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More "Nibble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Impedimenta. Without this, a large author is but a labyrinth without a clue to direct the reader therein. I confess there is a lazy kind of learning which is only Indical; when scholars (like adders which only bite the horse's heels) nibble but at the tables, which are calces librorum, neglecting the body of the book. But though the idle deserve no crutches (let not a staff be used by them, but on them), pity it is the weary should be denied the benefit thereof, and industrious ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... will gnaw the backs of books to get at the glue, so, means should be taken to get rid of these vermin if they should appear. Mice especially will nibble vellum binding or the edges of vellum books that have become greasy with ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... a nibble and I will try it; then I can tell you better whether it is grateful to my appetite," returned ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... it," said Lethbridge, when, a little later, the party had come to a halt in their perplexity, and the grim truth had found expression in words, "and, that being the case, I think the best thing we can do is to sit down—for I imagine that we are all beginning to feel a trifle fagged—and nibble a sandwich or two, washing it down with a nip from our flasks, as we ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... time she pastured on dreams and fancies. Her emotions were not starved, but they were kept down and only allowed to nibble. She thought often of the man who had been kind to her, and sometimes she wished that he had kissed her. It would have been something to remember. Often, if she closed her eyes, she could almost cheat herself ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... the small twin, and thus Mr. Bobbsey also warned his son, who had pulled up his pole with a jerk, when he felt a nibble on the fish-line. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat • Laura Lee Hope
... The horse, trying to nibble some grass at Carmela's feet, suddenly threw his head up, for the cruel South American bit had tightened under a ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... myrtle fairer than E'er grew in Paphos, from the bitter weeds Lifts its sweet head into the air, and feeds A silent space with ever sprouting green. All tenderest birds there find a pleasant screen, Creep through the shade with jaunty fluttering, Nibble the little cupped flowers and sing. Then let us clear away the choaking thorns From round its gentle stem; let the young fawns, Yeaned in after times, when we are flown, Find a fresh sward beneath it, overgrown With simple flowers: ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... to the one man-of-war which the Government maintained on the Great Lakes. To an impecunious minister, with a large family to educate, it was a tempting offer. But my father in those days was a peace-man, and he was also disinclined to nibble at the public crib while rendering no adequate service. He declined the appointment, a course much censured. "The fool parson, to let such a chance go!" Mr. Fillmore admired it and their friendship ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... touched the oats with his mouth, as if in obedience to his master, returned to them no more, and began to nibble at the ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... have been told about the pets they kept in their house. Rosa's brother Isidore carried a little lamb on his shoulders down six flights of stairs every morning and evening, that it might nibble the green grass and be out in the fresh air. It became a great pet, and all the children drew its picture in ever so many different positions. Besides, they had a parrot, a monkey, two dogs, and some rabbits and birds for pets. Their father let them keep these pets ...
— Stories Pictures Tell - Book Four • Flora L. Carpenter
... purpose of ranching habit, and when the girl, wearied with her day's work, relaxed her vigilance, that the old man craved for the object of his passion and its degrading accompaniment. Then he would nibble at the whisky bottle, having "earned his tonic," as he would say, until the potent spirit had warmed his courage and he would hurry off to the saloon for "half an hour's flutter," which generally terminated in the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... head down, and was trying to nibble with gentle lip the carrot Allis held half hidden behind her skirt. There was none of Lucretia's timidity in Diablo's approach; it was full of an assumption of equality, of trust in the intentions of the stranger who had come with the ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... heap o' leaves an' stibble, Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter's ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... talk to Strake," he said to himself; and pulling out a biscuit, he began to nibble it to take off the sensation of faintness from which he suffered, as he began wondering whether the French would attack them that night, or come prepared the next day with ladders to scale the natural wall which was their ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... children being influenced by such ideals, forming such literary tastes as these books illustrate. Most of us desire better things for our children than we had ourselves. If a man was allowed to nibble on pickles and doughnuts and mince pie and similar kinds of nourishment before he cut all his teeth, miraculously escaping chronic dyspepsia as he grew older, he does not for that reason care to risk his boy's health and safety by allowing him to repeat the process. A child's taste, left ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... bunches of bloom among the half-formed berries. Clumps of white elderberry blossoms spilled their fragrance, and the wind rustling through the long stems of the weeds and prairie grass droned monotonous tunes. She found tufts of crisp sour sheep sorrel which she liked to nibble, while she made ladies out of the flowers, and the pups snapped at the grasshoppers and butterflies. Chicken Little was taking her time for this expedition. She knew her parents would not return before evening, and if Marian hunted her ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honored for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul's hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly masculine ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... their way interestedly in and out of sleeping forms, investigate with deliberate intent the contents of your pack, or perchance make a tentative nibble at an odd toe or so. If anything digestible is found in an overcoat pocket the exasperating rodents do not enter by the obvious pocket-flap, but CHEW their way ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... hands were blue with cold, and the tears from its pretty, blurred eyes were running in a copious stream. I dried its face, took off its cap and cloak, and got its garments nicely straightened out, and then to complete the cure, for want of something better, gave it my long suffering watch to nibble. The little creature may have recognized the soothing effect of a woman's hands, or it may have been the bright tick, tick which it was gazing at now with pleased expression, and with its untutored tongue was already trying to imitate. What the cause ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... unperceptive of the difference of this resting place from the one that it had abandoned; its dull globes of eyes looked as if sight was the last purpose for which they were intended. Joker stretched his long neck to nibble a willow twig, and the blue mystery, rising, remained poised over him for another moment of meditation, before it sailed away, sideways, on its ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the gray body up in his arms and hugged it tenderly, but it made no response. Then, laying it down again on the leaves, he drew from his basket a crust of bread which he had brought to nibble while he walked. (It is such fun to have something to nibble when one goes for a ramble in the woods!) John ran to the brook which babbled close by, and, dipping the bread in the water until it was soft, returned to put some in the mouth of the little ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... supply of cool, though curious tasting water, and canteens were soon being let down into it at the end of puttees in a hopeless effort to cope with our thirst, after which the bolder spirits went so far as to nibble a ration biscuit. But one cannot help reflecting on what might have been the consequences for us if the Turks had adopted the German policy ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... mark had been turned, the winter season closed upon the valley in a gentle mood. The driving rains of the fall gave way to January snows. But the frost took no more than a tentative nibble now and then. Far up on the mountains the drifts piled deep, and winter mists blew in clammy wraiths across the shoulders of the hills. From those high, cold levels, the warmth of day and the frosts that gnawed in chill darkness started intermittent ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... into the kitchen and dip her fingers into the preserves, and upset the egg-basket, and open the oven door and let the heat all out when the pies were baking, and leave the cover off the sugar bucket, and dip into the milk to feed her kitty, and disturb the cream, and nibble round a loaf of fresh cake, just like a ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... located between the rocks and not far from the trail by which they had come to the vicinity. The horses were tethered at a point where a patch of coarse undergrowth gave them something to nibble at. The animals were of no use to them, now they were in the district where the lost mine was ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... "I never smoke. But you will perhaps pardon me if I nibble two or three of these khat leaves. You yourself, from your experience in Oriental countries, know the ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... wide universe of modern speculation there remains no unexplored nook or cranny, where an immortal human soul can find refuge or haven. Having hunted it down, trampled and buried it as one of the little "inspired legendary" foxes that nibble and bruise the promising sprouts of the Science Vineyard, what are we requested to accept in lieu of the doctrine ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... coming! Pray that the train will stand one more minute!" And the other, the one with curly lashes and mischievous mouth, chimed in, "He's bringing an enormous box of candy! Mean thing, to come so late that we can't have even a nibble!" ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the slightest disturbance was sure to be detected. He was in the position of the fisherman who is angling for some plump piscatorial prize, which requires the most skillful kind of persuasion to induce him to nibble the hook. ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... as if afraid of being overheard in the next room. Horace began to nibble at a biscuit; the hour of his return made it unnecessary for him, as a rule, to take anything before dinner, but at present he seemed in a nervous condition, and ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... about Pinckney when he began to harness up again. He thought he could eat a little something, too. I stood over the block while the man cut that three-inch hunk from the top of the round, and then I made a mortal enemy of the cook by jugglin' the broiler myself. But Pinckney did more than nibble. After that he wanted to turn in. Sleep? I had to lift him out at four G. M. The water-cure woke him, though. He tried to beg off on the last few glasses, but I made him down 'em. Then we starts ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... trees. And, besides the feet of grown people and children, there are the cloven hoofs of a small herd of cows, who seek their subsistence from the native grasses, and help to deepen the track of the future thoroughfare. Goats also browse along it, and nibble at the twigs that thrust themselves across the way. Not seldom, in its more secluded portions, where the black shadow of the forest strives to hide the trace of human- footsteps, stalks a gaunt wolf, on the ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... grassy point above me to drink. First she wandered all over the point, making it look afterwards as if a herd had passed. Then she took a sip of water by a rock, crossed to my side of the point, and took a sip there; then to the end of the point, and another sip; then back to the first place. A nibble of grass, and she waded far out from shore to sip there; then back, with a nod to a lily pad, and a sip nearer the brook. Finally she meandered a long way up the shore out of sight, and when I picked up the paddle to go, she came back ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... to nibble a biscuit while we waited, and anxiously watched the frizzling and browning birds, for ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... Yes, suh, de hoss he come right in des like he knowed me, en w'en I helt out my han' he poke his nose spang inter it en w'innied like he moughty glad ter see me—en he wuz, too, dat's sho'. Well, I ketch holt er his bridle en lead 'im thoo de woods up ter my do' whar he tu'n right in en begin ter nibble in de patch er kebbage. All dis time I 'uz 'lowin' dat de sodger wuz stone dead, but w'en I took 'im down he opened his eyes en axed fur water. Den I gun 'im a drink outer de goa'd en laid 'im flat on my bed, en in a little w'ile a nigger come by dat sez he b'longed ter ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... you were suddenly left all alone in a wood, like those pretty squirrels who nibble hazel-nuts so daintily, you would soon discover, from being thus thrown upon your own resources, that the mouth is not the only thing required for eating, and that whether it be a paw or a hand, there must always be a servant to go ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... o' no Brunhilde, 'n' I up 'n' told the minister so to his face. 'Who is she anyhow?' I says, flat 'n' plain, for Lord knows 'f he'd found a rich relation I wanted my old flannels for cleanin' cloths hereafter. But he 'xplained 's Felicia Hemans got Brunhilde out o' a book—the Nibble suthin' 'r other. 'Oh, well,' I says, 'if you c'n be suited with namin' your family after rats 'n' mice I guess you c'n leave me out,' I says, 'n' I kind o' backed off so 's to try 'n' set him a-goin', ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... fire-flies awakening. Then about the branches of the bois-canon black shapes began to hover, which were not birds —shapes flitting processionally without any noise; each one in turn resting a moment as to nibble something at the end of a bough;—then yielding place to another, and circling away, to return again from the other ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... so though he didn't get a bite right away as he had expected to, he wasn't the least bit discouraged. He kept very quiet and fished and fished, patiently waiting for a foolish trout to take his hook. But he didn't get so much as a nibble. "Either the trout have lost their appetite or they have grown very wise," muttered Farmer Brown's boy, as after a long time he moved on to ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... breakfast, but I suppose automobile kiddies must have something to nibble on!" So a stop was made at the grocer's, and a supply of ginger-snaps and apples was added ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... the goat out of the shed so that she could nibble the grass around the hut, he went with her step by step, for his mother had told him he must watch her so that she would not ...
— Toni, the Little Woodcarver • Johanna Spyri
... all right for a hippopotamus. He rolled and played in the soft mud of the river bank, and waddled inland to nibble the leaves of the wild cabbage that grew there, and was happy and contented from morning till night. And he was the jolliest hippopotamus that ancient family had ever known. His little red eyes were forever twinkling with fun, and he laughed his merry laugh on all occasions, whether there was ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... him to have been right, and we reached the clearing in safety. Here we dismounted, and led the horses to a place where they could nibble some grass, and rest in the cool shade. The saddles and bridles were soon removed, and halters improvised out of the New Zealand flax, which can be turned to so many uses. Having provided for the comfort of our faithful animals, our next step was to look for the bushmen. ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... big one stand up on his hind legs and nibble a bun just like a squirrel!" said a man watching the antics of the white rats and mice among Mr. Capper's buns. If this man had only known it, squirrels and rats belong to the same family, that called "rodents," only a squirrel has a much larger ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... frugivorous rat of russet brown, with a glint of gold on its fur tips. A delicate, graceful creature, nice in its habits, with a plaintive call like the cheep of a chicken; preferring ripe bananas and pine-apple, but consenting to nibble at other fruits, as well as grain. The mother carries her young crouched on her haunches, clinging to her fur apparently with teeth as well as claws, and she manages to scuttle along fairly fast, in spite of her encumbrances. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... patient stirring, so I got up and drew the little curtain over the bulls-eye port—it was already daylight. I gave him a drink and a biscuit, and told him I would go to the cook's galley and get him some broth, but he begged to wait until breakfast time—said he felt refreshed, and would just nibble a sea biscuit. Then he ate a dozen in ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... them eat out of my hand? Look at that ass—glad to crawl in here and nibble a crust from my table to-night! Ass!" He had halted for a second in front of the manager, but resumed his pacing with a ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... then the head of another, and she knew that God had delivered her and her child into the care of their fellow-creatures. Not a word was spoken—she hushed her friends with her hands—and with uplifted eyes pointed to the guides sent to her by Heaven. Small green plats, where those creatures nibble the wildflowers, became now more frequent—trodden lines, almost as plain as sheep-paths, showed that the dam had not led her young into danger; and now the brushwood dwindled away into straggling shrubs, and the party stood on a little eminence above the stream, and forming ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... perfect the shorter and better line upon which they had begun to work at Michaelmas. Possibly it was to frustrate these preparations that Haig reopened his campaign so early as he did. On 11 January, the day on which the Allies answered President Wilson's note, British troops began to nibble at the point of the salient on the Ancre which had been created by the battle of the Somme. It was a modest sort of offensive; for it was no part of the Allies' combined plan of operations, which had been settled in conference during November, to launch a first-class ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... That's what we'll do." Plump down in the meadow grass, Stella and Minna, With their round yellow hats, Like cheeses, Beside them. Drop, Drop, Daisy petals. "One I love, Two I love, Three I love I say..." The ground is peppered with daisy petals, And the little girls nibble the golden centres, And play ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... to all kinds of profitable labour. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbour, even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the water in constant commotion. They were in no wise disturbed by our presence and would turn leisurely over within two feet of the canoe. I ran out my troll as we paddled down the lake—but not a nibble did I get. The men ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... Blew down the mount the dust of pattering feet, White goats and black sheep winding slow their way With many a lingering nibble at the tufts, And wanderings from the path, where water gleamed Or wild figs hung. But always as they strayed The herdsman cried, or slung his sling, and kept The silly crowd still moving to the plain. A ewe with couplets in the flock ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... solemn event was concluded it would be too late for the departing mails. She seemed to have no difficulty in composing her thoughts and transferring them to paper. There were times when she would lean back, nibble the end of her pen and smile in a dreamy, retrospective fashion. No doubt her ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... on a special scale rather than turn a half-starved outcast empty away? But sentiment is a mistake when kindness can do no more than prolong misery. There is no horse sickness yet in the epidemic form. They simply pine for want of nourishment until, too weak even to nibble the grass about them, they drop and die. Some day we may have a use for them before things come to that extremity, but at present the difficulty is to dispose of their carcases. Sanitary considerations forbid that they shall ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... A hare came lolloping over the valley bottom, quite at his ease. In the midst of the assembly he stopped to nibble, then reared himself up and cleaned his face. He saw them and they him without concern on ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... was no path at all, but this did not seem to worry Whisker. He went along anyhow, now and then stopping to nibble at some green leaves, and again turning to one side to crop ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... added, eyeing my reeking steed. "What a slap-up charger that mare would make! Here, you boy, take her into the shed there, and throw a sack or two over her, wash out her mouth, and give her a lock of hay to nibble; but don't go to let her drink, unless you want my cane about your shoulders—do ye hear? ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... in a few moments we saw the graceful creatures, one after another, turn and attentively look at the signal. Then they slowly walked towards it. Then came a pause and a nibble of grass, and again, as though they could not resist the desire to ascertain what this singular thing fluttering in the breeze was, they hesitatingly came still nearer, as though they feared some hidden danger. In this way ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... one's eyes. The stage lights are hard on mine." Thea began turning them out. "We'll leave the little one, over the piano." She sank down by Archie on the deep sofa. "We two have so much to talk about that we keep away from it altogether; have you noticed? We don't even nibble the edges. I wish we had Landry here to-night to play ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... where they may be stepped on; or where mice may nibble them; or next the stovepipe or chimney; or thrown down before ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... suppose you'd let me have much of a chance," said her husband. When he came within easy hail of the man in the hay-field, he pulled up beside the meadow-wall, where the horse began to nibble the blackberry ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... both so ample and so recent that now we ask only for "tea and toast," and so, while the lamps are lighted, the trays are brought to us in the parlor, and around the centre-table and before the fire we nibble tartines in soothed content and ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... shoots, reached over the guards and pushed in and under. I later reduced the guards to a 6-foot diameter of stronger woven fence-wire with 6-inch stays, not 12-inch, and raised the height to not less than 10 feet. The cattle may now nibble off the side shoots if they wish but the vertical growth is protected. Above 10 feet the trees can ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various
... bigger daily. From two to eight months of age it still continues an inhabitant of its curious cradle, but now often protrudes its little head to take an observation of the world at large, and to nibble the grass amongst which its mother is feeding. Sometimes it has a little run by itself, but seeks the maternal bosom at the slightest intimation of danger. It quits the pouch for good when it can crop the herbage freely; but even now it will often poke its head into its early ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... me, since anyone fished that brook; And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook. But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set I know that it's full of ghostly trout for Lilly's ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... prove that point right on Terra. But did Rule One mean that you had to let a monster nibble at you because it might just be a high type of alien intelligence? Let Karara spout Rule One while backed into a crevice under water with that ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... Field-mice were swimming in the pots, and the most cunning of them were carrying the corn into their private holes, profiting by the confusion to make ample provision for themselves. No one passed the quince confection of Orleans without saluting it with one nibble, and oftener with two. It was like a Roman carnival. In short, anyone with a sharp ear might have heard the frizzling frying-pans, the cries and clamours of the kitchens, the crackling of their furnaces, the noise of the turnspits, the creaking of baskets, the haste of the confectioners, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... sobbing gun-teams and transport animals to moisten their mouths. Water for the men there was little, except the pittance which they were allowed to draw from the regimental water-carts. Neither was there shade from the merciless sun. The six inches of spare Karoo bush, though it served as a nibble for the less fastidious of animals, was useless either as bed or shade; other vegetable growth there was none within sight. Men crawled under waggons and water-carts if they were fortunate enough to find themselves near them, or, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... semblance of a canter. As the slope in front of him steepened, however, both horse and rider abandoned the effort, and, full fifty yards below the point where the battalion commander and his scouts were in consultation, the lieutenant dismounted, and leaving his steed unguarded to nibble at a patch of scant and sodden herbage that had survived the Indian fires, he slowly climbed the ascent. "I am ordered to report to you, sir," was all he ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... learned to be afraid of them. Once, during the afternoon, a hare hopping along under the ferns to make a visit stopped by Marco's head, and, after looking at him a few seconds with his lustrous eyes, began to nibble the ends of his hair. He only did it from curiosity and because he wondered if it might be a new kind of grass, but he did not like it and stopped nibbling almost at once, after which he looked at it again, moving the soft sensitive ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fathom Helen. A year ago he felt sure that Mrs. Hilmer was the last woman in the world that Helen would have found bearable, much less attractive... He concluded that Helen was enjoying the novelty of watching Mrs. Hilmer nibble at a discreet feminine frivolity to which she was unaccustomed. After a while he looked for outward changes in Mrs. Hilmer's make-up. He figured that the shopping tours with Helen might be reflected in a sprightlier bonnet or a narrower skirt or a higher heel on her shoe. But no such ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... fishing-rod and began to fish. Pao-ch'ai played for a time with a twig of olea she held in her hand, then resting on the window-sill, she plucked the petals, and threw them into the water, attracting the fish, which went by, to rise to the surface and nibble at them. Hsiang-yuen, after a few moments of abstraction, urged Hsi Jen and the other girls to help themselves to anything they wanted, and beckoned to the servants, seated at the foot of the hill, to eat to their heart's content. Tan Ch'un, in company with ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... besides that which the "headers" burn as fuel, and farmers stack this straw for cattle to nibble at. The stock feed in the stubble fields, too, and strange visitors also come to these ranches to pick up the scattered grains of wheat. These strangers are wild white geese, in such large flocks that when feeding they look like snow patches on ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... earnestly, "This is a bad climate to go hungry in. You'd 'ave a touch of the sun in less'n no time. Just go below, an' force yerself to nibble a bit. It'll do you good, an' I don't mind keepin' watch ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... easy for the busy Beaver mother To feed the Beaver sister and her little Beaver brother, For when they beg: "We're hungry, give us something to eat, please!" She sends them off to nibble at the bark of the ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... the pine-woods, of logging, measuring, and spring-drives, and of moose-hunting on snow-shoes, until our mouths had a wild flavor more spicy than if we had chewed spruce-gum by the hour. Spruce-gum is the aboriginal quid of these regions. Foresters chew this tenacious morsel as tars nibble at a bit of oakum, grooms at a straw, Southerns at tobacco, or school-girls ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... what I could see. Well, I saw more than I cared for. Within five paces of me there was a great fish, as long pretty nigh as the spar that I was grippin'. It's a mighty pleasant thing to have your legs in the water and a beast like that all ready for a nibble at your toes." ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and turned about and walked by us, sometimes stroking Clover's shaggy Mane. I felte a little ashamed; for Dick had sett me on the Poney just as I was, my Gown somewhat too shorte for riding: however, I drewe up my Feet and let Clover nibble a little Grasse, and then got rounde to the neare Side, our new Companion stille between us. He offered me some wild Flowers, and askt me theire Names; and when I tolde them, he sayd I knew more than he did, though he accounted himselfe a prettie fayre Botaniste: and we went on thus, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... Hein! if I didn't lead him along! Thread by thread, I began to net my man. I launched my four-horse phrases, and the F- sharp arguments, and all the rest of the cursed stuff. Everybody listened; and I saw a man who had July as plain as day on his mustache, just ready to nibble at a 'Movement.' Well, I don't know how it was, but I unluckily let fall the word 'blockhead.' Thunder! you should have seen my gray hat, my dynastic hat (shocking bad hat, anyhow), who got the bit in his ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... nibble round the brule," continued Yankee, nodding his head toward his sorrel horse. "Don't think I will do much drivin' machine business. Rather slow." Yankee spent the summer months selling sewing-machines ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... I nibble round the unpalatable morsel which has to be swallowed?" The recantation had seemed to himself to be almost base, and he had been ashamed of it. "But," says he, "farewell to all true, upright, honest policy. You could hardly believe what treachery there is in those who ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... The current is up and I can't stop.' 'My toes were there first,' said Georgiana, and went on eating her biscuit. 'Take them out of the way, I tell you,' he shouted as he came nearer, 'or they'll get cut off.' 'They were there first,' repeated Georgiana, and took another delicious nibble. Joe cut straight along, and went whack right into her five toes. Georgiana screamed with all her might, but she held her foot on the log, till Joe dropped the hatchet with horror, and caught her in his arms. 'Georgiana, I told you to take your toes away,' he cried; 'you are ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... not usually choose to keep company with them; but whether it be because their forms are coarser, their manners less refined, and their pedigree not so long, or whether it be because they sometimes have a fancy to nibble off the ears of their neighbours, or, when their appetite is uncommonly sharp, make a meal of their Norman cousins, we need ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... wine!" cried Stafford, while his guests began to nibble the dainty appetizers which ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... the desire to chew, lick or eat indigestible or filthy substances. Horses and cattle may stand and lick a board for an hour or more; cattle may chew the long hair from the tails of horses; sheep may nibble wool; sows may within a short time after giving birth to their pigs, kill and eat them; chickens may pick and eat feathers. Innutrition may accompany the abnormal appetite, as very frequently the affected animal shows a disposition to leave its feed in order to eat these injurious and ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... at the hospital. The Sunshine Nurse inspected the cakes and approved them. She was so particular she even took a tiny nibble of one and said: "Sugar, flour, egg and shortening—all right Mickey, those can't hurt her. ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... The horse ceased to nibble the grass, looked at the sleeping boy, touched his blankets lightly with his nose, and walked to the other side of the opening, where he lay down and went to his ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Birds use their bills for a kind of caress. Thus, referring to guillemots and their practice of nibbling each other's feet, and the interest the mate always takes in this proceeding, which probably relieves irritation caused by insects, Edmund Selous remarks: "When they nibble and preen each other they may, I think, be rightly said to cosset and caress, the expression and pose of the bird receiving the benefit being often beatific."[196] Among mammals, such as the dog, we have what closely resembles a kiss, and the dog who smells, licks, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... it is so, we must not despair for that; you shall become a grocer with me; I shall take you for my partner, we will share the profits, and if there should be no more profits, well, why then we shall share the almonds, raisins and prunes, and we will nibble together the ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pry apart the shells with her unhandy weapon far enough to nibble a wee bit at the cold and clammy world within. She knew no more shorthand than if she had been a graduate in stenography just let slip upon the world by a business college. So, not being able to stenog, she could not enter ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... fight. They understand well how to manage a horse, so as to make him strong and swift. They do not let him eat when he pleases, but they give him three meals a day of hay and barley, and then rein him up that he may not nibble the grass, and grow fat; and sometimes they give him no food at all, and yet make him gallop many miles. By this management the horses are very thin, but very strong, and able to bear their masters eighty miles in a day when required; and they ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... Confabulationes Pueriles, under the garden hedge, and skirting the town, makes his way along the river. And there, hidden among the willows and green alders and rustling sedge, he spends the morning; and when in the heat of the day the fish refuse to nibble, he takes his hunk of bread out of his pocket and lies on his back among the rushes, while lazy dreams flit across his consciousness as the light summer clouds rock mistily across ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... now is as good a time as any, and I would like to be done with it and have it off my mind. It is about my usual time, and regularity is commanded by all the authorities. Yes, I will try to nibble a little now—I wish a light horsewhipping ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... day). In the morn to our own church, where Mr. Mills did begin to nibble at the Common Prayer, by saying "Glory be to the Father, &c." after he had read the two psalms; but the people had been so little used to it, that they could not tell what to answer. This declaration of the King's do give the Presbyterians some satisfaction, and a pretence to read the Common ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... longer, nohow!" burst out the old tar. "A plagued rat came right up and wanted to nibble my leg, hang him. Who's them air fellows ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... I have had calls from woodchucks. One looked in at the open door of my study one day, and, after sniffing a while, and not liking the smell of such clover as I was compelled to nibble there, moved on to better pastures. Another one invaded the kitchen door while we were at dinner. The dogs promptly challenged him, and there was a lively scrimmage upon the door-stone. I thought the dogs were fighting, and rushed to part them. The incident broke in upon the drowsy summer noon, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... sweet ninny! If the boss grabber is on this ship, we should draw a new nibble from him." He appraised the green dress in the mirror again. His expression grew absent. It might be best, Trigger suspected, a trifle uneasily, to keep Major Quillan's thoughts turned away from things ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... drizzle before reaching an inn, where we enjoyed simply the best breakfast I ever tasted, or at all events the best I have tasted in Natal. The mules were also unharnessed, and after taking, each, a good roll on the damp grass, turned out in the drizzling rain for a rest and a nibble until their more substantial repast was ready. The rain cleared up from time to time, but an occasional heavy shower warned us that the weather was still sulky. It was in much better heart and spirits, however, that we made a second start about eleven o'clock, and struggled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... one title after another with a little jump of satisfaction. How long, how very long it was since she had had a new story-book to read. A whole feast of enjoyment seemed shut up inside those fascinating covers. But she would not nibble the feast now; and closing "The Daisy Chain," begun to unpack ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... liquid inside generally sets them into a perspiration. Nothing but loaf sugar is used, and there is a very common practice of holding a lump in one hand and following a sip of the unsweetened tea with a nibble at the sugar. When several persons are engaged in this rasping process a curious ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... hardy as a bear and athletic as a panther. There was never a farmer who kept cleaner fields, or handsomer stake-and-rider fence than he; or had earlier corn, or a larger woodpile; yet he did love a hunt more dearly than a venison pie; he caught fish from pools where others received not a nibble; and he enjoyed a leisure day, and a feast, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... in the high country but by mid-April a few bare spots showed in the more open meadows, the hardy mountain grass sending forth green shoots. The rabbits were drawn from the timbered ridges to nibble these first spring dainties. The surface of the drifts showed thousands of tiny mouse tracks,—the mice that had lived deep under the snow, subsisting on food previously stored, now coming forth to swarm into ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... I sat not able to more than nibble because I was making up my mind to do something that scared me to death to think about. That gaunt, craggy man in a shabby gray coat, cut ante-bellum wise, with a cravat that wound itself around his collar, snowy and dainty, but on the same lines as the coat and evidently of rural manufacture ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... legs he arched his tail over his head, and letting go of it suddenly, began to nibble at a sandwich held in his two front ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... have a wonderful influence over him," the lad with the blarney continued. "A week or so ago I threw some bait at him just to test him and he didn't even nibble. You know, in the old days John and I often trotted in double harness to the track—bad place ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... down the bannock she had been making pretence to nibble. "Janet—that is our dairy girl—lent me her frock and shawl: her shoes too. She goes out to the milking at six, and I took her place. The fog helped me. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hippophage; glutton &c 957. V. eat, feed, fare, devour, swallow, take; gulp, bolt, snap; fall to; despatch, dispatch; discuss; take down, get down, gulp down; lay in, tuck in [Slang]; lick, pick, peck; gormandize &c 957; bite, champ, munch, cranch^, craunch^, crunch, chew, masticate, nibble, gnaw, mumble. live on; feed upon, batten upon, fatten upon, feast upon; browse, graze, crop, regale; carouse &c (make merry) 840; eat heartily, do justice to, play a good knife and fork, banquet. break bread, break one's fast; breakfast, lunch, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of an epicurean than a social success. Mrs. Halliday had made hot biscuit, and opened a jar of strawberry preserves, and sliced a cold chicken which she had originally intended for to-morrow's dinner; but, in spite of that, she was forced to sit by and watch her two guests do scarcely more than nibble. ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... overtake it; that into a "shiftless" head should come the thought that railroad ties and fallen trees make good firewood, and without too much trouble can be dragged out by horses! As a preliminary calamity, half-starved cows were turned in to nibble the grass, and incidentally to trample and crush flowers and ferns into one ghastly ruin. And at the same moment, as if inspired by the same spirit of destruction, some idle railroad "hand," with a scythe, laid low the whole bank of grapevines. Ruthless was the ruin, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... orders to prepare for further movements, this time to the firing line in support of their own men on the summit of the hills above. They made the best possible meal from the dry rations, dry enough when there was unlimited water, but quite impossible to more than nibble in these almost waterless days. Mac did not feel very hungry; but he had room inside his thin frame for a tankful of water. He had started on Friday evening with a liberally rum-tinctured bottleful, which had since been restocked with water as strongly tainted with petrol. For the purpose ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... had he fancied that thereby he might be remembered. A peach—a blushing, rich-flavored fruit, nestling in the trellis work on the garden-wall, hidden beneath its long, green leaves,—this little vegetable production, that a dormouse would nibble up without a thought, was sufficient to recall to the memory of this great monarch the mournful shade of the last ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... only brings indigestion and creepy dreams, but invariably makes the complexion coarse, high-colored and overruddy. That does not mean that one should nibble at things and not demolish a "good square meal." Eating should be understood—rules laid ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... before they could escape. And to these were added frogs and toads, still partly somnambulent; many ants, curled up as if dead, in the heart of rotting logs; and occasional bumble-bees, wasps, and hornets. Now and then Neewa took a nibble at these things. On the third day Noozak uncovered a solid mass of hibernating vinegar ants as large as a man's two fists, and frozen solid. Neewa ate a quantity of these, and the sweet, vinegary flavour of them was delicious to ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... "'I nibble them'—Joffre. See your article in the Saturday Evening Post of May 29th, 1915. Really, Joffre has had time! It is September now, and we are not nibbled yet. Still we stand deep in France. Au revoir ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cried the Captain. "I do not want to hurt you, but I can not allow you to pull wool from the back of my friend, Miss Lamb. You must stop it, or I will drive you away with my shiny, tin sword, as I drove away the bad rat that wanted to nibble the ears of the Candy ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... passage read, And often hums, and shakes his empty head, 210 Until some oracle adored pronounce The passive bard a poet or a dunce; Then in loud clamour echoes back the word, 'Tis bold, insipid—soaring, or absurd. These, and the unnumber'd shoals of smaller fry, That nibble round, I pity ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... when the moon is full, a great number of small mice begin to nibble on one side. They nibble until they eat up the entire moon. So when the new moon begins to grow, it is to them really a new moon; the old ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... waited for the bite. But the water in these cracks soon freezes again, especially when it is fifty or sixty degrees below zero, and so it was not long before in this crack it was solid again. And so when the bear got tired waiting for a bite, or even a nibble, he tried to leave the place, but found it was impossible without leaving his tail behind him. This he had to do, or freeze or starve to death, and so he broke loose, and ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... from its tameness, it must be hungry. "Poor little thing," said Agnes, "I wish I had something to give you." She took a few almonds from her pocket and went gently along towards the mouse and put it close by its side. The mouse began to nibble, and soon finished it. Agnes then put down two or three more, and left the mouse to eat its Christmas dinner. I think you would have enjoyed seeing the mouse eating the almonds. I hope you will always be kind to poor dumb animals. I have seen children who were cruel to dumb animals. ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"
... big and sensible: a knight's sword or a cross-bow; perhaps even—but this thought seemed like an evil temptation—the ginger-cake covered with almonds, which was exhibited in the booth of a Delft confectioner. He and Bessie could surely nibble for weeks upon this giant cake, if they were economical, and economy is an admirable virtue. Something must at any rate be spared for "little brothers,"—[A kind of griddle or pancake.]—the nice spiced cakes which were baked in many booths ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... seem to be doing fairly well," said Russ, as he and his companion settled down in the shelter, to nibble at a bit of hard tack and drink some of the water Jack had ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... pleasant streams, will ask the inquiring reader? Well, yes, I have seen served at table perch the size of very small herrings, which it is the French fashion to take between the fingers daintily, and, holding by head and tail, nibble as children bite an apple. Whether indeed these little fish are caught by the angler, I know not; but this is certainly the way they are eaten—if inelegant, honi soit qui ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... dressing-gown, with slippered feet, and spectacles on nose, entered the hall, followed by another in black, apparently his clerk. Two other persons also came in, and took their seats at the table, while the clerk began to nibble his ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... Horace, picking her up. "There, you sit down next time, and I'll prop up the pole with a rock—this way. There, now, you hold it a little easy, and when you feel a nibble you ...
— Little Prudy • Sophie May
... agreed, and next morning the two friends drove a flock of sheep on to the downs. The sheep at once began to nibble, the dog sat with his tongue out, panting, and the Knave and Fool lay down on their backs, and covered their faces with their hats to shield ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... thing it heralded meant a superabundance of food and a denser, more protective growth of vegetation. And the stupid Agoutis, overgrown guinea-pigs they were, who could never profit by past experiences anyway, either squatted comfortably in their burrows or stole out noiselessly to nibble the tender ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... Try to nibble a few crumbs of this rusk," O'Reilly advised. "I've been thinking hard since you told me how 'Chuff' 'phoned to 'Pete,' and took you for Kit. As for the voice that called 'Come in', the wall being thin, a man in the room close by ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... they might be good to eat, came to the top of the water in great numbers. Some took a nibble, some took a bite, but no sooner had they tasted a page or two, than they spat them out with a wry face, as if ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... half-hour, luncheon was swallowed quickly by most of the girls, eager to steal away to a sequestered bower among the boxes, there to lose themselves in paper-backed romance. A few of less literary taste were content to nibble ice-cream sandwiches and gossip. Dress, the inevitable masquerade ball, murders and fires, were favorite topics of discussion,—the last always with lowered voices and deep-drawn breathing. For fire is the box-maker's terror, the grim specter ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... aside to coax, to caress his woolly-fleeced companion; and the mother talks softly to her child of the innocent darlings, and asks if they are not lovely creatures, and beautiful to look at, as they timidly wander from spot to spot, and nibble the delicate pasture. So it is to the lively fancy of childhood, and so it is to the mother whose affections are naturally melted into softness in the presence of simplicity; but when economic considerations arise, ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... trunk wuz packed and in the democrat. The neighborin' wimmen brung me warm good-byes and bokays offen their house plants, and sister Sypher sent me some woosted flowers, which I left to home, and some caraway seed to nibble on ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... and the hens were being a credit to themselves. The goat in the yard, tied to a stake, was varying a meal of old shoe and tomato-can by a nibble of fresh green grass. Mrs. Bob was laid ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... Philadelphia. He said that he was minded to become an author, an' had come out to study the aboriginal types an' get the true local color. Whenever I hear this little bunch o' sounds, I know I got a nibble. Any time a man goes nosin' around after local color, you can bet your saddle he's got several ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... rigour mortuis. Anyhow when they began to seek fresh fields and pastures new, being fed up with old rat—or rather not able to get fed up enough, they would be jolly well on the look out, and glad enough to take nibble even at an Englishman! (He! He!) So I argued, and put good old rat in drawer and did slopes. On Monday, Mr. Spensonly went early from office, feeling feverish; and when I called, as in duty bound, to make humble inquiries on Tuesday, he was reported jolly sickish with ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... broiling and unbroiling steaks,—and making and remaking coffee,—and hunting frantically for a different-sized water glass,—or a prettier colored plate, there was no time for anything except an occasional hurried surreptitious nibble half way between the stove ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... slightly irritable at this hour. My son has already gone downtown. So I enter the chintz-furnished room alone and sit down by myself before a bright wood fire and glance at the paper, which the valet has ironed, while I nibble an egg, drink a glass of orange juice, swallow a few pieces of toast and quaff a great cup ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... out of the brook just then, and she ran to check him up; not an easy task for little hands, as he preferred to nibble the grass on the bank. But she did it cleverly, smoothed the ruffled mane, and, dropping another curtsy, stood aside to let the ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... him bridge, on the square, at night. Let him win a little—just enough to keep him satisfied with himself—you'll see. Wait till he draws his wad, and we'll throw the gaff in him to the queen's taste. If he won't nibble at one hook try another. But, I say, Billy, you'll have to furnish the scads for bait, in case he don't? rise to something easy. I know you're ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... therefore she has been ready for some time; the door of her emotions is ajar. If I take precaution and kindle her heart little by little, there is no need to fear that she will refuse to nibble at my hook." ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... in a flame, which must be suffered to die away of itself; the most greasy particles are thus consumed, and its arid qualities wholly destroyed. "When the Moors gather these fruits they drive their goats under the trees, and as the fruit falls the animals carefully nibble off the skins, and then ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... would nestle in his warm coat, run races over and under him, and he would not move a limb, for fear of hurting one. As to a bone, he will allow me to take it out of his mouth at any time; and, what is more, he will readily give it up to Fiddy, whose little teeth can only nibble off the meat; and when he has done that, Bronti takes it, and munches ...
— Kindness to Animals - Or, The Sin of Cruelty Exposed and Rebuked • Charlotte Elizabeth
... number of men enter the vineyard with switches and knock off the tender ends of the runners, which in a gentler method of cultivation would be picked off with the finger and thumb-nail. Sometimes goats are turned in to nibble off the shoots in order to save labour, and at the same time to feed the animals; they of course damage the vines, but the Cypriote thinks the system pays. The young vines are never staked and tied as in Europe, but are allowed to take their chance, ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... on the surface. The breams are so careful of their charge that you may stand close by in the water and examine them at your leisure. I have thus stood over them half an hour at a time, and stroked them familiarly without frightening them, suffering them to nibble my fingers harmlessly, and seen them erect their dorsal fins in anger when my hand approached their ova, and have even taken them gently out of the water with my hand; though this cannot be accomplished by a sudden ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... melt, the first open spot is always used as a feeding-place, where they dive from the edge of the ice and in a minute or less reappear with a mussel or a mouthful of pontederia or water-lily leaves, climb back on to the ice and sit up to nibble their food, handling it very much like squirrels or marmots. It is then that they are most easily shot, a solitary hunter oftentimes shooting thirty or forty in a single day. Their nests on the rushy margins of lakes and streams, ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... immediately by a whinny, and a little chestnut gelding, sun-faded to a sand color nearly, cantered into view around the corner of a shed and approached them. He came to a pause nearby, and having studied Bull Hunter with large, unafraid, curious eyes for a moment, began to nibble impertinently at the ragged hat ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... the dining-room is the centre of all things; the ladies sip the custards and nibble the cake the gallants cram the cake and gulp the punch. The fiddler-improvisator disappears, reappears, and with crumbs on his breast and pan-gravy and punch on his breath remounts his seat; and the couples are again on the floor. The departing thunders grumble as they go, the ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... the Red Sandstone, sharp and unworn at their edges, as if derived from no great distance, though there be now no clay-slate in the eastern half of Ross; but though the rocks here belong evidently to the ichthyolitic member of the Old Red, not a single fish, not a "nibble" even, repaid the patient search of half a day. I, however, passed some time agreeably enough among the ruins of Craighouse. When I had last seen, many years before, this old castle,[21] the upper stories ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... be held in its mouth. Let it have all the first drawn milk for three days as soon as milked; after this, skimmed milk warmed to blood heat. Soon a little fine scalded meal may be mixed with the milk; and it will, at three to five weeks old, nibble hay and grass. It is well also to keep a box containing some dry wheat-bran and fine corn-meal mixed in the calf-pen, so that calves may take ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... green in my eye?" Of course I don't, dear lady. I only see the reflection of that torch—or is it a carrot?—which you are holding up to light the way into New York harbor. Well, many an ass has strayed across the uneasy paddock of the Atlantic, to nibble your carrot, dear lady. And I must say, you can keep on slicing off nice little carrot-slices of guineas and doubloons for an extraordinarily inexhaustible long time. And innumerable asses can ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... a strange reversal of type, Suzanna was the patient one, Maizie the impatient. Suzanna would sit in the boat next to Mr. Bartlett, holding her line, and breathlessly wait for hours if need be, statue-like, till she felt the thrilling nibble. Maizie would grow tired immediately, and to Peter's disgust, she would wriggle her feet or move restlessly about, quite spoiling for him the day's outing. Maizie at last begged to be let off from ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... Pastures. They were wandering through lonely wastes and cropping The grasses, when a tree heavy with many berries—never seen before—met their eyes. At once, as they were able to reach the low branches, they began To pull off the leaves with many a nibble, and to pluck the tender Growth. Its bitterness attracts. The shepherd, not knowing this, Was meanwhile singing on the soft grass and telling the story of his loves to the woods. But when the evening star, rising, warned him to leave the field, And he led back ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Hipparchia, by any process of teaching, not even by magazine-articles, make a canary-bird into a useful barn-door fowl. It will wear yellow feathers, and it will sing and nibble at sugar. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... periodicals, then apples and pears, common bon-bons, and corn pop, of which I am trying to keep a specimen to send you. It is a kind of corn which is roasted on the fire, and in so doing, makes a popping noise, whence its name. It is pleasant to nibble. Then came iced water, highly necessary after the dry corn pop, and finally about twenty good and well-chosen books. Papa ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... due chiefly to living with John and Mrs. John. She may have got a touch of the sun-parlour. Her man is a terrific young scientist, who once with four colleagues deliberately let a dangerous Cuban mosquito nibble his arm. The colleagues died while Ernest survived, which I regretted. However he became demonstrator at the Institute of Bacteriology, with Helen as his assistant, and in the excitement of the imminent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... please to help yourself" said Mr. Earlsdown offering him three or four plates of sugar and other cakes. Leslie took a small jam wafer and proceeded to nibble it quietly. "How far did you come?" asked the girl as she was busy pouring ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... the oral seldom bites, but scratches with its fore-claws, grunting at the same time like a guinea-pig." "When taken young it becomes a most engaging pet. It can be reared on goat's or cow's milk,[21] and in about three weeks will begin to nibble fruit of any kind. During the day it sleeps much, either sitting with its back bent into a circle, and its head thrust down to its belly, or lying on its back with the legs and parachute extended—a position it is fond of in sultry weather. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... garden at last, but she had to nibble a bit of the mushroom again to bring herself down to twelve inches after she had got the golden key, so as to get through the little door. It was a lovely garden, and in it was the Queen's croquet-ground. The Queen of Hearts ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... property by which whoever drank from it was cured of his or her malady, and it had been passed freely round to all sufferers ever since it came into her family's keeping. That they might make doubly sure of the miracle, it was the custom of the sick not only to empty the cup, but to nibble a little bit of the wood, and swallow that, so that in whatever state the monks of Strata Florida had confided it, the vessel was now in the state we saw. Saying this the lady opened the casket holding it, and showed us the crescent-shaped ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... rendezvous for merrymakers on horse or foot. Picnics of all sorts and sizes, from the little impromptu gatherings of half-a-dozen congenial young souls (always an even number, please), who ride off into the romantic shades to nibble biscuits and make tea, to the dainty repasts provided by a hospitable lady, whose official hut overlooks the Ferozepore Nullah, and who, in turn, overlooks her cook, to the great gratification ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... be caught over the tops of the trees. As the baronet sat there on horseback, and looked around, more than one living object met his eye. To say nothing of some sheep wandering along the uninclosed part of the hill, now stopping to nibble the short grass, now trotting forward for a sweeter bite,—not to notice the oxen in the pastures below, there was a large cart slowly winding its way along an open part of the road, about half a mile distant, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... composition was a strong dislike of all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... I says, flat 'n' plain, for Lord knows 'f he'd found a rich relation I wanted my old flannels for cleanin' cloths hereafter. But he 'xplained 's Felicia Hemans got Brunhilde out o' a book—the Nibble suthin' 'r other. 'Oh, well,' I says, 'if you c'n be suited with namin' your family after rats 'n' mice I guess you c'n leave me out,' I says, 'n' I kind o' backed off so 's to try 'n' set him a-goin', but he stood still, 'n' o' course no true Christian c'n shut her door in her minister's ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... with an autumnal branch that they wrenched from a hardy maple in the yard. They had seen horses nibble leaves, and they expected Whitey to nibble the leaves of this branch; but his ravenous condition did not allow him time for cool discriminations. Sam poked the branch at him from the passageway, ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... of honeysuckle, A creeping, coloured caterpillar, I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray, I nibble it leaf by ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... the torpedo-boats. If, before she was obliged to lower her cylinder, she could get near enough to the almost stationary repeller to take part in the attack on her, she would then be content to slacken speed and let the crabs nibble ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... matter, but one finds idle hours pass heavily after a life such as mine has been, and since the bronco blundering into a badger-hole fell and broke my leg the surgeon who rode forty miles to set it said that if I was to work at harvest I must not move before—and the harvest is already near. So I nibble the pen and look around the long match-boarded hall, waiting for the inspiration which is strangely slow in coming, while my wife, who was Grace Carrington, smiles over her sewing and suggests that it ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... this purpose they learn to ride and to fight. They understand well how to manage a horse, so as to make him strong and swift. They do not let him eat when he pleases, but they give him three meals a day of hay and barley, and then rein him up that he may not nibble the grass, and grow fat; and sometimes they give him no food at all, and yet make him gallop many miles. By this management the horses are very thin, but very strong, and able to bear their masters eighty miles ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... Let him make all the advances, d'ye see? Teach him bridge, on the square, at night. Let him win a little—just enough to keep him satisfied with himself—you'll see. Wait till he draws his wad, and we'll throw the gaff in him to the queen's taste. If he won't nibble at one hook try another. But, I say, Billy, you'll have to furnish the scads for bait, in case he don't? rise to something easy. I know you're flush from ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... not sail with the next draft. Ten minutes after being warned for it, the old complaint caught him again, and when the band played our lads out of barracks he was snugly tucked away in sick-bay with sweet girl V.A.D.'s coaxing him to nibble a little calves-foot jelly and keep his strength up. Nor did he figure among either of the two subsequent drafts; his malaria wouldn't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... for me to divorce them all three, without making any special scandal. But if I did this thing, do you not think that my experience of married life has given me the most ineradicable prejudices against women as daily companions? Am I not persuaded that they all bicker and chatter and nibble sweetmeats alike—absolutely alike? ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... stopping now and then to nibble at the bushes on either side, she sat calmly looking out upon the surroundings. Once in a while she would draw aside her veil and her beautiful eyes would lift themselves to heaven with a look of rapture and adoration in them, ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... and the villages—the men in red-lined jackets; the women in black petticoats, short-waisted green bodices, and broad-brimmed straw hats with black-and-crimson pompons. But on the steepest gradient, just before reaching Hornberg, I got my first nibble—strange to say, from two German students; they wore Heidelberg caps, and were toiling up the incline with short, broken wind; I put on a spurt with the Manitou, and passed them easily. I did it just at first in pure wantonness ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... said earnestly, "This is a bad climate to go hungry in. You'd 'ave a touch of the sun in less'n no time. Just go below, an' force yerself to nibble a bit. It'll do you good, an' I don't mind keepin' ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... on Little Foxes," said I; "by which I mean those unsuspected, unwatched, insignificant little causes that nibble away domestic happiness, and make home less than so noble an institution should be. You may build beautiful, convenient, attractive houses,—you may hang the walls with lovely pictures and stud them with gems of Art; and there may be living there together persons bound ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... all the mischief, had disappeared. The horses were now quiet enough, though breathing hard, and soon they began to nibble at the grass. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... fished in that direction, Momsey threw out her line toward Memphis and Adair MacKenzie. Mr. Sherwood pulled in his line first, without much of a nibble, it ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... and Chando were allowed to walk about the village as they pleased, and nibble at anybody's hay or grass, and splash in anybody's pond, and wallow in ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... since in America women make more effort to be agreeable than men do.) Sitting next to a stranger she wonders which "fly" she had better choose to interest him. She offers one topic; not much of a nibble. So she tries another or perhaps a third before he "rises" ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... be young. In all Worthington there aren't ten men that don't jump when Elias M. Pierce crooks his finger. Who are you, to join that noble company of martyrs?" Achieving no nibble on this bait, the speaker continued: "Jerry Saunders has been keeping Wayne's telephone on the buzz, ordering ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... lost much time by the way," he added, eyeing my reeking steed. "What a slap-up charger that mare would make! Here, you boy, take her into the shed there, and throw a sack or two over her, wash out her mouth, and give her a lock of hay to nibble; but don't go to let her drink, unless you want my cane about your shoulders—do ye ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... getting up so early that I should be already dressed before Celia would appear, and then I could tell her that I had been so hungry that I had eaten my breakfast alone. It would have been true too, because I intended to nibble my malted milk tablets behind a magazine. But this plan came to naught; for when I poked my head out between the curtains I saw Celia herself staggering toward the dressing-room with her satchel. Thereupon I lay down again and ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... here some chance of an adventure, since it is not every day that one meets upon a lonely down a man of culture, in rags and happy. I therefore took the bridle right off my horse and let him nibble, and I sat down on the bank of the Roman road holding the leather of the bridle in my hand, and wiping the bit with plucked grass. The stranger sat down beside me, and drew from his pocket a piece of bread and a large onion. We then talked of those things ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... them, could be cut from the bushes at the margin, and little fish could be taken at the same time that they were trying for large ones. They found too, before long, that sometimes a very respectable perch or bass would stoop to nibble at one of the "elegant worms" with which Dick ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... time he had ever been west of Philadelphia. He said that he was minded to become an author, an' had come out to study the aboriginal types an' get the true local color. Whenever I hear this little bunch o' sounds, I know I got a nibble. Any time a man goes nosin' around after local color, you can bet your saddle he's got several zigzags in ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... the dog? (10) Once on a time, so goes the story, when beasts could speak, the sheep said to her master, "What a marvel is this, master, that to us, your own sheep, who provide you with fleeces and lambs and cheese, you give nothing, save only what we may nibble off earth's bosom; but with this dog of yours, who provides you with nothing of the sort, you share the very meat out of your mouth." When the dog heard these words, he answered promptly, "Ay, in good sooth, for is it not I who keep you safe and sound, you sheep, so that you are not stolen ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... his food. In the matter of voice, too, they flattered themselves there was a wide difference. However, all this might be changed or improved by judicious training, except the feet. The hoofs they despaired of. The tail they proposed to nibble off at a proper length from the body. This operation the donkey positively refused to submit to, but finally consented to hold his tail up over his back as much like a rabbit as possible, and, moreover, would at once set about his lessons to learn their ways, so that he might ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... connected with the religious experiences of my childhood; or, perhaps I should say, with the religious observances of my childhood. Our minister's whiskers always interested me more than his discourses. As I nibble a peppermint from the bag before me—lingeringly, for the supply is being fast depleted—and the frail yet pungent odor fills my nostrils, I am once more in that half-filled church, on a Sabbath morning in early Spring, dozing through the sermon, with my head ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... carried a lovely big black velvet bag; it had a bouquet wrought in beads of subdued color upon it, and it hung by two sombre silk puckering ribbons over grandma's arm. In the bag grandma carried a supply of crackers and peppermint lozenges, and upon these she would nibble in meeting whenever she felt that feeling of goneness in the pit of her stomach, which I was told old ladies sometimes suffer with. It was proper enough, I was assured, for old ladies to nibble at crackers and peppermint lozenges in meeting, but that such a proceeding would be very wicked ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... dazzling and mysterious world was really the world he knew, the rabbit thought no more about it, but went leaping gaily over the radiant crust (which was just strong enough to support him) toward some young birches, where he proposed to nibble a breakfast. As he went, suddenly a curious sound just under his feet made him jump wildly aside. Trembling, but consumed with curiosity, he stared down at the glassy surface. In a moment the sound was repeated. It was a sharp, impatient tapping against the under side of the crust. To the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... successful fisherman one must have a great deal of patience, so though he didn't get a bite right away as he had expected to, he wasn't the least bit discouraged. He kept very quiet and fished and fished, patiently waiting for a foolish trout to take his hook. But he didn't get so much as a nibble. "Either the trout have lost their appetite or they have grown very wise," muttered Farmer Brown's boy, as after a long time he moved on ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... the morsel of "pone" between thumb and forefinger, holding it tightly. Then it was a joy to watch Satan. He tried to tug it all away at once, but only a fragment broke off. He stamped in impatience, and then went to work to nibble the bread away on all sides of Dan's fingers, very fine work for such broad, keen chisels as Satan's teeth, but he went about it with the skill of long practice, turning his head this way and that and always watching the face of the master with sidewise eyes, one ear forward and ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... taking place, and here and there small local engagements, but the fact that they were local made it very difficult for me to get to hear of them. None of the Corps Commanders knew exactly when or where the nibble would develop, or, if they did know, they were naturally chary of giving me the information. On occasions too when I did know I had not sufficient time to make my arrangements, I had to be content with scenes which unfolded ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... her chamber—an intruder for which she would never permit Fanny to lay a trap—came rattling amongst the links of her locket-chain, her one ring, and another trinket or two on the toilet-table, to nibble a bit of biscuit laid ready for it, she looked up, recalled momentarily to the real. Then she said half aloud, as if deprecating the accusation of some unseen and unheard monitor, "I am not cherishing love dreams; I am only thinking ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... excessive liveliness of description in which Mrs. Knight not unfrequently indulges, we may allude to her portrait of Hannah More's father, the parish schoolmaster, "besides leading a flock of village urchins to nibble in the green pastures of knowledge, his five little girls follow the same friendly crook, and in their training he beholds the buds and blossoms, as he hopes to realize the fruit of his professional skill ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... and not I," she retorted. "I see you are like Dick—always with a string on your compliments, and lo, when we poor sillies start to nibble, back goes the compliment dragging at the end ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... little mouse It almost made him sneeze; An old rat said, "There's danger, Be careful where you go!" "Nonsense!" said the other, "I don't think you know!" So he walked in boldly— Nobody in sight; First he took a nibble, Then he took a bite; Close the trap together Snapped as quick as wink, Catching mousey fast there, 'Cause he ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of the same animal by a man in a farmyard or elsewhere. The abject terror inspired by the presence of a snake is such that an innocent rat will set to gnawing the snake's tail in default of more usual provender; while a rabbit placed with a snake near skin-shedding time will placidly nibble the loose rags of epidermis about ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... uncertain whether to bite, now looking and longing, now suspecting the hook and retreating, now returning to look and long again, until, finally, unable to resist the temptation, it resolves upon a little nibble, which ends, even against its own will, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... boy," said the Chattering Squirrel. "He is very kind to me. He puts nuts out for me to eat. I am eating one now. Will you have a nibble?" and the squirrel held out the nut ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope
... watching them," said Dick. "The d——l such cunning brutes I ever met with as the fish in this river: now, if you were at a distance from the bank, you'd see them jumping as lively as grasshoppers. Whisht! I think I had a nibble." ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... along the broad iron decks—a whole drove of sheep seem quite content while licking big lumps of bay salt. Two exceedingly impertinent goats lead the cook a perfect life of misery. They steal round the galley and will nibble the carrots or turnips if his back is turned for one minute; and then he throws something at them and misses them; and they scuttle off laughing impudently, and flick one ear at him from a safe distance. This is the most impudent ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... forgotten my morning's milk, and the pot of preserves is empty! Anyone else would have been vexed: as for me, I affect the most supreme indifference. There remains a hard crust, which I break by main strength, and which I carelessly nibble, as a man far above the vanities of the world and of ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... specimens of men she called chic, with a funny little foreign accent, which seemed to put new life into the wornout word. Twenty times a day she baited her hook, and twenty times a day some fish would bite, or at least nibble, according as he was a fortune-hunter or a dilettante. Miss Nora, being incapable of knowing the difference, was ready to capture good or bad, and went about dragging her slaves at her chariot- wheels. Sometimes ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... intensity at close quarters, but when diffused is fragrance of ethereal delight. All day long birds frolic in the trees, some to cull the nectar, some to search for insects attracted for like purpose, some to nibble and discard white petals. All the moist soil beneath is strewn with snowy flakes, for at night flying foxes blunder among the branches, destroying more blooms than they eat. But why grumble? Birds which nip off petals and musty foxes which brush down whole posies in their clumsiness are but ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... not follow after Too close. I try to keep in sight, Dreading his frown and worse his laughter, I steal out of the wood to light; I see the swift shoot from the rafter By the window: ere I alight I wait and hear the starlings wheeze And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight. He goes: I follow: no release Until he ceases. Then ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... she had been making pretence to nibble. "Janet—that is our dairy girl—lent me her frock and shawl: her shoes too. She goes out to the milking at six, and I took her place. The fog helped ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shook his head at him in fury. "Put down there what you hold," he said, "and go." The king cast his money into the silver basin and slunk away. John's insult was all the greater because out of Lincoln none of the bishop's people was ever allowed to nibble one crumb of the alms. That day the bishop had preached upon the conduct and future prospects of princes. John neither liked the duration nor the direction of the sermon, and sent thrice to the preacher to stop his talk and get on with the ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... the morn to our own church, where Mr. Mills did begin to nibble at the Common Prayer, by saying "Glory be to the Father, &c." after he had read the two psalms; but the people had been so little used to it, that they could not tell what to answer. This declaration of the King's do give the Presbyterians some satisfaction, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... fourteen baby calves was not such hard work as they had expected, for they were very amiable beasties and only wanted to nibble a little fresh sweet grass as they were driven on toward the barnyard. But Meg and Bobby had so much fun doing this that they forgot to be quiet, and just as they had the last calf safely inside and the big gate barred, two figures came running up ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... wanted to nibble a little of the grass by the side of the way; but Solomon John remembered what a long neck he had, and would not ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... symptom is the desire to chew, lick or eat indigestible or filthy substances. Horses and cattle may stand and lick a board for an hour or more; cattle may chew the long hair from the tails of horses; sheep may nibble wool; sows may within a short time after giving birth to their pigs, kill and eat them; chickens may pick and eat feathers. Innutrition may accompany the abnormal appetite, as very frequently the affected animal shows a disposition to leave its feed in order to eat these ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... The men of Pharaoh's, beautiful with red And with red gold, fair foreign-footed men, The bountiful fair men, the courteous men, The delicate men with delicate feet, that went Curling their small beards Agag-fashion, yea Pruning their mouths to nibble words behind With pecking at God's skirts-small broken oaths Fretted to shreds between most dainty lips, And underbreath some ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... one big one stand up on his hind legs and nibble a bun just like a squirrel!" said a man watching the antics of the white rats and mice among Mr. Capper's buns. If this man had only known it, squirrels and rats belong to the same family, that called "rodents," only a squirrel has a much ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... the coops. Four mild oxen have been untethered and allowed to walk along the broad iron decks - a whole drove of sheep seem quite content while licking big lumps of bay salt. Two exceedingly impertinent goats lead the cook a perfect life of misery. They steal round the galley and WILL nibble the carrots or turnips if his back is turned for one minute; and then he throws something at them and misses them; and they scuttle off laughing impudently, and flick one ear at him from a safe distance. This is ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... animal of an antediluvian type, comes out at the same time, and assists in lessening these multitudinous swarms. The little Owls, though they pursue the larger beetles and moths, direct their efforts chiefly at the small quadrupeds that steal out in the early evening to nibble the tender herbs and grasses. Thus the night, except the hours of total darkness, is with many species of animals, though they pursue their objects with comparative stillness and silence, a period of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... guillemots and their practice of nibbling each other's feet, and the interest the mate always takes in this proceeding, which probably relieves irritation caused by insects, Edmund Selous remarks: "When they nibble and preen each other they may, I think, be rightly said to cosset and caress, the expression and pose of the bird receiving the benefit being often beatific."[196] Among mammals, such as the dog, we ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... her hunger became more intense, till finally she began to cut some twigs and nibble on them, but they were hard and bitter, and after chewing on them for a few minutes she threw them away. She tried the leaves; they went ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... o' leaves an' stibble, Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter's ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... reaped 237 urdeps, or not one half that was actually upon the fields. They permitted the natives to steal by night, and the swarms of small birds destroyed an incredible quantity by day. These innumerable and ruinous pests do not consume the entire grain, but they nibble the soft sweet portion from the joint of each seed, neatly picking out the heart; thus the ground beneath is strewed with their remnants ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... gathering quick courage the while, he himself at length reared, struck out with fore legs, followed up with hind legs, and found himself directly over the tuft of grass. This was pleasant, and he promptly began to nibble it, finding it no less toothsome—perhaps more toothsome—for the effort. And when he had finished this he gazed about for others, and, seeing others, moved upon each in turn as he had moved upon the first, rearing and striking, following it with hind legs, rearing and striking again, following ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... they will devour the plants as fast as they rise. Even in coarser countries, where herds and flocks are not fed, not only the deer and the wild goats will browse upon them, but the hare and rabbit will nibble them. It is therefore reasonable to believe, what I do not remember any naturalist to have remarked, that there was a time when the world was very thinly inhabited by beasts, as well as men, and that the woods had leisure ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... would fain live honest, and want means for it; for I can tell you 'tis as strange here to see a maid fair, poor, and honest, as to see a collier with a clean face. Maids here do live (especially without maintenance) Like mice going to a trap, They nibble long, at last they get a clap. Your father was my good benefactor, and gave me a house whilst I live to put my head in: I would be loth then to see his only daughter, for want of means, turn punk. I have a drift to keep you honest, have you a care to keep yourself ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... to keep company with them; but whether it be because their forms are coarser, their manners less refined, and their pedigree not so long, or whether it be because they sometimes have a fancy to nibble off the ears of their neighbours, or, when their appetite is uncommonly sharp, make a meal of their Norman cousins, ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... night, to the tune of two or three pounds—wasting what they could not devour. You could keep nothing sacred from their strong teeth. When hard pressed they more than once attacked the live sheep; and at last they went so far as to nibble one of our black cooks, Francis, who slept among the flour barrels. On the following morning he came to me, his eyes rolling angrily, and his white teeth gleaming, to show me a mangled finger, which they had bitten, ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... the dead baronet's body with sprays of the wither'd bracken, I drew her to a little distance and prevail'd on her to nibble a crust of the loaf. Now, all this while, it must be remembered, I was in my shirt sleeves, and the weather bitter cold. Which at length her ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... Mr. Dowling continued, "that some one had bought one small plot on the outskirts of the estate. I dare say it is not true, and in any case it is not worth while troubling about, but it shows that the public is beginning to nibble. I am of opinion that the time is almost—yes, almost ripe ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in the evening. She would slip into the shop of Herr Degen, and, with her greedy eyes opened as wide as possible, buy twenty pfennigs' worth of sweets, at which she would nibble until ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... by the leaves that Dilsy throws away when she gets out what we need. Think of it—a whole neighborhood of rabbits hurrying here after dark for the chance of a bare nibble at a possible leaf." Once that night I turned in bed, restless. Georgiana did ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... to go fishing. You just lie down on a rock, nibble it occasionally, chew up a few pebbles, take a bite at a stone, and if you are thirsty—as, of course, you would be—there is a whole river of eau sucre—that is what the French call sweetened water—running right by, enough to supply all France. And, all the time, you are hauling up the fish ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... wasted little time. There were women about her, but she regarded their presence no more than a carter his horses. I sat beside her on deep mats that made the room half a couch, and wine was given me and sweets to nibble, served on tiny, foot-high tables inlaid ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... over the pages of one of the least familiar of the group. The stuff was written with a crude force that at times became almost distinguished, but with a bitterness that he felt he must reprove. And suddenly he came upon a passionate tirade against the present period. It made him nibble softly with his lips at the top of his ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... were quite ready to fall in with their father's view of the matter. As for Dolly, she put her little tongue advisedly to the back of her sugar dog and found that he was very sweet indeed—a most tempting little animal. She even went so far as to nibble off a bit of the green ground he stood on—yet resolved heroically not to eat him at once, but to make him last as long as possible. She wrapped him tenderly in cotton and took him to the school with her, and when her confidential friend, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... wood-berries beneath the trees. And, besides the feet of grown people and children, there are the cloven hoofs of a small herd of cows, who seek their subsistence from the native grasses, and help to deepen the track of the future thoroughfare. Goats also browse along it, and nibble at the twigs that thrust themselves across the way. Not seldom, in its more secluded portions, where the black shadow of the forest strives to hide the trace of human- footsteps, stalks a gaunt wolf, on the watch for a kid or a young calf; or fixes his hungry gaze on the group of children ...
— Main Street - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a little hobby-horse, His name was Neddy Grey, His head was stuffed with pea-straw, His tail was made of hay. He could nibble, he could trot, He could carry the mustard pot, From the table to the ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... first hours of the night was poor and evidently waste land, for we saw no cultivation until near morning, when we crossed through a heavy oat-field, soaking wet with the night's rain. When we came out we were as wet as if we had fallen into the ocean. We took some of the oats with us, to nibble ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... to you from Farleys. Sort of small dead place, but there's business moving round it, so I got washed up here for a few days. I ain't had anything that's good yet, but there's a feller that looks like he might nibble, and take it from me my hooks are out. Anyways if he does I'll let you know. Plenty lot of rain, but I've been comfortable right along. Got a good room here and swell grub. And don't you worry about my roomatiz. All you want ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... me to drink. First she wandered all over the point, making it look afterwards as if a herd had passed. Then she took a sip of water by a rock, crossed to my side of the point, and took a sip there; then to the end of the point, and another sip; then back to the first place. A nibble of grass, and she waded far out from shore to sip there; then back, with a nod to a lily pad, and a sip nearer the brook. Finally she meandered a long way up the shore out of sight, and when I picked up the paddle ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... went back to its rest an' feed, Es quiet a crowd es ever wore hide; An' them boys in camp never heerd a lisp Of the thunder an' crash of that run an' ride. An' I'll never forget, while a wild cat claws, Or a cow loves a nibble of sweet blue grass, The cur'us pardner that rode with me In the night stampede in "Old ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... Woodcock please to help yourself" said Mr. Earlsdown offering him three or four plates of sugar and other cakes. Leslie took a small jam wafer and proceeded to nibble it quietly. "How far did you come?" asked the girl as she was ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... necessarily, catching fish, but still, fishing; and she was almost equally happy whether she did or did not catch any thing. I have known her remain all day in patient expectation of the "glorious nibble," stand through successive showers, with her clothes between whiles drying on her back, and only reluctantly leave the water's edge when it was literally too dark to ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... such persistence. Is nothing then ever caught in these pleasant streams, will ask the inquiring reader? Well, yes, I have seen served at table perch the size of very small herrings, which it is the French fashion to take between the fingers daintily, and, holding by head and tail, nibble as children bite an apple. Whether indeed these little fish are caught by the angler, I know not; but this is certainly the way they are eaten—if inelegant, honi soit qui mal ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... our teeth so severely that we should have preferred something less like a geological specimen and more like ordinary "hard tack," The favourite method of dealing with these biscuits was to smash them with an ice-axe or nibble them into small pieces and treat the fragments for a while to the solvent action of hot cocoa. Two important proteins were present in this food: plasmon, a trade-name for casein, the chief protein of milk, and gluten, a mixture of proteins ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... but I am watching. Two rabbits not twenty feet from us are nibbling the leaves on a tiny weed, that is, they nibble part of the time, and part of the time ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... menseless graceless brutes. [unmannerly] 'An neist my yowie, silly thing, [next] Gude keep thee frae a tether string! O may thou ne'er forgather up [make friends] Wi' ony blastit moorland tup; But ay keep mind to moop an' mell, [nibble, meddle] Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel! 'And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath I lea'e my blessin' wi' you baith; An' when you think upo' your mither, Mind to be kind to ane anither. 'Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail To tell my master a' ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... gold fish in my aunt's glass globe—and there he sat fishing with great complacency. However, he seemed a little put out when we came up. "Ah, Tom, how do you do?—Miss, your most obsequious—no rain mullet deucedly shy, Tom— ah! what a glorious nibble—there—there again—I have him;" and sure enough, he had hooked a fine mountain mullet, weighing about a pound and a half, and in the ecstasy of the moment, and his hurry to land him handsomely, he regularly capsized in his chair, upset the rummer of ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... with the greatest difficulty. They pushed forward step by step, and by fits and starts. On the 19th our troops were hard put to it to hold the ground they had taken the day before; on the 20th they barely began to nibble at the ravines, at Ploisy and L'Echelle. On the 21st the Americans took Berzy-le-Sec, and the French were astride the lower waters of the Crise; on the 23d they went down into the ravine of Buzancy. But not until the 25th did they gain possession of the promontory of Villemontoire; ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... too cocksure of that," retorted Captain Miles. "Sharks, I have noticed, frequently resemble cats in the way they will nibble at a bait, and pretend they don't care about it, when all the while they are dying to gobble it down—just in the same manner as you'll observe pussy, if you offer her a nice bit of meat, will sniff ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... up it the better," cried Tom; "for if I don't get something solid to eat soon, I must turn into a sheep, and begin to nibble the grass and leaves." ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... breakfast I ever tasted, or at all events the best I have tasted in Natal. The mules were also unharnessed, and after taking, each, a good roll on the damp grass, turned out in the drizzling rain for a rest and a nibble until their more substantial repast was ready. The rain cleared up from time to time, but an occasional heavy shower warned us that the weather was still sulky. It was in much better heart and spirits, however, that we made a second start about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... was a belt of smooth water on the west side of the rock. Here the fishermen cast anchor, and, baiting their hand-lines, began to fish. At first they were unsuccessful, but before half an hour had elapsed, the cod began to nibble, and Big Swankie ere long hauled up a fish of goodly size. Davy Spink followed suit, and in a few minutes a dozen fish lay spluttering in the bottom of ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... things Lucy was noticing to-day, not the least remarkable was this: the ghoulish fashion in which respectable people will nibble after blood. George Emerson had kept ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... form, addressed her and said, "Good fisherman, whither went the maiden whom I saw just now, with hair dishevelled and in humble garb, standing about where you stand? Tell me truly; so may your luck be good, and not a fish nibble at your hook and get away." She perceived that her prayer was answered, and rejoiced inwardly at hearing the question asked her of herself. She replied, "Pardon me, stranger, but I have been so intent upon my line, that I have seen nothing else; but I wish I may ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... on, now and then swinging his red-white-and-blue-striped rheumatism crutch like a cane, because he felt so young and spry and spring-like. Pretty soon he came to the willow tree. He was sort of looking up at it, wondering if a nibble of some of the green leaves would not do him good, when, all of a sudden, out jumped the two bad alligators and ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... of vantage beside her kept her plate heaped with delicacies, calmly removed the breast of chicken from his own plate to hers, all but fed her with a spoon when she refused to more than nibble at her meal. ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... quest for assistance the riderless horse, which had begun to nibble grass by the roadside, lifted his head with a snort that brought the lad to a sudden halt. Why not make use of this animal if he could catch it? Certainly his mission could be accomplished more quickly on horseback ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... to that distance, whether on foot or on horseback, they paid but little heed to me, and on several occasions they allowed me to come much closer. Like the bighorn, the black-tails at this time were grazing, not browsing; but I occasionally saw them nibble some willow buds. During the winter they had been browsing. As we got close to the Hot Springs we came across several white-tail ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... in his thirteenth year was as well able to defend himself as any clawed and toothed creature of the wood, and fear, the fear of anything he could face and grapple with, was a thing unknown. Propping his fishing pole so that no chance of a nibble might be lost in the impending struggle, he got on his knees and picked out the exact spot in the dog's neck where he would drive the bait knife home when hostilities ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... ladder. In each gallery shall be a bed, and the appurtenance thereof, one for use and one for a co-hermit or hermitess, if such there be. I leave that open. There must be a stoop, of course. Nothing enclosed. No flowers, by request. The sheep shall nibble to the very threshold. I don't forget that there is a fox-earth in the spinney attached. I saw a vixen and her cubs there one morning as clearly as I see this paper. She barked at me once or twice, sitting high on her haunches, but the children played ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... Not a nibble has ruffled my cork, It is vain in this river to search then; I may wait till it's night, Without any bite And at roost-time ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... unless we understand ourselves better than most people do. We don't, of course, expect to get a fifteen-hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we begin to look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble about the hook. We don't expect sets of diamonds, but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond ear-rings, begin to be speculated about among the young people as among possibilities. We don't expect to carpet our house with Axminster and hang our windows with damask, but ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... great heat, and more fishing. At least thirty large fish were caught this morning, also an infant shark, a grandchild who had wandered forth to nibble, and met an untimely grave. We have seen several alacrans or scorpions on board, but these are said not to be poisonous. The ship is the perfection of cleanness. No disagreeable odour affects the olfactory nerves, in which it has a singular advantage over all packets. This, and having it all ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... noticed where the Rodents are accustomed to have their holes and runs among flags and stones. If they find any soft wood such as pine or white deal, they will nibble at it until it is eaten through. I have often known them to eat right through the legs of tables in the middle of cooking kitchens. This, I think, they do simply to keep their teeth clean and in order; I have known half-grown ...
— Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-catcher - After 25 Years' Experience • Ike Matthews
... Brunhilde, 'n' I up 'n' told the minister so to his face. 'Who is she anyhow?' I says, flat 'n' plain, for Lord knows 'f he'd found a rich relation I wanted my old flannels for cleanin' cloths hereafter. But he 'xplained 's Felicia Hemans got Brunhilde out o' a book—the Nibble suthin' 'r other. 'Oh, well,' I says, 'if you c'n be suited with namin' your family after rats 'n' mice I guess you c'n leave me out,' I says, 'n' I kind o' backed off so 's to try 'n' set him a-goin', but he stood still, 'n' o' course no true Christian c'n shut her door in her minister's face—even ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... perplexity, and the grim truth had found expression in words, "and, that being the case, I think the best thing we can do is to sit down—for I imagine that we are all beginning to feel a trifle fagged—and nibble a sandwich or two, washing it down with a nip from our flasks, as ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... that the young men of the day are to blame for this; that the young men like it; and the fair husband-anglers dress their flies in the colours most likely to attract a nibble. Whether this excuse be the true one I cannot pretend to judge; but it strikes me that the men about my own age who affect to be fast are a more languid race than the men from ten to twenty years older, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the shorter and better line upon which they had begun to work at Michaelmas. Possibly it was to frustrate these preparations that Haig reopened his campaign so early as he did. On 11 January, the day on which the Allies answered President Wilson's note, British troops began to nibble at the point of the salient on the Ancre which had been created by the battle of the Somme. It was a modest sort of offensive; for it was no part of the Allies' combined plan of operations, which had been ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... little nap in the shade or cool themselves in a mudhole. The sheep and goats, feeling the need of something in their stomachs, slipped aside whenever they spied a young birch tree whose leaves they could nibble, or a fence to peep through, or a plot of green grass. The last year's calves, who had not been to the saeter before, saw no reason at all for hurrying, and made no attempt at it except when the stick was used ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... Brer Fox en Brer Possum dey soon drapt off ter sleep, but Brer Rabbit he stay 'wake, en w'en de time come he raise up easy en smear Brer Possum mouf wid de butter on his paws, en den he run off en nibble up de bes' er de dinner w'at dey lef' layin' out, en den he come back en wake up Brer Fox, en show 'im de butter on Brer Possum mouf. Den dey wake up Brer Possum, en tell 'im 'bout it, but c'ose Brer Possum 'ny it ter de las'. Brer Fox, dough, ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... Master spake Blew down the mount the dust of pattering feet, White goats and black sheep winding slow their way With many a lingering nibble at the tufts, And wanderings from the path, where water gleamed Or wild figs hung. But always as they strayed The herdsman cried, or slung his sling, and kept The silly crowd still moving to the plain. A ewe with couplets in the flock there was: Some ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "Why should I nibble round the unpalatable morsel which has to be swallowed?" The recantation had seemed to himself to be almost base, and he had been ashamed of it. "But," says he, "farewell to all true, upright, honest policy. You could hardly believe what treachery there is in those who ought ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... electricity is off. The day is warm so no furnaces are going. Not even a rat is left to nibble matches, for the animals must be affected in the same way that humans ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... pressed in the chase, hid himself beneath the large leaves of a Vine. The huntsmen, in their haste, overshot the place of his concealment. Supposing all danger to have passed, the Hart began to nibble the tendrils of the Vine. One of the huntsmen, attracted by the rustling of the leaves, looked back, and seeing the Hart, shot an arrow from his bow and struck it. The Hart, at the point of death, groaned: "I am rightly served, for I should not ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... hobby-horse, His name was Neddy Grey, His head was stuffed with pea-straw, His tail was made of hay. He could nibble, he could trot, He could carry the mustard pot, From the table to the shop. ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... des like he knowed me, en w'en I helt out my han' he poke his nose spang inter it en w'innied like he moughty glad ter see me—en he wuz, too, dat's sho'. Well, I ketch holt er his bridle en lead 'im thoo de woods up ter my do' whar he tu'n right in en begin ter nibble in de patch er kebbage. All dis time I 'uz 'lowin' dat de sodger wuz stone dead, but w'en I took 'im down he opened his eyes en axed fur water. Den I gun 'im a drink outer de goa'd en laid 'im flat on my bed, en in a little w'ile a nigger come by ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... Helen. A year ago he felt sure that Mrs. Hilmer was the last woman in the world that Helen would have found bearable, much less attractive... He concluded that Helen was enjoying the novelty of watching Mrs. Hilmer nibble at a discreet feminine frivolity to which she was unaccustomed. After a while he looked for outward changes in Mrs. Hilmer's make-up. He figured that the shopping tours with Helen might be reflected ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Chirpy Cricket and his cousin stopped to eat a little grass, or paused to carry a few spears into their holes, because they liked to have something to nibble on in the daytime. But they always returned to their fiddling again; and they never stopped for good until ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... green grass they found and stuck it through the wires for the colts to pull out of their hands and nibble. Mule colts seemed even more tame than horse colts, and the children each "chose" a colt and named it, although the colts ran around in such a lively way that it was difficult sometimes to keep them separated in one's mind and, as Cowboy Jack said when he came along ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... on my mind. One feature, at all events, of the Golden Age was to be seen in the herds of deer that encountered you in the somewhat remoter recesses of the Park, and were readily prevailed upon to nibble a bit of bread out of your hand. But, though no wrong had ever been done them, and no horn had sounded nor hound bayed at the heels of themselves or their antlered progenitors, for centuries past, there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... My missus were i' such a way about Sylvie that a thought a'd just step off mysel', and have a peep at yo' a', and bring her some wraps. Yo'r sheep will be a' folded, a reckon, Measter Pratt, for there'll niver be a nibble o' grass to be seen this two month, accordin' to my readin'; and a've been at sea long enough, and on land long enough t' know signs and wonders. It's good stuff that, any way, and worth comin' for,' after he had gulped down a tumblerful of ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... drifted back to the second counter, smiled cheerfully at the clerk, picked up the basket and started for the door, stopping beside a barrel of dried apples to run his fingers through the contents and to nibble one of the gritty chunks. He was squeezing his way hastily through the crowd, nearing the door, when a hand was laid firmly on his left shoulder. Turning quickly he found himself gazing into the face of a stranger, fairly well dressed and not overly ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... of your living up to your motto, sonny boy," she said, as she held out a lump of sugar for the pretty creature to nibble. "It was your 'good name' that brought you ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... black pirate!" she shouted; but finding that harsh words had no effect, she took a convenient broom, and advanced to strike a gallant blow upon the creature's back. This had the simple effect of making him step a little to one side and modestly begin to nibble at ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... me since my attempt at escape, and I was miserably thin, and so weak that I could hardly drag myself about my dungeon. So, many weeks of the winter went on, and at last I was not able to rise from my bed of straw, and could do little more than lift a cup of water to my lips and nibble at some bread. I felt that my ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and began to nibble and, of course, did not see Puss; but when she reached the fish she gave it a pull and the ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... you'd let me have much of a chance," said her husband. When he came within easy hail of the man in the hay-field, he pulled up beside the meadow-wall, where the horse began to nibble the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... he then tried to turn round and kick the object of his indignation, who was by no means disposed to take the insult quietly. The boy let go the ass, who gave one fling at the horse, and then went very quietly to nibble the grass, lying in patches on the rough ground. The horse, however, now tried to get at the donkey; broke his bridle, pursued him, and both scampered off, the former doing just the very thing Mr. Bowdich wished to ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... Kit exclaimed, exultantly. "She knows how I love to nibble on good things to eat. Now we won't have to go into the dining-car for lunch, and it will seem like a regular ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... fish get very particular about the sort and shape of the bait. Some men have taken to fishing wholly with pickles, but with very unsatisfactory results. The fish nibble, but are seldom landed apparently. And just a little bit out are fish that never have gotten a suggestion of a ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... the first time he had ever been west of Philadelphia. He said that he was minded to become an author, an' had come out to study the aboriginal types an' get the true local color. Whenever I hear this little bunch o' sounds, I know I got a nibble. Any time a man goes nosin' around after local color, you can bet your saddle he's got ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... dare not follow after Too close. I try to keep in sight, Dreading his frown and worse his laughter. I steal out of the wood to light; I see the swift shoot from the rafter By the inn door: ere I alight I wait and hear the starlings wheeze And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight. He goes: I follow: no release Until he ceases. Then I ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... would now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honored for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul's hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... And you, you prosper. Yet you were poor when you said, "I am the Mysian Telephus,"[548] and used to stuff your wallet with maxims of Pandeletus[549] to nibble at. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... red nightcap and flowered dressing-gown, with slippered feet, and spectacles on nose, entered the hall, followed by another in black, apparently his clerk. Two other persons also came in, and took their seats at the table, while the clerk began to nibble his pen and shuffle ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... streets than be dead. Nothing nonsensical ever held me so tightly or kept me so interested. I suppose really I am full of that very same formless faith on which you rely. But with me it's not only shapeless but intangible.... I nibble at religion. I am immensely attracted. I stand in the doorway. Only when they come out to persuade me to come in I am like a shy child and I go away. The temples beguile me and the music, but not the men. I feel I want ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... Ah, there I fell into error. It has been known to nibble at a chiropodist's finger, but it prefers imported Brie cheese, aged in the wood. The mode employed in catching it is very interesting, and I shall now describe it to you. Selecting a body of water wherein the whiffletit resides, you enter a round-bottomed boat ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... Tomboy Taylor fished another Pittsburgh stogie out of her hundred dollar handbag, bit off the end with a quick nibble of even, pearly-white teeth, and stuffed the cigar in between the arched lips. She scratched a big kitchen match on the seat of her skirt after raising one shapely thigh to stretch the cloth. She puffed the stogie into light and became transformed ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... artists might envy. It will take another month to ripen the drupes of the black-haw into their blue-black beauty; now they are green on one side and red on the other, like a ripening apple. It's a fine education to know just which fruits you may nibble and which you must not eat. Red-stalked clusters of black berries hang from the vines of the Virginia creeper among leaves just touched with the hectic flame that tells of their passing, all too soon. At the sign of the sumac, tall torches of garnet ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... by the ladies of Europe. The viscachas and chinchillas resemble the rabbit in form and color, but they have shorter ears and long rough tails. They live on the steep rocky mountains, and in the morning and evening they creep out from their holes and crevices to nibble the alpine grasses. At night the Indians set before their holes traps made of horse-hair, in which the animals are easily caught. The most remarkable of the beasts of prey in these high regions is the Atoc (Canis Azarae, Pr. Max.). It is a species of fox, which is found throughout the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... of that," retorted Captain Miles. "Sharks, I have noticed, frequently resemble cats in the way they will nibble at a bait, and pretend they don't care about it, when all the while they are dying to gobble it down—just in the same manner as you'll observe pussy, if you offer her a nice bit of meat, will sniff and turn away her head as if rejecting the morsel with disdain, affecting to make you believe ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... brightening February there came a few days of warm, misty weather. Petter Nord became suddenly serious and silent. He let the white mice nibble the steel bars of their cages without feeding them. He attended to his duties in the most irreproachable way. He fought with no more street boys. Could Petter Nord not bear the change in ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... gave Mrs. Preston enough time to carry upstairs a cold meal, to take a hasty nibble of food, and to hurry back across the vacant lots before the gong should ring for the afternoon session. At the close of school she returned to the cottage more deliberately, to finish her house work before taking her daily walk. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... them all three, without making any special scandal. But if I did this thing, do you not think that my experience of married life has given me the most ineradicable prejudices against women as daily companions? Am I not persuaded that they all bicker and chatter and nibble sweetmeats alike—absolutely alike? Or ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... taunt &c. (disrespect) 929; sneer at &c. (despise) 230; satirize, lampoon; defame &c. (detract) 934; depreciate, find fault with, criticize, cut up; pull to pieces, pick to pieces; take exception; cavil; peck at, nibble at, carp at; be censorious &c. adj.; pick holes, pick a hole, pick a hole in one's coat; make a fuss about. take down, take down a peg, set down; snub, snap one up, give a rap on the knuckles; throw a stone at, throw a stone in one's garden; have a fling, have a snap at; have words with, pluck ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... varieties of peripatetic tricksters, higher than these, and lower, who act their parts tolerably well, but seldom with an absolutely illusive effect. I knew at once, raw Yankee as I was, that they were humbugs, almost without an exception,—rats that nibble at the honest bread and cheese of the community, and grow fat by their petty pilferings,—yet often gave them what they asked, and privately owned myself a simpleton. There is a decorum which restrains you (unless you happen to be a police-constable) from breaking ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... it to nibble at an unlawful spot. Is this due to feebleness of the teeth? By no means: the Cetonia's skin is no tougher on the back than on the belly; moreover, the grub is capable of perforating the skin when it leaves the egg; a fortiori, it must be more capable of doing so now ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... dear, there's nothing to tell unless it be that a bland silence is a good thing to cultivate. There's no use in making so much of a bugbear of these people who seem to oppose, and the best way to lead them into the green pastures is to let them nibble along the outside until they want to jump the fence and get over in spite of you. Now Leon is really quite hungry to know some things, especially about the practical application of thought to business, but he knows just ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... drop in about six o'clock p.m. whom we were more glad to see than Fielding, the Orange County farmer. In the first place, he always had a good appetite, and it did not make much difference what we had to eat. He would not nibble about the end of a piece of bread, undecided as to whether he had better take it, nor sit sipping his tea as though the doctor had ordered him to take only ten drops at a time, mixed with a little sugar and hot water. Perpetual contact with fresh air ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... which Odysseus clung, moving slowly, for his fleece was heavy, and Odysseus whom he bore was heavier still. On the ram's back Polyphemus laid his great hands. "Dear ram," said he, "once wert thou the very first to lead the flocks from the cave, the first to nibble the tender buds of the pasture, the first to find out the running streams, and the first to come home when evening fell. But to-day thou art the very last to go. Surely thou art sorrowful because the wicked ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... an enclosure. Jamieson, Ayr. Cp. O.N. snap, a pasture for cattle, especially a winter pasture (Haldorson), snapa, vb. to nibble, M.E. snaipen. The vowel in the Sco. word proves an original open a, hence it is from the vb. snapa. O.N. snap, sb. would have given ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom
... uncomfortable, and we stand around half asleep, with our sore hands in our pockets, wishing we were at home. The skipper, however, is holding his lines over the rail with an air which clearly intimates that the slightest kind of a nibble will be quite sufficient this morning to seal the doom of ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... that one big one stand up on his hind legs and nibble a bun just like a squirrel!" said a man watching the antics of the white rats and mice among Mr. Capper's buns. If this man had only known it, squirrels and rats belong to the same family, that called "rodents," only a ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis
... caress his woolly-fleeced companion; and the mother talks softly to her child of the innocent darlings, and asks if they are not lovely creatures, and beautiful to look at, as they timidly wander from spot to spot, and nibble the delicate pasture. So it is to the lively fancy of childhood, and so it is to the mother whose affections are naturally melted into softness in the presence of simplicity; but when economic considerations arise, and the question is one of service ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... break them off. They then fly to a suitable limb, and placing the acorn under one foot, hammer away at it busily, making a sound like a woodpecker's tapping, looking round from time to time to see if any foe is approaching, and soon reach the meat, and nibble at it, holding up their heads to swallow, while they hold the remainder very firmly with their claws. Nevertheless, it often drops to the ground before the bird has done with it. I can confirm what Wm. Bartram wrote to Wilson, the Ornithologist, that "The jay is one of the most useful agents in ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... between the rocks and not far from the trail by which they had come to the vicinity. The horses were tethered at a point where a patch of coarse undergrowth gave them something to nibble at. The animals were of no use to them, now they were in the district where the lost mine was ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... your mother makes good pies!" he exclaimed with rapture, as soon as he could get his mouth sufficiently clear to speak. "Give us another bite,—only a nibble." ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... choose to conceal her scorn. Lady Clara was very much afraid of her. Those timid little thoughts, which would come out, and frisk and gambol with pretty graceful antics, and advance confidingly at the sound of Jack Belsize's jolly voice, and nibble crumbs out of his hand, shrank away before Ethel, severe nymph with the bright eyes, and hid themselves under the thickets and in the shade. Who has not overheard a simple couple of girls, or of lovers possibly, pouring ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... observing that Jennarone never took the ring from his finger, they sought to gain the victory by stratagem. So, waiting till Night had dyed with purple grape-juice the sunburnt face of Heaven, and the magicians had gone to bed and were fast asleep, Rudolo began to nibble the finger on which the ring was, whereupon Jennarone, feeling the smart, took the ring off and laid it on a table at the head of the bed. But as soon as Saltariello saw this, he popped the ring into his mouth, and in four skips he was off to find Minecco Aniello, ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... his long, sharp tusks he made a tunnel right through the mountain, and, though it was a bit darkish, he and the rabbit went through it as easily as a mouse can nibble ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... "pone" between thumb and forefinger, holding it tightly. Then it was a joy to watch Satan. He tried to tug it all away at once, but only a fragment broke off. He stamped in impatience, and then went to work to nibble the bread away on all sides of Dan's fingers, very fine work for such broad, keen chisels as Satan's teeth, but he went about it with the skill of long practice, turning his head this way and that and always watching the face of the master with sidewise eyes, one ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... came tripping down her father's steps to the limousine. She carried a dangling little trick of a hand-bag and a muff big enough for a rug. Her two eyes looked forth from the rim of the low-squashed, bandage-like fur hat like the eyes of a small, sly mouse that was about to nibble ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... with all the correspondence, seeing individual girls on academic and social matters, setting them right in cases of discipline, interviewing members of the faculty on necessary plans. The work was overwhelming and sometimes her one assistant would urge her, late in the evening, to nibble a bite from a tray which, to save time, had been sent in to her room at the dinner hour, only to remain untouched.... No wonder that professors often left their lectures to be written in the wee small hours, to help in uncongenial ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... places of rendezvous for merrymakers on horse or foot. Picnics of all sorts and sizes, from the little impromptu gatherings of half-a-dozen congenial young souls (always an even number, please), who ride off into the romantic shades to nibble biscuits and make tea, to the dainty repasts provided by a hospitable lady, whose official hut overlooks the Ferozepore Nullah, and who, in turn, overlooks her cook, to the great gratification ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... (10) Once on a time, so goes the story, when beasts could speak, the sheep said to her master, "What a marvel is this, master, that to us, your own sheep, who provide you with fleeces and lambs and cheese, you give nothing, save only what we may nibble off earth's bosom; but with this dog of yours, who provides you with nothing of the sort, you share the very meat out of your mouth." When the dog heard these words, he answered promptly, "Ay, in good sooth, for is it not I who keep ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... holoku and not I," she retorted. "I see you are like Dick—always with a string on your compliments, and lo, when we poor sillies start to nibble, back goes the compliment dragging at the end ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... had an odd liking for ingenious desk-accessories in the way of pencil-sharpeners, paper-weights, penholders, etc. The latest contrivances in this fashion—probably dropped down to him by the inventor angling for a nibble of commendation—were always making one another's acquaintance on his study table. He once said to me: "I 'm waiting for somebody to invent a mucilage-brush that you can't by any accident put into your inkstand. It would save me ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Brehm thinks quite trustworthy. For the cases of the old male baboons attacking the dogs, see s. 79; and with respect to the eagle, s. 56.) Social animals perform many little services for each other: horses nibble, and cows lick each other, on any spot which itches: monkeys search each other for external parasites; and Brehm states that after a troop of the Cercopithecus griseo-viridis has rushed through a thorny brake, each monkey stretches itself on a branch, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... birds—geese, ducks, divers, and other wild-fowl. Among them were several swans, beautifully white, with black necks, which kept swimming gracefully about like the great lords of the feathered population among whom they moved. Jerry and I were very hungry, so we sat ourselves down to take a nibble at our biscuit and cheese, not wishing to disturb them till our friends should come up to help us to slaughter them. We had sat a little while, and opened our wallet, when, what was our surprise to see the birds swimming together, and landing in numbers below our feet! Slowly some advanced, as ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... objects. What should he do? The tempter had the answer ready,—there was only one thing he could do,—run away with the magic thing and be a medicine-man, as his father had been, only he would be a much more powerful and cunning one. Sly tempter! Poor Pio! He had only meant to nibble, and here he ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... even in those days, falling into reveries from which Catherine gently and deferentially aroused her; and Uncle Tom would be carving the beefsteak and Aunt Mary pouring the coffee when she finally arrived in the dining room to nibble at one of Bridget's unforgettable rolls or hot biscuits. Uncle Tom had his joke, and at quarter-past eight precisely he would kiss Aunt Mary and walk to the corner to wait for the ambling horse-car ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... became too warm, and the Gatling battery was moved back about fifty yards, again halted, and faced to the front. It was now nearly one o'clock. The members of the detachment had picked up their haversacks on leaving El Poso, and now began to nibble pieces of hardtack. A bullet broke a piece of hardtack which a man was lifting to his mouth; without even stopping in the act of lifting it to his mouth, he ate ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... his Hussey. "Does Mars still refresh your old Furbilo, does he; I feel by my forehead a coat that is scarlet, Of all kinds of baits, is the best for a harlot; For beauty, I find, as 'tis commonly said, Will nibble like fish at a rag that is red; But Hussey, tell me any more of your Mars, And I'll run a hot bar in your Goddesship's arse; I fear not your threats, there's a fart for your bully, No whore in the Heavens shall make me her cully!" "You run a hot bar in my bum," quoth the dame, "Its a sign you've ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... made the unseen singer seem for the moment a hundred yards nearer than he really was. At length, right leisurely, they crept in sight—Cornwallis first, with his piebald face; then, as the old horse would dip his head to nibble at the green blades under his nose, short glimpses of Burl, though for awhile no further down than his enormous coon-skin cap, made, it is said, of the biggest raccoon that was ever trapped, treed, or shot in the Paradise. ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... taken by Mama or nurse before Carol could enjoy her supper; and whatever bit of cake or sweetmeat found its way into her pretty fingers, it was straightway broken in half and shared with Donald, Paul or Hugh; and, when they made believe nibble the morsel with affected enjoyment, she would clap her hands and crow with delight. "Why does she do it?" asked Donald, thoughtfully; "None of us boys ever did." "I hardly know," said Mama, catching her darling to her heart, "except ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... table and chair, writing pad, ink, and pipe tray. And all the author's trappings—the celery stand full of fresh roses and honeysuckle, last year's calendar on the wall, the dictionary, and a little bag of chocolates to nibble between ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... succored, defended, protected, this one and that, I might perhaps be called, in my own fashion, brave. You need not take these mighty airs with me. I came here knowing that you would come. That rose was dangled to afford you the opportunity for brutal stupidity. You did not fail to nibble ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... choose to keep company with them; but whether it be because their forms are coarser, their manners less refined, and their pedigree not so long, or whether it be because they sometimes have a fancy to nibble off the ears of their neighbours, or, when their appetite is uncommonly sharp, make a meal of their Norman cousins, ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... Bat, an animal of an antediluvian type, comes out at the same time, and assists in lessening these multitudinous swarms. The little Owls, though they pursue the larger beetles and moths, direct their efforts chiefly at the small quadrupeds that steal out in the early evening to nibble the tender herbs and grasses. Thus the night, except the hours of total darkness, is with many species of animals, though they pursue their objects with comparative stillness and silence, a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... said he. "I never smoke. But you will perhaps pardon me if I nibble two or three of these khat leaves. You yourself, from your experience in Oriental countries, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... he might be remembered. A peach—a blushing, rich-flavored fruit, nestling in the trellis work on the garden-wall, hidden beneath its long, green leaves,—this little vegetable production, that a dormouse would nibble up without a thought, was sufficient to recall to the memory of this great monarch the mournful shade of ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... author is but a labyrinth without a clue to direct the reader therein. I confess there is a lazy kind of learning which is only Indical; when scholars (like adders which only bite the horse's heels) nibble but at the tables, which are calces librorum, neglecting the body of the book. But though the idle deserve no crutches (let not a staff be used by them, but on them), pity it is the weary should be denied the benefit thereof, and industrious scholars prohibited the accommodation of an index, most ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... affidavits lo the public?—He cannot surely complain that he forgot them, for they appear to haunt his guilty imagination through the whole of his progress; nor can he complain of wanting room. But the answer is easy. He knew it would make his bait so very bad that even his own gulls would not nibble.— ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... held good at the hospital. The Sunshine Nurse inspected the cakes and approved them. She was so particular she even took a tiny nibble of one and said: "Sugar, flour, egg and shortening—all right Mickey, those can't hurt her. And how is ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... awkward consciousness that this old letter-writer and his sister are watching and misinterpreting with all the zeal of match-makers who have baited their trap, and are ready to mistake anything for a nibble! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... Mr. Bird!" cried the Captain. "I do not want to hurt you, but I can not allow you to pull wool from the back of my friend, Miss Lamb. You must stop it, or I will drive you away with my shiny, tin sword, as I drove away the bad rat that wanted to nibble the ears of the Candy Rabbit! Stop ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... almost before he could believe it, he was in a fine great pantry. A pantry whose shelves were covered with such good things to eat as he had never seen. Rich cake, pies, cookies, and cheese such as he had heard the caller describe. The first nibble fairly melted in ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous
... of the fishing party at Anglers' Bend. At first the four floats were watched with an intensity of regard that should surely have had some effect in luring fishes to the surface; but as the minutes dragged by and not a fish seemed inclined even to nibble, the solemn silence which had brooded on the quartet was broken by sundry fidgetings and wrigglings and suppressed remarks on the variableness of fish and the slowness of fishing. Men enjoy the sport, because ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... up to, he caught the old horse, laid the stick between his ears and strapped it to his neck, and tied the hay to the end of the stick; then it hung a few inches beyond old Whitey's nose. The old horse took a step ahead to nibble the hay,—another,—another,—another! "Don't you wish you may get it?" said Paul. Tramp,—tramp,—tramp. Old Whitey went down the road. Paul heard him go across the bridge by the mill, and up the hill the other side of ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... to Spring Hill. They occasionally did us damage, in a single night, to the tune of two or three pounds—wasting what they could not devour. You could keep nothing sacred from their strong teeth. When hard pressed they more than once attacked the live sheep; and at last they went so far as to nibble one of our black cooks, Francis, who slept among the flour barrels. On the following morning he came to me, his eyes rolling angrily, and his white teeth gleaming, to show me a mangled finger, which they had bitten, and ask me to dress it. He made a great ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... at Colchester, The rain may rain at Penge; From low-hung skies the dawn may rise Broodingly on Stonehenge. Knee-deep in clover the lambs at Dover Nibble awhile and stare; But there's only one place in the world ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... have lost much time by the way," he added, eyeing my reeking steed. "What a slap-up charger that mare would make! Here, you boy, take her into the shed there, and throw a sack or two over her, wash out her mouth, and give her a lock of hay to nibble; but don't go to let her drink, unless you want my cane about your shoulders—do ye ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... his place of vantage beside her kept her plate heaped with delicacies, calmly removed the breast of chicken from his own plate to hers, all but fed her with a spoon when she refused to more than nibble at her meal. ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... decks—a whole drove of sheep seem quite content while licking big lumps of bay salt. Two exceedingly impertinent goats lead the cook a perfect life of misery. They steal round the galley and will nibble the carrots or turnips if his back is turned for one minute; and then he throws something at them and misses them; and they scuttle off laughing impudently, and flick one ear at him from a safe distance. This is the most impudent gesture I ever saw. Winking is nothing to it. The ear ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... claimed Kate once more. His long face was once more thrust against her arm, and his soft lips began to nibble at the wrist frill of her sleeve. She turned to him with a laugh, and placed an arm about ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... reins over Cricket's head and allowed him to nibble at the sweet grass. Yes, there were the mandrakes with their finger-shaped leaves. And they were turning yellow. Dorothy gathered a few, then stood ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... been running a foot race, "this rabbit drive reminds me of the way the rich corporations look upon the poor people, just as we look upon the jackrabbits. We pity a single jackrabbit, and he runs when he sees us, and seems to say: 'Please, mister, let me alone, and let me nibble around and eat the stuff you do not want, and we drive them into a bunch, the way the rich and mean iron-handed trusts drive the people, and then we turn in and club them with the ax handle of graft and greed, and we keep our power over them, if enough are killed off so we are in the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... trying to nibble some grass at Carmela's feet, suddenly threw his head up, for the cruel South American bit had tightened under a ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... devilled egg and a spice cake to nibble on," said Wilma, "for there won't be a crust of bread left in the house when this lunch is taken out of it. I'm glad genius burns. What a heavenly day this is going to ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... given nor bought. That it cannot be plowed is evident; and if cattle be suffered to graze upon it, they will devour the plants as fast as they rise. Even in coarser countries, where herds and flocks are not fed, not only the deer and the wild goats will browse upon them, but the hare and rabbit will nibble them. It is therefore reasonable to believe, what I do not remember any naturalist to have remarked, that there was a time when the world was very thinly inhabited by beasts, as well as men, and that the woods had leisure to rise ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... him a new study, and a dark corner of education. As he lay on Wenlock Edge, with the sheep nibbling the grass close about him as they or their betters had nibbled the grass — or whatever there was to nibble — in the Silurian kingdom of Pteraspis, he seemed to have fallen on an evolution far more wonderful than that of fishes. He did not like it; he could not account for it; and he determined to stop it. Never since the ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... accorded well enough with the narrowmindedness of the emperor, who, in the enervating atmosphere of his highly civilised and luxurious court, dreaded the influx of the hardy and ambitious warriors of the West, and strove to nibble away by unworthy means the power which he had not energy enough to confront. If danger to himself had existed from the residence of the chiefs in his dominions, he might easily have averted it, by the simple means of ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... called out breathlessly, "Oh, Mary! Bogey's coming! Pray that the train will stand one more minute!" And the other, the one with curly lashes and mischievous mouth, chimed in, "He's bringing an enormous box of candy! Mean thing, to come so late that we can't have even a nibble!" ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... ejaculated the woodsman. "Where on earth do you city men pick up your notions about forest creatures—that's what I'd like to know? A moose can't get its horns to the ground without dropping on its knees; and it can't nibble grass from the ground neither without sprawling out its long legs,—which for an animal of its size are as thin as pipe-stems,—and tumbling in a heap. So I don't credit that yarn about their digging up the moss, even when there's no other food ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... braying I was a long time before I came upon him quite down upon the stony shore, with not a blade of grass nor even a thistle for him to nibble at. How he got there is to me a problem to this day; but how I laboured to get him up again will ever remain in my mind, for it makes me feel sore all over ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... team to be added to yours and six of Jim's for me. Hook on two trailers. You and I will make it to Julia and drive sixteen each back here with Huber's hay. That's the very best we can do, but we'll do that the best we know how. I'll be out by the time you get 'em hooked up. We'll nibble our breakfast as we travel. Shoot the piece, Hiram boy, my ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... much at home here as the birds. They nibble contentedly in the road by the wall, and are undisturbed by the approach of a villager. Beyond, at the left, is a glimpse of the level stretch of the sea. This is a spot where earth and sky and water meet, where the fishermen from the sea ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... and went on eating her biscuit. 'Take them out of the way, I tell you,' he shouted as he came nearer, 'or they'll get cut off.' 'They were there first,' repeated Georgiana, and took another delicious nibble. Joe cut straight along, and went whack right into her five toes. Georgiana screamed with all her might, but she held her foot on the log, till Joe dropped the hatchet with horror, and caught her in his arms. 'Georgiana, I told you to take your toes away,' he ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... cannot scribble Without a glove to tear or nibble Or a small twig to whisk about— As if the hidden founts of Fancy, Like wells of old, were thus found out By mystic trick of rhabdomancy. Such was the little feathery wand,[3] That, held for ever in the hand Of her who won ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... anything, this was a more wonderful garden than the first. The odors were intoxicating. There were flowers and birds and trees as well as succulent vegetables. A most wonderful elm tree spread out like an umbrella and shaded the whole lawn. Beneath this the girl stopped a moment, and let Bumper nibble at ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... Rotundus Caterpillar, or by his more familiar name Glummie, had been killed. Then his master, Toadie Todson, with whom he at least had a lazy time, was killed in a sand slide. And now he spent all his days at work for Stingy, who was a very exacting master. If he so much as stopped to nibble a little from a tender green birch leaf, Stingy would fly at him and bid him ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... miraculous property by which whoever drank from it was cured of his or her malady, and it had been passed freely round to all sufferers ever since it came into her family's keeping. That they might make doubly sure of the miracle, it was the custom of the sick not only to empty the cup, but to nibble a little bit of the wood, and swallow that, so that in whatever state the monks of Strata Florida had confided it, the vessel was now in the state we saw. Saying this the lady opened the casket holding it, and showed ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... rhetoric treat of the art of exciting laughter; therefore for the effecting of this they will sprinkle some jests and puns that must pass for ingenuity, though they are only the froth and folly of affectedness. Sometimes they will nibble at the wit of being satyrical, though their utmost spleen is so toothless, that they suck rather than bite, tickle rather than scratch or wound: nor do they ever flatter more than at such times as they pretend ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... the brisk drives about town to all points of interest, to the pond, the poorhouse, and the cemetery; you know how the courtship progresses, the long drives in the country, the idling along untravelled roads and woodland ways, the moonlight nights and misty meadows; you know when your stops to nibble by the wayside will not be noticed, and you alone know when it is time to get the young couple home; you know, alas! when the courtship—blissful period of loitering for you—is ended and when the marriage is made, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... the morning after Freda's return, and the night had been rather a troubled one. No one in the girls' camp felt much like eating breakfast, though they managed to nibble at a bit of toast and drink ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... worked his way along towards the boundary; pausing at intervals to gnaw at the growing plant-stems, or to sit on his haunches and nibble some fallen seed which took ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... three perch hand running while Giant did not get a nibble. The small member of the club was somewhat disappointed, but suddenly there came a tug that almost pulled him ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... ever eat, except between meals," she explained. "A nibble of cake or candy is as much as I can manage, my digestion ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... keep trotting out to his lunch basket to nibble the nice yellow carrot that Mother Rabbit had put in for Bunny and ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard
... bit heap o'leaves and stibble Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou's turn'd out for a' thy trouble, But house or hauld, To thole the winter's sleety dribble ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... mouths. Water for the men there was little, except the pittance which they were allowed to draw from the regimental water-carts. Neither was there shade from the merciless sun. The six inches of spare Karoo bush, though it served as a nibble for the less fastidious of animals, was useless either as bed or shade; other vegetable growth there was none within sight. Men crawled under waggons and water-carts if they were fortunate enough to find themselves near them, or, unrolling their blankets, ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... curling up to sleep. Rogers smoked a cigarette, pleased and satisfied like the cat.) A hush fell on the room. It was the hour of peace between tea and the noisy Pension supper that later broke the spell. So quiet was it that the mouse began to nibble in the bedroom walls, and even peeped through the cracks it knew between the boards. It came out, flicked its whiskers, and then darted in again like lightning. Jane Anne, rinsing out the big teapot in the scullery, frightened it. Presently she came in softly, put ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... last night, sure enough," said Jack. "The buffalo started along feeling pretty good. Stopped to nibble here. The rogue struck into his trail and swished right along careless. Stopped to rub on that tree—there's buffalo hair—whew! Say, ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... finding that harsh words had no effect, she took a convenient broom, and advanced to strike a gallant blow upon the creature's back. This had the simple effect of making him step a little to one side and modestly begin to nibble at ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... long," explained Moni; "it would be too late for the goats, they must go home." He straightened his weather-beaten cap, swung his rod in the air, and called to the goats which had already begun to nibble all ...
— Moni the Goat-Boy • Johanna Spyri et al
... unseen singer seem for the moment a hundred yards nearer than he really was. At length, right leisurely, they crept in sight—Cornwallis first, with his piebald face; then, as the old horse would dip his head to nibble at the green blades under his nose, short glimpses of Burl, though for awhile no further down than his enormous coon-skin cap, made, it is said, of the biggest raccoon that was ever trapped, treed, or shot in the Paradise. But presently, observing ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... about it. As a last resort this seaweed is edible, at any rate certain species of it. The Chinese and Japanese eat it, but that isn't much of a recommendation to a European. Then the water is full of fish that come to nibble at the stuff." ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... as to lean against the railing, she took up a fishing-rod and began to fish. Pao-ch'ai played for a time with a twig of olea she held in her hand, then resting on the window-sill, she plucked the petals, and threw them into the water, attracting the fish, which went by, to rise to the surface and nibble at them. Hsiang-yuen, after a few moments of abstraction, urged Hsi Jen and the other girls to help themselves to anything they wanted, and beckoned to the servants, seated at the foot of the hill, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... morn to our own church, where Mr. Mills did begin to nibble at the Common Prayer, by saying "Glory be to the Father, &c." after he had read the two psalms; but the people had been so little used to it, that they could not tell what to answer. This declaration of the King's do give the Presbyterians ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... berths, and the rest of the day I spent at a lawyer's office. Can't stomach that breed, somehow; they seem to get all the clover—maybe it's because they're a drift of sheep with tin cans about their necks, and can never take a nibble without all the world knowing. Ha! ha! I wish I'd thought of that ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... would have embittered him; but it shows his amiable modesty when I assert that Artie only fought shy of the more aggressive anglers, whose landing-nets were always in evidence, while he never refused to swim nimbly around and even nibble at the bait of ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... again at her pleasure, according as she sees some little fish come neer to her [Mount Elsayes: and others affirm this]; and the Cuttle-fish (being then hid in the gravel) lets the smaller fish nibble and bite the end of it; at which time shee by little and little draws the smaller fish so neer to her, that she may leap upon her, and then catches and devours her: and for this reason some have ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... right. At this time she pastured on dreams and fancies. Her emotions were not starved, but they were kept down and only allowed to nibble. She thought often of the man who had been kind to her, and sometimes she wished that he had kissed her. It would have been something to remember. Often, if she closed her eyes, she could almost cheat herself into believing him ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... cannot surely complain that he forgot them, for they appear to haunt his guilty imagination through the whole of his progress; nor can he complain of wanting room. But the answer is easy. He knew it would make his bait so very bad that even his own gulls would not nibble.— ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... end, attained by a ladder. In each gallery shall be a bed, and the appurtenance thereof, one for use and one for a co-hermit or hermitess, if such there be. I leave that open. There must be a stoop, of course. Nothing enclosed. No flowers, by request. The sheep shall nibble to the very threshold. I don't forget that there is a fox-earth in the spinney attached. I saw a vixen and her cubs there one morning as clearly as I see this paper. She barked at me once or twice, sitting high on her haunches, but the children played on without a glance at me. They were playing ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... off from the road into the edge of the thicket, unharnessed the horse, and left him free to forage for himself; whereupon he began to nibble, with great apparent relish, at the scattered spears of grass peeping up here and there through the snow. A large rug was brought from the chariot and spread upon the ground in a sheltered spot, upon which the comedians seated themselves, in Turkish fashion, in a circle, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... man to make it—that the world has been eating green apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is a great green apple, which there is danger awful to think of that the children of men will nibble before it is ripe; and straightway his drastic philanthropy seeks out the Esquimau and the Patagonian, and embraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus, by a few years of philanthropic activity, the powers in the meanwhile using him for their own ends, no doubt, he cures himself ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... no longer, nohow!" burst out the old tar. "A plagued rat came right up and wanted to nibble my leg, hang him. Who's them air fellows ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... under the reign of Pius VI., is reduced to an annual average of 5,000 or 6,000 under the paternal inspection of Pius IX. Not only is the planting of young trees abandoned, but the sheep are allowed to nibble down the tender shoots of the old ones. Besides this, speculators are tolerated, who burn down whole forests, for ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... dislike of all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... having cover'd the dead baronet's body with sprays of the wither'd bracken, I drew her to a little distance and prevail'd on her to nibble a crust of the loaf. Now, all this while, it must be remembered, I was in my shirt sleeves, and the weather bitter cold. Which at length her sorrow allow'd ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... whistle that was answered immediately by a whinny, and a little chestnut gelding, sun-faded to a sand color nearly, cantered into view around the corner of a shed and approached them. He came to a pause nearby, and having studied Bull Hunter with large, unafraid, curious eyes for a moment, began to nibble impertinently at the ragged hat brim of ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... wind, great heat, and more fishing. At least thirty large fish were caught this morning, also an infant shark, a grandchild who had wandered forth to nibble, and met an untimely grave. We have seen several alacrans or scorpions on board, but these are said not to be poisonous. The ship is the perfection of cleanness. No disagreeable odour affects the olfactory nerves, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... that it was fully a hundred feet down to the water and the water would natchelly be tolerable deep; so I let all my line run off the reel, a hundred and sixty feet of it; and I fished and fished and fished—and didn't get a strike, let alone a nibble. Yet I could look over and see all these hungry trouts down below looking up with expectant looks in their eyes—I could see their eyes—and jumping round regardless; and yet not a bite! So I changed bait—changed from ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... Within five paces of me there was a great fish, as long pretty nigh as the spar that I was grippin'. It's a mighty pleasant thing to have your legs in the water and a beast like that all ready for a nibble at your toes." ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a touch of the genuine British denseness, whenever he recollects that there are such people as Strauss, Bishop Colenso, and the men of the "Essays and Reviews" prowling around the preserve where the ill-kept Thirty-Nine Articles still find a little short grass to nibble. When we read the last three verses of "Gold Hair," we set him down for a High-Church bigot: the English discussions upon points of exegesis and theology appear to him threatening to prove the Christian faith false, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Pueriles, under the garden hedge, and skirting the town, makes his way along the river. And there, hidden among the willows and green alders and rustling sedge, he spends the morning; and when in the heat of the day the fish refuse to nibble, he takes his hunk of bread out of his pocket and lies on his back among the rushes, while lazy dreams flit across his consciousness as the light summer clouds ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... land-rats, and other vermin, which make the hapless mariner their prey. In the shape of landlords, bar-keepers, clothiers, crimps, and boarding-house loungers, the land-sharks devour him, limb by limb; while the land-rats and mice constantly nibble at ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... "old Principle has had them, taming them for over a month. Their names are Nibble and Dibble. Look! This is Dibble with the little black spot on his nose. You never guessed, did you? I've been down to see them lots of times and they'll eat food out of my hand. ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... he ate, there I sat not able to more than nibble because I was making up my mind to do something that scared me to death to think about. That gaunt, craggy man in a shabby gray coat, cut ante-bellum wise, with a cravat that wound itself around his collar, snowy and ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Peter claimed Kate once more. His long face was once more thrust against her arm, and his soft lips began to nibble at the wrist frill of her sleeve. She turned to him with a laugh, and placed an ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... knew, and his croft; alas the roof of it fell in a few years ago; and it was the last inhabited house of a Carsaig clachan. You see the land is "improved" now, for sheep, and it's all in one big farm instead of small crofts, and little greasy, black-faced sheep climb the loose stone walls and nibble the green grass short as a carpet where Callum and ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... and they had had no bites for a long time, they used to make a pretence of throwing one of their fellows overboard and hauling him out of the water, as if he were a fish; after that the trout or silloch would begin to nibble, according as the boat was on fresh or salt water. Before a Carrier Indian goes out to snare martens, he sleeps by himself for about ten nights beside the fire with a little stick pressed down on his neck. This naturally ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... that! Here, Sarah, hold your rod lower," said Gypsy, assuming a professional air. Mr. Hallam and Tom walked away, and the girls fished for just half an hour in silence. That is to say, they sat on the bank, and held a rod. Sarah had had one faint nibble, but that was all that had happened, and the sun began to ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... bronco blundering into a badger-hole fell and broke my leg the surgeon who rode forty miles to set it said that if I was to work at harvest I must not move before—and the harvest is already near. So I nibble the pen and look around the long match-boarded hall, waiting for the inspiration which is strangely slow in coming, while my wife, who was Grace Carrington, smiles over her sewing and suggests that it is high time ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... the slackening of the hoist rope told him she had reached the ground he hurried with his rifle to an embrazured window in the living room. He looked down and saw her calmly walking away toward the goat pens. The goats flocked to nibble the salt that she had brought for them. She knelt down ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... for the bite. But the water in these cracks soon freezes again, especially when it is fifty or sixty degrees below zero, and so it was not long before in this crack it was solid again. And so when the bear got tired waiting for a bite, or even a nibble, he tried to leave the place, but found it was impossible without leaving his tail behind him. This he had to do, or freeze or starve to death, and so he broke loose, and ever after has ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Nedopyuskin. And what a horse it was! All fire—simply explosive as gunpowder—and stately as a boyar! Untiring, enduring, obedient, whatever you might put him to; and costing nothing for his keep; he'd be ready to nibble at the ground under his feet if there was nothing else. When he stepped at a walking pace, it was like being lulled to sleep in a nurse's arms; when he trotted, it was like rocking at sea; when he galloped, he outstripped the wind! Never out of breath, perfectly sound in his wind. Sinews of steel: ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... wonder that Englishmen, who are fond of looking at prize-oxen in the shape of butcher's-meat, do not generally better estimate the aesthetic gormandism of devouring the whole dinner with their eyesight, before proceeding to nibble the comparatively few morsels which, after all, the most heroic appetite and widest stomachic capacity of mere mortals can enable even an alderman really to eat. There fell to my lot three delectable things enough, which I take pains to remember, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... and wait there till he hunts me up. Let him make all the advances, d'ye see? Teach him bridge, on the square, at night. Let him win a little—just enough to keep him satisfied with himself—you'll see. Wait till he draws his wad, and we'll throw the gaff in him to the queen's taste. If he won't nibble at one hook try another. But, I say, Billy, you'll have to furnish the scads for bait, in case he don't? rise to something easy. I know you're flush from that ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... cause of all the mischief, had disappeared. The horses were now quiet enough, though breathing hard, and soon they began to nibble at the grass. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... we couldn't buy him off," he added, after a moment's musing. "I should think that he might be induced to go away. There is one thing in support of this; he has had a taste of success, or rather a nibble at ambition, and he may, even now, be thinking of going to a city. Suppose you go over and see him—offer him ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... way along towards the boundary; pausing at intervals to gnaw at the growing plant-stems, or to sit on his haunches and nibble some fallen seed which took ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... and you shall come with me up our lanes fringed with delicate ferns and overhung by big olives, and into the fields where the cherry-trees shed their blossoms on to the budding vines, the fig-trees stretching out their little green gloves, where the goats nibble perched on their hind legs, and the cows low in the huts of reeds; and there rise from the ravines, with the gurgle of the brooks, from the cliffs with the boom of the surf, the voices of unseen boys and girls, singing about love and flowers and death, ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... he said to himself, as he crouched there, and now softly picked a leaf to nibble, and feel suggestions of taking a powder in a spoonful of black-currant jelly, so strong was the flavour in the leaf. "Very rum," he thought. "One's wide-awake, and ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... so curious to know what she is like, old boy; I just caught sight of her in the Bois, in an open carriage—but a long way off. She is a most accomplished harpy, Carabine says. She is trying to eat up Crevel, but he only lets her nibble. Crevel is a knowing hand, good-natured but hard-headed, who will always say Yes, and then go his own way. He is vain and passionate; but his cash is cold. You can never get anything out of such fellows beyond a thousand to three thousand francs a month; they ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... all of us sooner or later? Where is yours? Safe under lock and key, or hanging on some crag, ripening for the confectioner; or filched by some stealthy white hand, devoured by some eager lips that smile derisively at you while they nibble?" ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... men as well and little baby things, And some haves only dresses on and some of 'em haves wings, They nibble dandelions for meat, they drink the bubble frorf, They never spill their cocoa-milk all down the table-clorf, They never cry because it hurts, ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice
... point, making it look afterwards as if a herd had passed. Then she took a sip of water by a rock, crossed to my side of the point, and took a sip there; then to the end of the point, and another sip; then back to the first place. A nibble of grass, and she waded far out from shore to sip there; then back, with a nod to a lily pad, and a sip nearer the brook. Finally she meandered a long way up the shore out of sight, and when I picked up the paddle to go, she ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... not despair for that; you shall become a grocer with me; I shall take you for my partner, we will share the profits, and if there should be no more profits, well, why then we shall share the almonds, raisins and prunes, and we will nibble together the ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his breath again Cuffy began to nibble at his snow mittens. And little by little—to his delight—he removed them. And still he kept on nibbling at his paws, and—yes! he actually put them right inside his mouth and sucked them. He forgot all about his manners, for underneath ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey
... and found hundreds of people fishing off the wharves of New York on Sunday, very few of whom caught any fish, and many who did threw them back. They were reverting to the old piscatorial stage, feeling again the old thrill of a nibble on the hook, and went home refreshed, even if they had not had a bite, because they had been able to drop back into an ancient stratum of the soul which was sound, so that they came back to the hard reality of the next day refreshed. Play in general, too, we now regard as reversionary, and I cannot ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... front of me. He stopped and we looked in each others eyes. It was hard to tell which of us was the most surprised, however, I was the first to run away, and run I did. I ran like a black tailed deer. Many times I thought I felt him nibble at my shirt tails, and his eyes grew in my imagination as large as wagon wheels and Mr. Fox, himself, seemed to grow as big as an elephant. When at last I dropped from sheer exhaustion and could summon courage to look behind me, I could see nothing. It was then I realized I was not so game as ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... the bunch to which they are accustomed. Occasionally one of us would stop on the trail, for some reason or another, thus dropping behind the pack-train. Instantly the saddle-horse so detained would begin to grow uneasy. Bullet used by all means in his power to try to induce me to proceed. He would nibble me with his lips, paw the ground, dance in a circle, and finally sidle up to me in the position of being mounted, than which he could think of no stronger hint. Then when I had finally remounted, it was hard to ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... half-starved outcast empty away? But sentiment is a mistake when kindness can do no more than prolong misery. There is no horse sickness yet in the epidemic form. They simply pine for want of nourishment until, too weak even to nibble the grass about them, they drop and die. Some day we may have a use for them before things come to that extremity, but at present the difficulty is to dispose of their carcases. Sanitary considerations ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... diamonds," said Dick, letting his cap drop beside Jerry's and allowing the reins to fall loosely on Long John's back, as the pony edged to the side of the road and began to nibble the grass. "Rather different from the ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... the rolls and put the chocolate in your pocket to nibble at school? You must be tired with ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the envious, nibble at the successes of other men, with vermin teeth and venomous tongue. Those people who can never praise anything whole-heartedly come by their cautious censure from an uneasy doubt of their own deserving. The contempt of Frederick William I for learning and learned ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... commonplace people, and did not choose to conceal her scorn. Lady Clara was very much afraid of her. Those timid little thoughts, which would come out, and frisk and gambol with pretty graceful antics, and advance confidingly at the sound of Jack Belsize's jolly voice, and nibble crumbs out of his hand, shrank away before Ethel, severe nymph with the bright eyes, and hid themselves under the thickets and in the shade. Who has not overheard a simple couple of girls, or of lovers possibly, pouring out their little ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... come to a halt in their perplexity, and the grim truth had found expression in words, "and, that being the case, I think the best thing we can do is to sit down—for I imagine that we are all beginning to feel a trifle fagged—and nibble a sandwich or two, washing it down with a nip from our flasks, as ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... and a fair amount of grass, still green under the shade, on which the horses could graze. The trunks of the trees also were close enough together to hide them from anyone else who was not very near. Here the men ate cold food from their haversacks and let their horses nibble the ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fish begin to nibble, an' de co'k begin to jump, I 's erfeahed dat dey 'll quit bitin', case dey hyeah my hea't go "thump," 'Twell de co'k go way down undah, an' I raise a awful shout, Ez a big ol' yallah belly ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... tip," he said earnestly, "This is a bad climate to go hungry in. You'd 'ave a touch of the sun in less'n no time. Just go below, an' force yerself to nibble a bit. It'll do you good, an' I don't mind ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... their entrance, Proserpina withdrew the pomegranate from her mouth. But Quicksilver (whose eyes were very keen, and his wits the sharpest that ever anybody had) perceived that the child was a little confused; and seeing the empty salver, he suspected that she had been taking a sly nibble of something or other. As for honest Pluto, he ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... he makes his place in the world and explains himself. Criticism does not make him and cannot unmake him. He may have great defects and great faults. By exposing them and dwelling upon them, the critics may apparently nibble him all away. When the critics get through, however, he remains pretty much the force he was originally. For real genius is a sort of elemental force that enters the human world, both for good and evil, and leaves its lasting impression. It ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... you," said Hugh. "I am rather tired, but I am not very hungry," he added, glancing at a side-table where a little supper had been laid out for him. "I am not very hungry, but I think Nibble is. Might I have a little milk for ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... time, the little gazelle would perish. It hath never happened that the proper minute of time was missed. Should I, then, have mistaken Job for another? The hind has a contracted womb, and would not be able to bring forth her young, if I did not send a dragon to her at the right second, to nibble at her womb and soften it, for then she can bear. Were the dragon to come a second before or after the right time, the hind would perish. It hath never happened that I missed the right second. Should I, then, have ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... early, but Tom—he was held up in the traffic. You see, I don't eat much, anyhow. I just nibble around and take a cold snack where ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... got a nibble, Phyllis! I believe I can land him, too. And it will be the first I've really managed to catch!" Leslie began to play her line, her hands ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... To the right of him is a charioteer standing beside a car and reining back a pair of horses, one black, the other bay. Below is another charioteer with two white horses. He sits on the floor of the car with his back to them, eating or resting, while they nibble the branches of a tree close by. Another scene is that of a scribe keeping tally of offerings brought to the tomb, while fellahm are bringing flocks of geese and other fowl, some in crates. The inscription above is ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... kiss. Birds use their bills for a kind of caress. Thus, referring to guillemots and their practice of nibbling each other's feet, and the interest the mate always takes in this proceeding, which probably relieves irritation caused by insects, Edmund Selous remarks: "When they nibble and preen each other they may, I think, be rightly said to cosset and caress, the expression and pose of the bird receiving the benefit being often beatific."[196] Among mammals, such as the dog, we have what closely resembles a kiss, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a hat!" cried Symes confidently. "I know the difference between a nibble and a bite. I ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... morning, and we at last extorted from Edward Dunbar, upon a promise not to hint at the story until the hero of the adventure should be fairly off, that, after trying with exemplary patience all parts of the mere for several hours without so much as a nibble, a huge pike, as Mr. Thompson asserted, or, as Edward suspected, the root of a tree, had caught fast hold of the hook. If pike it were, the fish had the best of the battle, for, in a mighty jerk on one side or the other (the famous Dublin tackle maintaining its reputation, and holding ...
— The London Visitor • Mary Russell Mitford
... heap o' leaves an' stibble Has cost thee monie a weary nibble! Now thou's turned out, for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter's ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... of birds, of every size and colour, who come to gossip, to bathe, to drink, and splash the water with their wings. Next come troops of hares and rabbits, who come to nibble the fresh grass that grows there in great luxuriance. As the shades grow deeper, groups of the graceful roebuck, timid and listening for anticipated danger, their large open eyes gazing at each tree, giving an inquiring look at every shadow, are seen approaching with noiseless footsteps; ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... villages—the men in red-lined jackets; the women in black petticoats, short-waisted green bodices, and broad-brimmed straw hats with black-and-crimson pompons. But on the steepest gradient, just before reaching Hornberg, I got my first nibble—strange to say, from two German students; they wore Heidelberg caps, and were toiling up the incline with short, broken wind; I put on a spurt with the Manitou, and passed them easily. I did it just at first in pure wantonness of health ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... could not think what was happening; but the goats evidently understood his voice, for one after the other they came springing down the rocks until they were all assembled on the green plateau, some continuing to nibble at the juicy stems, others skipping about here and there or pushing at each other with their ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... as was medically possible, against the evil consequences of consuming food not originally intended for Terran stomachs. One of the results being that Traders acquired a far flung reputation of possessing bird-like appetites—since it was always better to nibble and live, than to gorge ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... Bird!" cried the Captain. "I do not want to hurt you, but I can not allow you to pull wool from the back of my friend, Miss Lamb. You must stop it, or I will drive you away with my shiny, tin sword, as I drove away the bad rat that wanted to nibble the ears of the Candy Rabbit! ...
— The Story of a Bold Tin Soldier • Laura Lee Hope
... coax, to caress his woolly-fleeced companion; and the mother talks softly to her child of the innocent darlings, and asks if they are not lovely creatures, and beautiful to look at, as they timidly wander from spot to spot, and nibble the delicate pasture. So it is to the lively fancy of childhood, and so it is to the mother whose affections are naturally melted into softness in the presence of simplicity; but when economic considerations arise, and the question is one of service and ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... score. Doug did little trapping. He and his father spent the bitter storm-swept days fighting to save their stock. By March they were cutting young aspens and hauling them to the famished herds to nibble. Coyotes moved brazenly by day across the home fields, stealing refuse from the very door-yards. Eagles perched on fence-posts near the chicken runs. Jack-rabbits in herds of many score milled about the wind-swept barrens, gnawing the grass already cattle-cropped to ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... avoid ungovernable and mad rage. For we cannot in other respects equal those distinguished men in their ability and virtue, nevertheless we must, like initiating priests of the gods and torchbearers of wisdom, attempt as far as possible to imitate and nibble at their practice. Then, again, if anyone thinks it a small and unimportant matter to govern the tongue, another point I promised to touch on, he is very far from the reality. For silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... we'll say unusual, and if what I do seems a little unusual too, it's to be excused. Ye can't throw stones at every one, me boy, and then be surprised when some one throws one at you. You bite the diamond holders, d'ye see, and I take a little nibble at you. It's all ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... horse, laid the stick between his ears and strapped it to his neck, and tied the hay to the end of the stick, in such a way that it hung a few inches beyond old Whitey's nose. The old horse took a step ahead to nibble the hay,—another,—another,—another! "Don't you wish you may get it?" said Paul. Tramp,—tramp,—tramp. Old Whitey went down the road. Paul heard him go across the bridge by the mill, and up the hill the other ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... grimly at that. "It won't be paid in a hurry—can't be. But I'm quitting the game and taking a job, and I can pay you some every month now; not much, but a nibble, anyhow. And if ever you get rushed with business and I can help you out at nights, I'd be glad to work part of my ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... apple in those days that I forget the name of. Oh, it was a whopper! You'd nibble at it and nibble at it before you could get a purchase on it. Then, after you got your teeth in, you'd pull and pull, and all of a sudden the apple would go "tock!" and your head would fly back from the recoil, ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... attracted by the leaves that Dilsy throws away when she gets out what we need. Think of it—a whole neighborhood of rabbits hurrying here after dark for the chance of a bare nibble at a possible leaf." Once that night I turned in bed, ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... a little shake and nibble on Laddie's line. He grew excited and was going to pull up, but his father ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... Taylor fished another Pittsburgh stogie out of her hundred dollar handbag, bit off the end with a quick nibble of even, pearly-white teeth, and stuffed the cigar in between the arched lips. She scratched a big kitchen match on the seat of her skirt after raising one shapely thigh to stretch the cloth. She puffed ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... the blade, the bowl is then balanced on the edge, allowing the bait to project about an inch and a half beneath the bowl. The odor of cheese will attract a mouse almost anywhere, and he soon finds [Page 136] his way to the tempting morsel in this case. A very slight nibble is sufficient to tilt the blade and the bowl ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... I dare not follow after Too close. I try to keep in sight, Dreading his frown and worse his laughter, I steal out of the wood to light; I see the swift shoot from the rafter By the window: ere I alight I wait and hear the starlings wheeze And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight. He goes: I follow: no release Until he ceases. Then I ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... a menacing gesture; and the boys took each a deep draught of water, and began to nibble the hard sea biscuit that ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... standing ones a chance to set a coffee cup down now and then. Candy in tiny reception sticks may be passed with the cake; or bonbon dishes may be set in unexpected places about the rooms, where any one who discovers them may nibble ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... now and then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see herself honored for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul's hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism, and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was quite equal to these peculiarly ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... individual girls on academic and social matters, setting them right in cases of discipline, interviewing members of the faculty on necessary plans. The work was overwhelming and sometimes her one assistant would urge her, late in the evening, to nibble a bite from a tray which, to save time, had been sent in to her room at the dinner hour, only to remain untouched.... No wonder that professors often left their lectures to be written in the wee small hours, to help in uncongenial administrative work, ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... began to lengthen, Miss Dorcas and Anne started on their homeward journey. Miss Dorcas clucked and jerked the lines, and Firefly ambled homeward, now jog-trotting along the road, now pausing to nibble grass on the wayside. ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... Jefferson in his thirteenth year was as well able to defend himself as any clawed and toothed creature of the wood, and fear, the fear of anything he could face and grapple with, was a thing unknown. Propping his fishing pole so that no chance of a nibble might be lost in the impending struggle, he got on his knees and picked out the exact spot in the dog's neck where he would drive the bait knife home when hostilities actual ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... patience of the "Cracker" is equalled only by that of "their cousins, the Indians"; I have seen one of them sit for twelve hours continuously in one place fishing without being encouraged by even a little nibble; his face was as placid as that of a mummy which he closely resembles; then suddenly he would pull in scores of trout, but with the same ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... loop of honeysuckle, A creeping, coloured caterpillar, I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray, I nibble it ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... freezing night in the streets than be dead. Nothing nonsensical ever held me so tightly or kept me so interested. I suppose really I am full of that very same formless faith on which you rely. But with me it's not only shapeless but intangible.... I nibble at religion. I am immensely attracted. I stand in the doorway. Only when they come out to persuade me to come in I am like a shy child and I go away. The temples beguile me and the music, but not the men. I feel I want to join it and they say 'join ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... safety and his eyes sparkled as he hopped over to the nearest young tree. But when he reached it, Peter had a dreadful disappointment. All around the trunk of that young tree was wire netting. Peter couldn't get even a nibble of that bark. He tried the next tree with no better result. Then he hurried on from tree to tree, always with the same result. You see Farmer Brown knew all about Peter's liking for the bark of young fruit ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... Geoffry's Chronicle; Men whose historical superiority Is always greatest at a miracle. But Saint Augustine has the great priority, Who bids all men believe the impossible, Because 't is so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he Quiets ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... persistence. Is nothing then ever caught in these pleasant streams, will ask the inquiring reader? Well, yes, I have seen served at table perch the size of very small herrings, which it is the French fashion to take between the fingers daintily, and, holding by head and tail, nibble as children bite an apple. Whether indeed these little fish are caught by the angler, I know not; but this is certainly the way they are eaten—if inelegant, honi soit ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... The quay seems also to be the cattle-market. There the small buff cows of North Italy repose after their long voyage or march, kneeling on the sandy ground or rubbing their sides against the wooden cross awry with age and shorn of all its symbols. Lambs frisk among the boats; impudent kids nibble the drooping ears of patient mules. Hinds in white jackets and knee-breeches made of skins, lead shaggy rams and fiercely bearded goats, ready to butt at every barking dog, and always seeking opportunities of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... but there is a spice of excitement about it. I was nervous at first, and seeing that the mule wished to nibble such herbage as offered itself, I had thought it well to humor him. At a narrow space with sharp declivity below, the beast fixed his jaws upon a small tough bush on the upper bank. As he warmed up to the work, his hind feet worked ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... began to nibble a blade of grass. It was really not so much lying as his quick imagination that prompted him to add, "In Papers, you know, ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... short time they were beside him the poor animal seemed to be much relieved; and though at first he could scarcely open his mouth to eat the warm, soft mash Stephens had prepared for him, before they left he was beginning to nibble at a tuft of hay that had ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... pulled some green grass they found and stuck it through the wires for the colts to pull out of their hands and nibble. Mule colts seemed even more tame than horse colts, and the children each "chose" a colt and named it, although the colts ran around in such a lively way that it was difficult sometimes to keep them separated in one's mind ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... feasts of mortal men, larding their pots and pans with spices of all kinds. In battle I have never flinched from the cruel onset, but plunged straight into the fray and fought among the foremost. I fear not man though he has a big body, but run along his bed and bite the tip of his toe and nibble at his heel; and the man feels no hurt and his sweet sleep is not broken by my biting. But there are two things I fear above all else the whole world over, the hawk and the ferret—for these bring great grief on me—and the piteous ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... virtuous that evening, or the bait was not a taking one. In vain the Devil whipped the stream at an eddy in front of the Occidental, or trolled his line into the shadows of the Cosmopolitan; five minutes passed without even a nibble. "Dear me!" quoth the Devil, "that's very singular; one of my most popular flies, too! Why, they'd have risen by shoals in Broadway or Beacon Street for that. Well, here goes another." And fitting a new fly from his well- filled ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... tired waiting for a chance to get out where he can sit patiently hour after hour waiting for a fish to nibble at ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... in Paphos, from the bitter weeds Lifts its sweet head into the air, and feeds A silent space with ever sprouting green. All tenderest birds there find a pleasant screen, Creep through the shade with jaunty fluttering, Nibble the little cupped flowers and sing. Then let us clear away the choaking thorns From round its gentle stem; let the young fawns, Yeaned in after times, when we are flown, Find a fresh sward beneath it, overgrown ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... feed, fare, devour, swallow, take; gulp, bolt, snap; fall to; despatch, dispatch; discuss; take down, get down, gulp down; lay in, tuck in [Slang]; lick, pick, peck; gormandize &c 957; bite, champ, munch, cranch^, craunch^, crunch, chew, masticate, nibble, gnaw, mumble. live on; feed upon, batten upon, fatten upon, feast upon; browse, graze, crop, regale; carouse &c (make merry) 840; eat heartily, do justice to, play a good knife and fork, banquet. break bread, break one's fast; breakfast, lunch, dine, take tea, sup. drink in, drink up, drink ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... lights are hard on mine." Thea began turning them out. "We'll leave the little one, over the piano." She sank down by Archie on the deep sofa. "We two have so much to talk about that we keep away from it altogether; have you noticed? We don't even nibble the edges. I wish we had Landry here to-night to play for ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... coffee has many other enemies. Both rats and mice are fond of the juicy stalks of the berries when they are nearly ripe, and they nibble at them until the berries fall. The long-haired black rat is the greatest of these pests. Cats are kept on each plantation to prey upon the animal pests; but, unfortunately, the natives are very fond of cats—not as pets, but as articles of food. This feline appetite on the ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... hat, he ripped out the thread, and taking the pin with which his sister had fastened the feather, he made a hook out of it and tied the thread to it. He searched for some worms, and soon, he began to angle. He tried again and again, but not a nibble could he get. At last luck favored him, and soon he had three fishes. Remembering the matches which his mother had put into the tin-covered pail, he decided to start a fire and cook his fish, adding a little salty water ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... rendered Ian somewhat impatient. He entered the bushes beyond the knoll hastily. The bear had only changed its position, and was wagging its head and nibbling its paws on the other side of these bushes. It heard a footstep, ceased to nibble and wag, and looked up inquiringly. Suddenly Macdonald burst through the bushes and ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... to prove that point right on Terra. But did Rule One mean that you had to let a monster nibble at you because it might just be a high type of alien intelligence? Let Karara spout Rule One while backed into a crevice under water with that horn stabbing ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... influence over him," the lad with the blarney continued. "A week or so ago I threw some bait at him just to test him and he didn't even nibble. You know, in the old days John and I often trotted in double harness to the track—bad place ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... it much!" said David. "His teeth aren't good; he can only eat chicken bones, but hunger will make him nibble it by-and-by. Now, Fly, will you go behind that furze bush and bring me a square, flat board, ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... trying to branch off at every side path so as to get a little nap in the shade or cool themselves in a mudhole. The sheep and goats, feeling the need of something in their stomachs, slipped aside whenever they spied a young birch tree whose leaves they could nibble, or a fence to peep through, or a plot of green grass. The last year's calves, who had not been to the saeter before, saw no reason at all for hurrying, and made no attempt at it except when the stick ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... this means, she says there is a reason, and I am not old enough to understand it, and she looks unhappy, and she gives me a kiss, and it ends in that way. You've got a bite; no you haven't; it's only a nibble; fish are so sly. And grandmamma is worse still. Sometimes she tells me I'm a spoiled child; and sometimes she says well-behaved little girls don't ask questions. That's nonsense—and I think it's hard on me. You look uncomfortable. Is it my fault? I don't want to bother you; I only want to know ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... uncle, leaning against the wall, tried to nibble away at some pieces of biscuit, while deep groans and sighs escaped from my scorched and swollen lips. Then I fell off into a kind of ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... the drifts. By the time you have run half a day beating against the wind, reversing your own tracks to find the chipped mark on the bark of the trees to keep you on the blazed trail—you are hungry. Hall began to nibble at his tallow as he ran and to snatch handfuls of snow to quench his thirst. At night he kindled a roaring big white-man fire against the wolves, dried out the thawed snow from his back and front, dozed between times, sang to keep the loneliness off, heard the muffled echo come back to him in smothered ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... cannot induce it to nibble at an unlawful spot. Is this due to feebleness of the teeth? By no means: the Cetonia's skin is no tougher on the back than on the belly; moreover, the grub is capable of perforating the skin when it leaves the egg; a fortiori, it must ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... hobbling the ponies, Noll," said Ingleborough, "while I get up as high as I can with my glass and give an eye to the farms. If we've been seen someone will soon be after us. We can't rest till we know. But eat your breakfast, and I'll nibble mine while I watch. Don't take ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... affliction. When angry the oral seldom bites, but scratches with its fore-claws, grunting at the same time like a guinea-pig." "When taken young it becomes a most engaging pet. It can be reared on goat's or cow's milk,[21] and in about three weeks will begin to nibble fruit of any kind. During the day it sleeps much, either sitting with its back bent into a circle, and its head thrust down to its belly, or lying on its back with the legs and parachute extended—a position it is fond of in sultry weather. During the night time it is incessantly ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... June-bug has wing covers, too, but it never keeps its best wings tucked in. They are always hanging out in a crumpled way. These bugs eat the leaves of the trees, and their children, little, fat, white grubs with horny heads, nibble, as they crawl around under the surface of the earth, the tender roots of the grass and the ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... fresh wood as you go through the lumber yard. Or, read another of his boyish excursions, and you find yourself on that first spring outing to a distant, low-lying meadow after "cowslips"; another, and you are trudging along with your brother after the cows, stopping to nibble spearmint, or pick buttercups by the way. Prosaic recollections, compared to spring paths and trout brooks in the Catskill valleys, yet this is what our author's writings do—re-create for each of us our own youth, with our own childhood scenes and experiences, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... King Caraway Supped on cake, And a cup of sack His thirst to slake; Bird in arras And hound in hall Watched very softly Or not at all; Fire in the middle, Stone all round Changed not, heeded not, Made no sound; All by himself At the Table High He'd nibble and sip While his dreams slipped by; And when he had finished, He'd nod and say, 'Cake and ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... now? I thank you, not any at present; I'll nibble a little at what I have got, And wish for a duck, or a grouse, or a pheasant, Though none of them come for a wish, in ...
— Nothing to Eat • Horatio Alger [supposed]
... waiting-woman looks after details of comfort with a personal interest. Our famous lunch at Laruns was both so ample and so recent that now we ask only for "tea and toast," and so, while the lamps are lighted, the trays are brought to us in the parlor, and around the centre-table and before the fire we nibble tartines in soothed content and plan ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... his hooks; and he and I, repairing to the stream, cast our lines, sat down, and waited for a nibble. ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... country, this bein' the first time he had ever been west of Philadelphia. He said that he was minded to become an author, an' had come out to study the aboriginal types an' get the true local color. Whenever I hear this little bunch o' sounds, I know I got a nibble. Any time a man goes nosin' around after local color, you can bet your saddle he's got several ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... has wing covers, too, but it never keeps its best wings tucked in. They are always hanging out in a crumpled way. These bugs eat the leaves of the trees, and their children, little, fat, white grubs with horny heads, nibble, as they crawl around under the surface of the earth, the tender roots of the grass ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... thither. It stings sensitive folk with its intensity at close quarters, but when diffused is fragrance of ethereal delight. All day long birds frolic in the trees, some to cull the nectar, some to search for insects attracted for like purpose, some to nibble and discard white petals. All the moist soil beneath is strewn with snowy flakes, for at night flying foxes blunder among the branches, destroying more blooms than they eat. But why grumble? Birds which nip off petals and ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... arm-chair and curling up to sleep. Rogers smoked a cigarette, pleased and satisfied like the cat.) A hush fell on the room. It was the hour of peace between tea and the noisy Pension supper that later broke the spell. So quiet was it that the mouse began to nibble in the bedroom walls, and even peeped through the cracks it knew between the boards. It came out, flicked its whiskers, and then darted in again like lightning. Jane Anne, rinsing out the big teapot in the scullery, frightened it. Presently she ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... could repel only with the greatest difficulty. They pushed forward step by step, and by fits and starts. On the 19th our troops were hard put to it to hold the ground they had taken the day before; on the 20th they barely began to nibble at the ravines, at Ploisy and L'Echelle. On the 21st the Americans took Berzy-le-Sec, and the French were astride the lower waters of the Crise; on the 23d they went down into the ravine of Buzancy. But not until the ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... Pao-ch'ai played for a time with a twig of olea she held in her hand, then resting on the window-sill, she plucked the petals, and threw them into the water, attracting the fish, which went by, to rise to the surface and nibble at them. Hsiang-yn, after a few moments of abstraction, urged Hsi Jen and the other girls to help themselves to anything they wanted, and beckoned to the servants, seated at the foot of the hill, to eat ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... fault at all could be found with his brother, the agent, yet still the land was far too dear, and that a large portion of it was worth nothing at all. "I pay eight and sixpence an acre for land that grows nothing but furze, that a few sheep can nibble round, an', begorra, 'tis not worth half-a-crown. Most iv it is worth just nothin' at all, an' yet I have to scrape together eight and sixpence an acre," said he. "'Tis not possible to get ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... watched her patron nibble at the carefully-prepared delicacy with his eyes fixed intently upon his newspaper. The dimples disappeared quickly from the girl's face as she noted that the mackerel were growing cold. Then she turned from the table with ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... floor where they may be stepped on; or where mice may nibble them; or next the stovepipe or chimney; or thrown down before the last spark ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... big red fish, called the tai, under his left arm. He carries a straw wallet on his back to hold his fish and keep it fresh. Often he is seen standing knee-deep in the water, pole in hand, watching for a nibble. Some say that Ebisu is the same scamp that goes by the ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... very virtuous that evening or the bait was not a taking one. In vain the Devil whipped the stream at an eddy in front of the Occidental, or trolled his line into the shadows of the Cosmopolitan; five minutes passed without even a nibble. "Dear me!" quoth the Devil, "that's very singular; one of my most popular flies, too! Why, they'd have risen by shoals in Broadway or Beacon Street for that. Well, here goes another." And, fitting a new fly from his well-filled ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... did not explain whether his pleasure lay in the fact that any would-be boarders might find it difficult to cross over from the rocks to the boat; or that there were likely to be fish in the pool, affording a chance for a nibble at the tempting bait he had dropped overboard, attached to the concealed hook at the ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... on the west side of the rock. Here the fishermen cast anchor, and, baiting their hand-lines, began to fish. At first they were unsuccessful, but before half an hour had elapsed, the cod began to nibble, and Big Swankie ere long hauled up a fish of goodly size. Davy Spink followed suit, and in a few minutes a dozen fish lay spluttering in the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... you, not any at present; I'll nibble a little at what I have got, And wish for a duck, or a grouse, or a pheasant, Though none of them come for a wish, in ...
— Nothing to Eat • Horatio Alger [supposed]
... left, besides that which the "headers" burn as fuel, and farmers stack this straw for cattle to nibble at. The stock feed in the stubble fields, too, and strange visitors also come to these ranches to pick up the scattered grains of wheat. These strangers are wild white geese, in such large flocks that when feeding they look like snow patches on the ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... sleep is a long one, a deep one, and ghosts may pass over the sleeper, imps dance on his head, rats nibble at his provisions; he wakes not. He is under a charm—nought of evil can affect him, for he has prayed. Encompassed with dangers, the tramp always prays "Our Father," and that he may be kept for the one who loves him. Prayers are strong out of ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... smells and the sights. That nibble of cheese had been like a drop of human blood to a man-eating tiger. It made her bold, cunning, even while it maddened. She stopped at this counter and demanded a slice of summer sausage. It was paper-thin, but delicious ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... we'd cut out that old green line of pretending. I ain't going to nibble, so just stop casting it at me. I mean his booze-selling to ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... friend did not sail with the next draft. Ten minutes after being warned for it, the old complaint caught him again, and when the band played our lads out of barracks he was snugly tucked away in sick-bay with sweet girl V.A.D.'s coaxing him to nibble a little calves-foot jelly and keep his strength up. Nor did he figure among either of the two subsequent drafts; his malaria wouldn't hear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... had a half-hour, luncheon was swallowed quickly by most of the girls, eager to steal away to a sequestered bower among the boxes, there to lose themselves in paper-backed romance. A few of less literary taste were content to nibble ice-cream sandwiches and gossip. Dress, the inevitable masquerade ball, murders and fires, were favorite topics of discussion,—the last always with lowered voices and deep-drawn breathing. For fire is the box-maker's terror, the grim specter that always haunts her, and with good reason does ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... camp of August 12th was pitched, hundreds of fish played at its surface, keeping the water in constant commotion. They were in no wise disturbed by our presence and would turn leisurely over within two feet of the canoe. I ran out my troll as we paddled down the lake—but not a nibble did I get. The men ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... of the "Cracker" is equalled only by that of "their cousins, the Indians"; I have seen one of them sit for twelve hours continuously in one place fishing without being encouraged by even a little nibble; his face was as placid as that of a mummy which he closely resembles; then suddenly he would pull in scores of trout, but with the same imperturbable ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... and of angling. But there are little tributary streets, with humbler stalls, shy pools, as it were, where the humbler fisher of books may hope to raise an Elzevir, or an old French play, a first edition of Shelley, or a Restoration comedy. It is usually a case of hope unfulfilled; but the merest nibble of a rare book, say Marston's poems in the original edition, or Beddoes's "Love's Arrow Poisoned," or Bankes's "Bay Horse in a Trance," or the "Mel Heliconicum" of Alexander Ross, or "Les Oeuvres de Clement ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... the bridge itself; the Gothic-arched gate, a relic of the old fortifications; the battlements of yellowish, chipped rock, which looked as if all the rats of the river had come at night to nibble at them; then two niches with a collection of mutilated, dust-laden images—San Bernardo, patron Saint of Alcira, and his estimable sisters. Dear old San Bernardo, alias Prince Hamete, son of the Moorish king of Carlet, converted to Christ by the mystic poesy of the Christian ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... see us watching them," said Dick. "The d——l such cunning brutes I ever met with as the fish in this river: now, if you were at a distance from the bank, you'd see them jumping as lively as grasshoppers. Whisht! I think I had a nibble." ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Little Foxes," said I; "by which I mean those unsuspected, unwatched, insignificant little causes that nibble away domestic happiness, and make home less than so noble an institution should be. You may build beautiful, convenient, attractive houses,—you may hang the walls with lovely pictures and stud them with gems of Art; and there may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... a string in the water as long as anybody," he complained, "but I'd like to have the satisfaction of merely changing the bait OCCASIONALLY. I've not had a single bite—not a nibble, y' know, all day. Never mind, you got the big trout, Blix; that first one. That five minutes was worth the whole day. It's been glorious, the whole thing. We'll come down here once a week ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... is my luck always to strike A day when there is nothing doing, When neither perch, nor bass, nor pike My baited hooks will come a-wooing. Must I a day late always be? When not a nibble comes my way Must someone always say to me: "We ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... our acquaintance. By the way, the deuce a bit of Cake has come to hand, which hath an inauspicious look at first, but I comfort myself that that Mysterious Service hath the property of Sacramental Bread, which mice cannot nibble, nor ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... it. Down I went, and oh, how tender to my bare feet was the cool grass on which I alighted! I looked up. The dark housewall rose above me. I could ascend again when I pleased. There was no hurry. I would walk about a little. I would put my place of refuge yet a little farther off, nibble at the danger, as it were—a danger which existed only in my imagination. I went outside the high holly hedge, and the house was hidden. A grassy field was before me, and just beyond the field rose the farm buildings. Why should not I run across and wake Turkey? I was off ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... flourish at Agath. It's odd, the only time I was seriously ill, and really wanted hospitality, I found it not. To-day we picked off several fine pieces of gum from the tholh. Many of the trees had their branches lopped off, first for allowing the goats to nibble the green leaves, and afterwards to use the dry ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... with nature, for it seemed to be so absurd that after taking a good mid-day rest he could not go through a night without feeling so wretchedly sleepy. But after a good sluice in a fresh bucket of water he felt better, and getting a biscuit, began to nibble that and walked forward again. Then back to the cabin, and grew melancholy to see his brother officer lying there so utterly helpless, just when he wanted ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... horse's head, and lit on his shaven neck. It brooded there, apparently unperceptive of the difference of this resting place from the one that it had abandoned; its dull globes of eyes looked as if sight was the last purpose for which they were intended. Joker stretched his long neck to nibble a willow twig, and the blue mystery, rising, remained poised over him for another moment of meditation, before it sailed away, sideways, on its ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... on two trailers. You and I will make it to Julia and drive sixteen each back here with Huber's hay. That's the very best we can do, but we'll do that the best we know how. I'll be out by the time you get 'em hooked up. We'll nibble our breakfast as we travel. Shoot the piece, Hiram boy, my knight ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... bit of it,' said Stalky cheerfully. 'He's a little shaken and excited. Probably Beetle annoyed him in the garage, but we must overlook that. We've contained him so far, and I'm going to nibble round his outposts at dinner. All you've got to do, Infant, is to remember you're a gentleman in your own house. Don't hop! You'll find it pretty difficult before dinner's over. I don't want to hear anything ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... (whose eyes were very keen, and his wits the sharpest that ever anybody had) perceived that the child was a little confused; and seeing the empty salver, he suspected that she had been taking a sly nibble of something or other. As for honest Pluto, he ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... her instincts for flirtation, for there she met many specimens of men she called chic, with a funny little foreign accent, which seemed to put new life into the wornout word. Twenty times a day she baited her hook, and twenty times a day some fish would bite, or at least nibble, according as he was a fortune-hunter or a dilettante. Miss Nora, being incapable of knowing the difference, was ready to capture good or bad, and went about dragging her slaves at her chariot-wheels. Sometimes she took them rowing, with the Stars and Stripes floating ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... he pointed it at his appendix. For a moment he hesitated, and his eyes observed again the little feast laid out before him. He thought briefly about pausing for just a while to taste the little steak, to nibble briefly at the delectable-looking cake. He hated to leave it untouched. It had been such a ...
— Life Sentence • James McConnell
... many of its reporters, and found hundreds of people fishing off the wharves of New York on Sunday, very few of whom caught any fish, and many who did threw them back. They were reverting to the old piscatorial stage, feeling again the old thrill of a nibble on the hook, and went home refreshed, even if they had not had a bite, because they had been able to drop back into an ancient stratum of the soul which was sound, so that they came back to the hard reality of the next day refreshed. Play in general, too, we now regard as reversionary, and ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... lids he watched the rat. For some minutes it stayed motionless. Tom never moved a muscle. Then the rat crept stealthily forward, and, with many half retreats, at last started in to nibble at the rope to get the cheese. Soon another rat came ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... And what a horse it was! All fire—simply explosive as gunpowder—and stately as a boyar! Untiring, enduring, obedient, whatever you might put him to; and costing nothing for his keep; he'd be ready to nibble at the ground under his feet if there was nothing else. When he stepped at a walking pace, it was like being lulled to sleep in a nurse's arms; when he trotted, it was like rocking at sea; when he galloped, he outstripped the wind! Never ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... balanced on the edge, allowing the bait to project about an inch and a half beneath the bowl. The odor of cheese will attract a mouse almost anywhere, and he soon finds [Page 136] his way to the tempting morsel in this case. A very slight nibble is sufficient to tilt the blade and the ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... bite. But the water in these cracks soon freezes again, especially when it is fifty or sixty degrees below zero, and so it was not long before in this crack it was solid again. And so when the bear got tired waiting for a bite, or even a nibble, he tried to leave the place, but found it was impossible without leaving his tail behind him. This he had to do, or freeze or starve to death, and so he broke loose, and ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... convinced that the object before which he had halted was supernatural, started back violently upon seeing it apparently turn to a man. But seeing that it had turned to nothing but a man, he wandered up into the deserted fence corner, and began to nibble refreshment from ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... graceless brutes. [unmannerly] 'An neist my yowie, silly thing, [next] Gude keep thee frae a tether string! O may thou ne'er forgather up [make friends] Wi' ony blastit moorland tup; But ay keep mind to moop an' mell, [nibble, meddle] Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel! 'And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath I lea'e my blessin' wi' you baith; An' when you think upo' your mither, Mind to be kind to ane anither. 'Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail To tell my master a' my tale; An' bid him burn this ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... herds of buffaloes, bullocks, and sheep grazing in fields which seemed to us entirely destitute of everything; not a green leaf of any kind to be seen, and we could not understand how animals could even get a mouthful of food in the brown parched lands. But I am told they do nibble away at the short stalks and roots of corn or sugar-cane left in the ground when the crop was cut, and in this way manage to eke out a scanty existence. They are at best little but skin and bone. When it is merely a question of keeping ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... that they neglected to pay up their subscription. Six dollars due. No visitor could have been more welcome. He would know all about Uncle Tilbury and what his chances might be getting to be, cemeterywards. They could, of course, ask no questions, for that would squelch the bequest, but they could nibble around on the edge of the subject and hope for results. The scheme did not work. The obtuse editor did not know he was being nibbled at; but at last, chance accomplished what art had failed in. In illustration ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... tell me, since anyone fished that brook; And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook. But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set I know that it's full of ghostly trout ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer
... composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to assist a neighbour, even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country frolics ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the crust and began to nibble and, of course, did not see Puss; but when she reached the fish she gave it a pull and the ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... line." Picking up his straw hat, he ripped out the thread, and taking the pin with which his sister had fastened the feather, he made a hook out of it and tied the thread to it. He searched for some worms, and soon, he began to angle. He tried again and again, but not a nibble could he get. At last luck favored him, and soon he had three fishes. Remembering the matches which his mother had put into the tin-covered pail, he decided to start a fire and cook his fish, adding a little salty water for seasoning. ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... only one thing he could do,—run away with the magic thing and be a medicine-man, as his father had been, only he would be a much more powerful and cunning one. Sly tempter! Poor Pio! He had only meant to nibble, and ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... said Rollo as they climbed to the top. Soon the conductor came to them and held out a little machine, which seemed to nibble Rollo's fingers when he pushed the two dimes which his uncle had given him ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... of rhyme, Who having angled all his life for Fame, And getting but a nibble at a time, Still fussily keeps fishing on, the same Small "Triton of the minnows," the sublime Of Mediocrity, the furious tame, The Echo's echo, usher of the school Of female wits, boy ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... they might be likely to guess the gimmick. We'll let them stew all evening while they enjoy the Country Gentleman House-Warming hospitality. Then, very casually, we toss it out and let it lie there in front of them. They will be sniffing, ready to nibble. The clincher will drive them right in. I'd stake my sales reputation on it." If it matters a damn, he added. ...
— The Real Hard Sell • William W Stuart
... that's great or little—wise or wild; 50 Whose game was Empire, and whose stakes were thrones; Whose table Earth—whose dice were human bones? Behold the grand result in yon lone Isle, And, as thy nature urges—weep or smile. Sigh to behold the Eagle's lofty rage Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage; Smile to survey the queller of the nations Now daily squabbling o'er disputed rations;[dx][262] Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines, O'er curtailed dishes and o'er stinted wines; 60 O'er petty ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... heat, and more fishing. At least thirty large fish were caught this morning, also an infant shark, a grandchild who had wandered forth to nibble, and met an untimely grave. We have seen several alacrans or scorpions on board, but these are said not to be poisonous. The ship is the perfection of cleanness. No disagreeable odour affects the olfactory nerves, in which it has a singular advantage over ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... morsel of "pone" between thumb and forefinger, holding it tightly. Then it was a joy to watch Satan. He tried to tug it all away at once, but only a fragment broke off. He stamped in impatience, and then went to work to nibble the bread away on all sides of Dan's fingers, very fine work for such broad, keen chisels as Satan's teeth, but he went about it with the skill of long practice, turning his head this way and that and always watching the face of the master with sidewise eyes, one ear forward ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... and took in the less than imposing figure of Josip Pekic. Josip felt an urge to nibble at his fingernails, and repressed it. He had recently broken himself of the smoking habit and was hard put to find occupation for his ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... happened that the proper minute of time was missed. Should I, then, have mistaken Job for another? The hind has a contracted womb, and would not be able to bring forth her young, if I did not send a dragon to her at the right second, to nibble at her womb and soften it, for then she can bear. Were the dragon to come a second before or after the right time, the hind would perish. It hath never happened that I missed the right second. Should I, then, have ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... good friend Walter Bailey and I started on a visit to Egypt. It, like Constantinople and Spain and Portugal, occupied more than the usual month's vacation, but as these extra long excursions were taken only every two or three years, and as it was never my habit to nibble at holidays by indulging in odd days or week- ends, my conscience was clear, especially as my Chairman and Directors cordially approved of my seeing a bit of the world, and readily granted the necessary leave of absence. As for Bailey, he always declared this Egyptian tour was the holiday ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... night for extraordinary behavior, evidently. She certainly showed that she had designs on Jake. She held out the feed pan, and gritted her teeth when Tango gratefully ducked his nose into it. She let him have one quivery-lipped nibble, and pushed the pan ingratiatingly toward the ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... hard on mine." Thea began turning them out. "We'll leave the little one, over the piano." She sank down by Archie on the deep sofa. "We two have so much to talk about that we keep away from it altogether; have you noticed? We don't even nibble the edges. I wish we had Landry here to-night to play for us. He's ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... to himself, as he crouched there, and now softly picked a leaf to nibble, and feel suggestions of taking a powder in a spoonful of black-currant jelly, so strong was the flavour in the leaf. "Very rum," he thought. "One's wide-awake, and the ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... who did go ter ther fight ware promis'd er Nigger an er mule. But did yer git em?" Teck Pervis winced. Mrs. Pervis continued. "Now sich es ole Wade an Moss Teele an uthers air hungry ter git er bite at ther public grip, so they throw out bait fer yo uns ter nibble; an yer air fools ernuff ter nibble. Jane Snow tells me thet all ther big bug Niggers er goin ter be driv out, and we uns will git ther property and wash up in ther churches." "Thet wus promused," broke in Teck. "But who hes ther rite ter tek them critters property ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... pulleth in again at her pleasure, according as she sees some little fish come neer to her [Mount Elsayes: and others affirm this]; and the Cuttle-fish (being then hid in the gravel) lets the smaller fish nibble and bite the end of it; at which time shee by little and little draws the smaller fish so neer to her, that she may leap upon her, and then catches and devours her: and for this reason some have called ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... friends, in the portfolios of his painters; vainly had he fancied that thereby he might be remembered. A peach—a blushing, rich-flavored fruit, nestling in the trellis work on the garden-wall, hidden beneath its long, green leaves,—this little vegetable production, that a dormouse would nibble up without a thought, was sufficient to recall to the memory of this great monarch the mournful shade of the last surintendant ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... mouthful of water was all I dare drink, and there remained less than a pint in the water-skin. Almost stupefied, exhausted, and despondent, I lay down beside a tiny bush, at whose dry twigs the famished horses were now trying to nibble, and sank into a state of ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... us to dinner tomorrow and a little dance afterward. It is Will's last nibble at pleasure. Oh, why didn't you make him choose some real business, you naughty father, so he could have stayed at home like a ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... what he has got like a mouse into a store of good things. Then presently that store will be all gone, and then she will give him up, and he, the man, will go out and shoot himself, and she will pick up somebody else, and will begin to nibble-nibble just as before. As I say, there will be somebody else, and somebody else, right up to the end of the chapter. And with every one she will grow just an imperceptible bit older. By and by the ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... following these examples, to avoid ungovernable and mad rage. For we cannot in other respects equal those distinguished men in their ability and virtue, nevertheless we must, like initiating priests of the gods and torchbearers of wisdom, attempt as far as possible to imitate and nibble at their practice. Then, again, if anyone thinks it a small and unimportant matter to govern the tongue, another point I promised to touch on, he is very far from the reality. For silence at the proper ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the ponies, Noll," said Ingleborough, "while I get up as high as I can with my glass and give an eye to the farms. If we've been seen someone will soon be after us. We can't rest till we know. But eat your breakfast, and I'll nibble mine while I watch. Don't take off ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... he was hardy as a bear and athletic as a panther. There was never a farmer who kept cleaner fields, or handsomer stake-and-rider fence than he; or had earlier corn, or a larger woodpile; yet he did love a hunt more dearly than a venison pie; he caught fish from pools where others received not a nibble; and he enjoyed a leisure day, and a feast, and ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... certainly containing nothing to suck, the Sitaris-larvae took up their customary position and there remained motionless as on the living insect. They obtain nothing, therefore, from the Anthophora's body; but perhaps they nibble her fleece, even as the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... and bright-eyed and graceful always, lope over the brown needles, intent upon some urgent business of their own. Noisy little chipmunks sit up and nibble nervously at dainties they have found, and flirt their tails and gossip, and scold the carping bluejays that peer down from overhanging branches. Perhaps a hoot owl in the hollow trees overhead opens amber eyes and blinks irritatedly at the chattering, then wriggles his head farther ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... few moments we saw the graceful creatures, one after another, turn and attentively look at the signal. Then they slowly walked towards it. Then came a pause and a nibble of grass, and again, as though they could not resist the desire to ascertain what this singular thing fluttering in the breeze was, they hesitatingly came still nearer, as though they feared some hidden danger. In this way they soon approached within easy range, ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... Witch's oven, to the right a cage, all inside a fence of gingerbread children. A duet of admiration and amazement follows in a new, undulatory melody. Hansel wants to enter the house, but Gretel holds him back. Finally they decide to venture so far as to nibble a bit. Hansel stealthily breaks a piece of gingerbread off the corner, and at once the voice of the Witch is heard in ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... fabulous luxury. Saloons were good for something. Back behind the plodding horses, I would take an hour in consuming that one cracker. I took the smallest nibbles, never losing a crumb, and chewed the nibble till it became the thinnest and most delectable of pastes. I never voluntarily swallowed this paste. I just tasted it, and went on tasting it, turning it over with my tongue, spreading it on the inside of this cheek, then on the inside of the other cheek, until, ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... their way as the hills and the villages—the men in red-lined jackets; the women in black petticoats, short-waisted green bodices, and broad-brimmed straw hats with black-and-crimson pompons. But on the steepest gradient, just before reaching Hornberg, I got my first nibble—strange to say, from two German students; they wore Heidelberg caps, and were toiling up the incline with short, broken wind; I put on a spurt with the Manitou, and passed them easily. I did it just at first in pure wantonness of health and strength; ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... on the lawn, stops his gambols and steps gently aside to coax, to caress his woolly-fleeced companion; and the mother talks softly to her child of the innocent darlings, and asks if they are not lovely creatures, and beautiful to look at, as they timidly wander from spot to spot, and nibble the delicate pasture. So it is to the lively fancy of childhood, and so it is to the mother whose affections are naturally melted into softness in the presence of simplicity; but when economic considerations arise, and the question is one of service and value, all such sentimental and ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... gate leading from the yard, a rabbit hops, aimlessly, his back humped up, and his white tail showing plainly amid his sombre surroundings. I can see the muscles about his nostrils twitching, as he stops now and again to nibble at a withered tuft of grass. A lonely jay flits from one tree to another; a cardinal speeds by my window, a line of color across a dark background; and one by one the dry leaves drop noiselessly down, making thicker the soft covering which Nature is ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... "And there's another!" The curious moth-eaten and shabby appearance that captive camels always exhibit was accurately recorded in his addressing one of them as "poor old horsie." And after watching the llamas in silence, when he saw them nibble at some grass he was satisfied. "Moo-cow," he stated positively, and turned away. The bears did not seem to interest him until he was reminded of Goldylocks. Then he remembered the pictures of the bears in that story and began to take ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... stone well was found in the oasis with a good supply of cool, though curious tasting water, and canteens were soon being let down into it at the end of puttees in a hopeless effort to cope with our thirst, after which the bolder spirits went so far as to nibble a ration biscuit. But one cannot help reflecting on what might have been the consequences for us if the Turks had adopted the German policy ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... friendly intercourse which I should highly prize must be disturbed by the awkward consciousness that this old letter-writer and his sister are watching and misinterpreting with all the zeal of match-makers who have baited their trap, and are ready to mistake anything for a nibble! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... arrived, he squeezed by that slave and victim, and raising the hinged board that separated his kingdom from that of the ribbon department, passed out of the store, hat in hand, serene in the consciousness that though other clerks might nibble luncheon from a brown paper bag, he would speedily be indulging in an expensive repast; and Miss Dix knew it, and it was a part of his almost ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
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