dolly—the sweetest, prettiest, bravest, most patient little woman Time had ever produced, and yet, what had that to do with the grim demands of social life? Was ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... The men put the box in, then followed, and the elder, standing in the stern, took the pole and, pushing against the bank, drove the boat into deep water. It floated out, two ripples folding back oily sleek from its bow. After the Indian fashion, the man propelled it with the pole, prodding against the bottom. He did it skillfully, the unwieldly hulk making a slow, even progress. He also did it with a singular absence of sound, the pole never grating on the gunnel, feeling quietly along the soft mud of the shores, rising from the water, held suspended, ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... over and dropped into the garden, prowling around, prodding the bushes with their bayonets, even coming to press their dirty faces and ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers |
