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Bait   /beɪt/   Listen
Bait

verb
(past & past part. baited; pres. part. baiting)
1.
Harass with persistent criticism or carping.  Synonyms: cod, rag, rally, razz, ride, tantalise, tantalize, taunt, tease, twit.  "Don't ride me so hard over my failure" , "His fellow workers razzed him when he wore a jacket and tie"
2.
Lure, entice, or entrap with bait.
3.
Attack with dogs or set dogs upon.



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"Bait" Quotes from Famous Books



... the novelty of its freedom to think of flying at first farther than the nearest thick shrub. So, having noticed where it has flown to, we must fetch the trap-cage without losing a moment, put in a hen from the aviary as call-bird, a few grains of hemp as bait, stand the cage on a box, or anything else, close to the bush, and watch from some point out of sight. In less than ten minutes we shall most likely have caught the ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... whip and spur upon the return. This town just entered, not staying to bait: that village passed by: leaves the wind behind him; in a ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... cautioned her against economy. "That bargain-hunting remark was only a bait. Remember, Gus Briskow wants them to have everything, and be everything they should be, regardless of expense. Why, both he and I would like nothing better than to have Allegheny look like you, if ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... safe bait, is a woman, all the world over," said the spokesman, "and this one's finished her part of the business well enough. Now our parts have got to be done. Some time to-night you received a token. ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner

... for the scene presented the animated appearance for which, on any fine spring day, all the choicest haunts of ancient quietude in Italy are becoming yearly more remarkable. There were clamorous beggars at all the sculptured portals, and bait for beggars, in abundance, trailing in and out of them under convoy of loquacious ciceroni. I forget just how I apportioned the responsibility, of intrusion, for it was not long before fellow- tourists ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... party preferred to go out on the river to fish, for some fine black bass could be caught here. Dimple, however, preferred to stay behind with Mrs. Dallas and one or two of the other ladies, even though Mr. Atkinson said he would bait her hook for her, and would lend her ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard

... absolutely clear: it was not solely the everyday and ancient appeal of woman to man and man to woman which drew us together, though doubtless this had its part in our attachment as under our human conditions it must do, seeing that it is Nature's bait to ensure the continuance of the race. It was something more, something quite beyond ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... 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 for Lilly's ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer

... rose to the bait of that unusual call, so others like him rose and each of them was a man conspicuous for recklessness and wildness among a people where these qualities do not elicit ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... depend upon was catching crawfish. These abounded so that if you dropped a string with a bit of meat on it into the water anywhere, you could pull it up again with two or three crawfish hanging to it. The boys could not begin to use them all for bait, which was the only use their Creator seemed to have designed them for; but they had vaguely understood that people somewhere ate them, or something like them, though they had never known even the name of lobsters; and they always intended to ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells

... The bait took. In another five minutes Mr. Mayne was nodding in earnest, and Dick on tiptoe had just softly closed the door behind him, and was taking his straw hat from ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... came, making himself agreeable with the fat wholesale butcher and his fatter wife—important folk, they, likely to be of use to a rising young man like Hermann Von Schmidt. No less a bait, however, had been required to draw them to his house than his great brother-in-law. Another man at table who had swallowed the same bait was the superintendent of the Pacific Coast agencies for the Asa Bicycle Company. Him Von Schmidt desired to please and propitiate because from ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... taste for blood You'd better bait him with a cow; Persuade the brute to chew the cud Her tail suspended from a bough; It thrills the lion through and through To hear the ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... he had persuaded some of his friends who were going fishing, to put their bait worms into a dish of boiling water to kill them before they started, and also to promise him that as soon as they took their fish out of the water, they would kill them by a sharp blow on the back of the head. They were all the more ready to do this, when he told them that their fish would ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... successful; the bait was instantly swallowed, and Jerry Belknap glanced maliciously up at the closely curtained chamber windows, and muttered, as he began to saunter slowly up and down ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... some signs uh clearin' up to-night," Applehead stated with careful judgment, because he felt that Luck's question had much to do with Luck's plans, and was not a mere conversational bait. "Wind, she's shiftin', er was, when I come in to supper. She shore come down like all git-out ever since she started, and I calc'late she's about stormed out. I look fer sun all day to-morrer, boy." This last in a tone of such manifest encouragement that Luck snorted. (Back ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... English, and are so lighthearted and goodnatured, that it is a pleasure to have to do with them. But so it is with all the people. Vetturino-travelling involves a stoppage of two hours in the middle of the day, to bait the horses. At that time I always walk on. If there are many turns in the road, I necessarily have to ask my way, very often: and the men are such gentlemen, and the women such ladies, that it is quite an interchange ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... those of fishermen; yet,' said I, 'did fishermen found the Christian faith, and we have been those fishermen who defended it against the forces of the Infidel, our fishing-boats being galleys and ships, our hooks the treasure of St. Mark, and our bait the life-blood of our citizens, who died ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin

... after making all possible search to get news of him, at last proclaimed through the town a large reward to be given to anyone who would discover what had happened to him. The confessor, tempted by this bait, secretly gave word that they had only to search in the innkeeper's cellar and they would find the corpse. And they found it in the place indicated. The innkeeper was thrown into prison, was tortured, and confessed his crime. But afterwards he always maintained ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... senate's lids Could scatter opium full as well, And drive as many souls to hell. Sid's rod was slender, white, and tall, Which oft he used to fish withal; A PLACE was fasten'd to the hook, And many score of gudgeons took; Yet still so happy was his fate, He caught his fish and sav'd his bait. Sid's brethren of the conj'ring tribe, A circle with their rod describe, Which proves a magical redoubt, To keep mischievous spirits out. Sid's rod was of a larger stride, And made a circle thrice as wide, Where spirits throng'd with hideous ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... "Shorts,"—terms mysterious to city ears as jute and cudbear and gunnybags to such as drive oxen in the remote interior districts.—Then the marriage column above alluded to, by the fortunate recipients of the cake. Right opposite, as if for matrimonial ground-bait, a Notice that Whereas my wife, Lucretia Babb, has left my bed and board, I will not be responsible, etc., etc., from this date.—Jacob Penhallow (of the late firm Wibird and Penhallow) had taken Mr. William Murray Bradshaw into partnership, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... and with bitter Fate! * And weet that His will He shall consummate: Night oft upon woe as on abscess acts * And brings it up to the bursting state: And Chance and Change shall pass o'er the youth * And fleet from his thoughts and no more shall bait." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... as for punishing those fellows, I would rather have the opportunity of drubbing a few of them with my fists for worrying poor old Dame Pitt's lame cow, than see them sent to prison for their freak. It may be all very well for them to bait their cattle when they want tender meat, but they had no business to treat that poor animal in the way they did; and I told them so when they began, and promised them I would put a ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... seriously?" said Desgenais. "That is something that is never seen. You complain because bottles become empty? There are many casks in the vaults, and many vaults in the hills. Make me a good fish-hook gilded with sweet words, with a drop of honey for bait, and quick! catch for me in the stream of oblivion a pretty consoler, as fresh and slippery as an eel; you will still have the hook when the fish shall have glided from your hands. Youth must pass away, and if I were you I would carry ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... ready; the trap was set! The unfortunate Clamettes were still the bait which now would bring a far more noble quarry into the mesh than ever ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... the weight of the trap would drown the captive; otherwise the little fellow in desperation might gnaw his foot off and escape, to be a cripple the rest of his days, like the one whose foot they had handled that morning; what bait was used to attract him to the vicinity of the trap, for an artificial scent has been found marvellously effective in arousing the mating instinct of the animal and causing him to venture in places which otherwise ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... down in the west, like an island, was a thick brush of cedars, preserving their green across the miles, and calling to her with something of the native wonder of old Mother Earth; and to the right, east of south, was the huge blurred stockade where King Cholera was so far imprisoned with the bait of fresh lives ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort

... suspiciously. Once before she had been lured by that bait, and she was wary. But the envy in the eyes of the short-haired ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... the rice is used as a manure for the fields; whereas the people have to-day assured me that it is of so hard, stony, and untractable a nature, as to be literally good for nothing. Here I know it is thrown away by cart-loads into the river, where its only use appears to be to act like ground bait, and attract a vast quantity of small fish to its vicinity. The number of hands employed in this threshing-mill is very considerable, and the whole establishment, comprising the fires and boilers and machinery of a powerful steam engine, are all under negro ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... knew who we were, so far as our assumed characters went, and had probably been advised of our approach, this bait took, and there was a general jumping up and down, and a common pow-wowing among them, indicative of the pleasure such a proposal gave. In a minute the whole party were around us, with some eight or ten more who appeared from the nearest bushes. ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... to a hollow in the ground, which was filled with water. Beside it lay a pile of bait and husks and chaff; and she bade them make the most of these. "We have had a severe snow-winter this year, on the island," she said. "The peasants who own us came out to us with hay and oaten straw, so we shouldn't ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... words on his lips for declining Claudet's offer, when the name of Reine Vincart produced an immediate change in his resolution. It just crossed his mind that perhaps Claudet had thrown out her name as a bait and an argument in favor of his theories on the facility of love-affairs in the country. However that might be, the allusion to the probable presence of Mademoiselle Vincart at the coming fete, rendered young Buxieres more tractable, and he made ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... she's left the lobs. I ain't got none; this is bait for them fellers." And, as if reminded of business by the yells of several boys who had just caught sight of him, Sammy abruptly weighed anchor and ran before the wind toward ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... know our limitations," Dr. O'Connor said at last. "He must be perfectly well aware that there's not a single thing we can do about him. He must know that we can neither find nor stop him. Why should he worry? He can afford to ignore us—or even bait us. We're helpless, and ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

... attractive that they would receive only officers. That they would receive many clients, of high rank, of much information, who would readily fall victims to their wiles. They are very vile themselves, these Germans. The curious thing is, how well they understand how to bait a trap for their enemies. In spite of having nothing in common with them, how well they understand the nature of those who are fighting in the name of Justice, of Liberty ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte

... thou the giddy men of Rome. Then cheer thy spirit: for know, thou emperor, I will enchant the old Andronicus With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous, Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep, Whenas the one is wounded with the bait, The other rotted ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... but what do you want me to do in the matter?" "To find some, of course." "Some women. Women?—you must be mad?" "I managed to find the brandy under the pear tree, and the champagne under the steps; and yet there was nothing to guide me, while as for you, a petticoat is a sure bait. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... be seen," replied the Doctor enigmatically. "At all events, bring your pistol. In answer to any questions, we are going fishing. In point of fact, we are—with ourselves as bait. If you have a little time to spare this afternoon you might drop around to the office of the Post and get them to show you all the amnesia cases they have had stories on during the past three months. They will be interesting reading. No more ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... ready to eat," replied his Mother; "you know that they are caught by bait. This bait is often a little worm, put upon a sharp hook. The fish snap at the bait, and the hook catches them in the mouth. Come, little hungry fish," added his Mother, "and I will give you something to eat; but I will not put it on ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown

... had a dark and sidelong walk, And long and slouching was his gait; Beneath his looks so bare and bold, You might perceive, his spirit cold Was playing with some inward bait. 310 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth

... in the bodies of the human species; Luminousness of the Sea, a valuable contribution; Motions in water caused by the respiration of Fishes; Cannibalism in New Guinea; Heron swallowing a Rat; Mr. Vigors on American Quails; Mr. Yarrell's experiments to preserve White Bait; On the fascination of Serpents; Notes on the Zoological ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various

... and Lucius, may have, after I am gone, a strong man for their guardian.—You will note that, if you please. Augustus had just adopted these two sons of Julias; they were, ostensibly, to be his successors; there was no bait for ambition in this sacrifice Tiberius was called on to make; he would not succeed to the Principate; the marriage would not help him; there was to be nothing in it for him but pure pain. In the name of duty he was called on to ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... the prowler had overtaken and killed a muskrat by a stone wall near a little stream. The blood upon the snow and the half-devoured body of the rat told the whole story. The mink is very fond of muskrats, and trappers often use this flesh to bait their traps. I wonder if he has learned to enter the under-water hole to the muskrat's den, and then seek him in his chamber above, where the poor rat would have little ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... the way from Lowell to Boston, and won a handsome wager for his owner, while intent only on a dinner for himself. Humanity is served out of all proportion to the intention of service. Even the noble souls, never wanting in history, who follow not a bait, but belief, see only in imperfect survey the connections and relations of their deeds. Each is faithfully obeying his own inward vocation, a voice unheard by other soul than his own, and the inability to calculate consequences makes the preeminent grandeur of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... show windows of the stores, filled with goods arranged with a wealth of pains and artistic device to attract the eye. I saw the throngs of ladies looking in, and the proprietors eagerly watching the effect of the bait. I went within and noted the hawk-eyed floor-walker watching for business, overlooking the clerks, keeping them up to their task of inducing the customers to buy, buy, buy, for money if they had it, for ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy

... not see this fish will pull me in?" The little man had been sitting there angling, and unfortunately the wind had entangled his beard with the fishing line; and so, when a great fish bit at the bait, the strength of the weak little fellow was not able to draw it out, and the fish had the best of the struggle. The Dwarf held on by the reeds and rushes which grew near; but to no purpose, for the fish pulled him where it liked, and he must soon have been drawn into ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... or cautiously moving in the centre of the vessel, the mother tends her child, keeps up her fire (which is laid on a small patch of earth), paddles her boat, broils fish and provides in part the subsistence of the day. Their favourite bait for fish is ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... Dorians from independent Peloponnese, dwelling in Sicily. Or, are we waiting until we be taken in detail, one city after another; knowing as we do that in no other way can we be conquered, and seeing that they turn to this plan, so as to divide some of us by words, to draw some by the bait of an alliance into open war with each other, and to ruin others by such flattery as different circumstances may render acceptable? And do we fancy when destruction first overtakes a distant fellow countryman that the danger will not come to each of us also, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... Christmas en give us all de egg-nog en liquor we want dat day. Dig hole in de ground en roast cow over log fire. When I get hard up for meat en couldn' get nothin else, I catch rabbits en birds. Make a death trap wid a lid en bait it wid cabbage en corn en catch em dat way. Den another time, I dig deep hole in de ground en dob it wid clay en fill it up wid water. Rabbits hunt water in de night en fall in dere en drown. I used to set traps heap of times to keep de rabbits ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various

... had to resort to powerful means and attract you by the bait of the most fabulous enterprises. You must confess that my letter was jolly smart! The three rushes, the blue gown; simply irresistible! And, when I had thrown in a few puzzles of my own invention, ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc

... conducting the inquiry was struck by the expression of Derues' countenance and by this half answer, which appeared to hide a mystery and to aim at diverting attention by offering a bait to curiosity. He might have stopped Derues at the moment when he sought to plunge into a tortuous argument, and compelled him to answer with the same clearness and decision which distinguished Monsieur de Lamotte's question; but he reflected that the latter's ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... yet. But we'll change the metaphor. We'll say there was a red herring drawn across the trail, and that you took the bait and, having started right enough, presently forsook the right scent for ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... patiently, Scarce murm'ring at their fate, When all at once cried little Bell, "Stupidity I hate! I see the reason very well, We quite forgot the bait!" ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... end of the lane is a cross road parallel to the river. A broad still ditch lies beyond it, with a little bridge across, where one gets minnows for bait: then a ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley

... now draw the spectator from the above-mentioned objects to a little piscatorial sportsman, who, apart from them, and in the retirement of his own thoughts upon worms, ground-bait, and catgut, lends his aid, together with a lively little amateur waterman, paddling about in a little boat, selfishly built to hold none other than himself—a hill rising in the middle ground, and two or three minor editions of the same towards the distance, carefully dotted with trees, after ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various

... strikes the European. Variety, however, has its charms; and before one has travelled fifteen hundred miles on the same river - as one may easily do in America - one begins to sigh for the Rhine, or even for a trip from London to Greenwich, with a white-bait dinner at the end ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... back to the pool he swung the hook over his shoulder and circled it around his head and cast it nearly into the center of the water, where he allowed it to sink gradually, paying out the line as far as it would go. When the end was reached, he began drawing it in again, until the crab bait ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... day when a gun would bring down on you a score of red varmints. I expect you will find fish in the lake. Many of these mountain lakes just swarm with them. You had better look about and catch a few bugs, there ain't no better bait. Those jumping bugs are as good as any," and he pointed to a grasshopper, somewhat to Tom's relief, for the lad had just been wondering where he should look for bugs, not having seen one since he ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... Look now for no enchanting voice, nor fear The bait of honied words; a rougher tongue Draws hitherward; I know him by his stride, The ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... I'll settle a Platonick Friendship with him, then faulter in my Speech, and seem confus'd, as if my Sexes weakness must discover a Passion which my haughty Soul wou'd hide. The greedy Collonel catches at the Bait, deep Sighs, and sheepish Looks confess the Lover; then with what sparkling Pride I'll boast my Power, bravely assert my wonted Resolutions, rally the blustering ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... all, the King of the top family, and the greatest source of joy to the youth with a sure eye and a steady hand. The "Plugger" is the top you spin; the "bait" is the top you strike with the plugger. A "Giggler" is an unsteady top that goes dancing and hopping about. Boys love their "old reliable taw" in marbles, but their pride in this is never so great as that which they ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort

... is desperate. His own are losing faith in him. He snatched thee to be a bait for her, having it in mind that a man whom she hides in her private part of Khinjan must be of great value to her. He has sworn to have thee skinned alive on a hot rock should she fail ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... murder without criminality, which Reuben suggested, is an instance of the shallow pretexts with which the sophistry of sin fools men before they have done the wrong thing. Sin's mask is generally dropped very soon after. The bait is useless when the hook is well in the fish's gills. 'Don't let us kill him. Let us put him into a cistern. He cannot climb up its bottle-shaped, smooth sides. But that is not our fault. Nobody will ever hear his muffled cries ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... bower, I'll guard thee like a tender flower"— "O hush, Sir Knight! 'twere female art 415 To say I do not read thy heart; Too much, before, my selfish ear Was idly soothed my praise to hear. That fatal bait hath lured thee back, In deathful hour, o'er dangerous track; 420 And how, O how, can I atone The wreck my vanity brought on!— One way remains—I'll tell him all— Yes! struggling bosom, forth it shall! Thou, whose light folly bears the blame, 425 Buy thine own pardon with thy shame! ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... is, grave councilors, And with a modest meekness goes about The daily duties of her household care; Oh! I am sure no vulgar palate-bait Did lure her to this shame, but some enticement That took the form of higher nature did Invest the hook. For ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith

... beforehand lived in lusty abundance and delight, fearless of the turbulent citizens, and felicitating himself on his wise forethought. Think, then, the city this vain and deceitful world, the citizens the principalities and powers of the demons, who lure us with the bait of pleasure, and make us believe enjoyment will last for ever, till the sudden peril of death is upon us.—This parable (which seems to be of purely Hebrew origin) is also found in the old Spanish ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... suspect the Congressional Committee of a joke, still less of a joke at the expense of those anglers in the literary current whose tackle, however bare of bait, never fails of a sinker at the end of every line. They have been taught to look upon books as in no wise differing from cotton and tobacco, and rate them accordingly by a merely material standard. It has been the dealers in books, and not the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... half nonsense, were the other half cunning, and the tones and looks were piteous. Meadows hesitated. Crawley knew too much; to get rid of him was a bait; and after all to annihilate the thing he had been all his life accumulating went against his heart. He rang the bell. "Hide the notes, Crawley. Bring me two shirts, a razor, and a comb. Crawley, these are the terms. That you ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... his occupation of the Prussian territory, under the pretext of the alleged slowness of payment of the war contributions; he was organizing provisionally the government of Hanover, which he had reserved as a future bait for the English government; and he was treating with Spain for the passage of troops necessary for the invasion of Portugal. This power, constantly faithful to the English alliance, having refused to give ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... no such deceit, For thou thyself art thine own bait; That fish, that is not catch'd thereby, Alas! ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... behaviour, and she marched directly up to me like a queen. I was barefoot, and clad like a common sailor, save for an Egyptian scarf round my waist; and she probably took me at first for some one from the fisher village, straying after bait. As for her, when I thus saw her face to face, her eyes set steadily and imperiously upon mine, I was filled with admiration and astonishment, and thought her even more beautiful than I had looked to find her. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... you," replied Don, but still he did not take any more interest in the Sportsman's Club than he had done before. He did not snap up the bait thus thrown out, as Lester hoped he would. He was not to be bought, even by the promise of office. Lester saw that, and arose to ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... that wants it," replied the other, "an' that's not me. As for God's pity, it isn't yours to give, and even if it was, you stand in need of it yourself more than I do. You're beginning to praich to us now that you're not able to bait us; but for your praichments an' your baitins, may the divil pay you for all alike!—as he will—an' that's ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... distress, he advises him to send the women home again. But public opinion forces the leader to obey Artemis and sacrifice his daughter. When he meets his wife and child, he tries to temporise but fails. Achilles meets Clytemnestra and is surprised to hear that he is to marry Iphigeneia, such being the bait which brought Clytemnestra to Aulis. Learning the real truth, she faces her husband, pleading for their daughter's life. Iphigeneia at first shrinks from death; the army demands her sacrifice, while Achilles is ready to defend ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb

... the cove where Frenchy, already apprised that such a distinguished passenger was coming, was feverishly scrubbing the craft and soaking the footboards, endeavoring, with scant success, to remove all traces of fish and bait. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... to the county, for though it stretched as large as many a minor European kingdom, it had not the population of a respectable manufacturing town, and Pete Glass went far beyond its bounds to get his trailers. Everywhere he had the posters set up and on the posters appeared the bait. The state began the game with a reward of three thousand dollars; the county plastered two thousand dollars on top of that to make it an even five: then the town of Alder dug into its deep pockets and produced twenty-five hundred, ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... Lou lightly, "it don't strike me as millionaire bait. Shouldn't wonder if I catch one before you ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... bail flail slay fray nail bait frail vain mail gray clay paid dray bray main wail pray raise saint stray snail faint staid away paint faith train gayly spray chain plain maid stain strain waist braid drain grain praise strait twain claim ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett

... mind that gink!" laughed Sandy. "He doesn't know any more about fishing in Alaska than a hog knows about Sunday! Bring along all the flies we've got and some red flannel, and some pieces of dirty bacon, and we'll manage to get fish. If one bait ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman

... that a Dr. John M. Neal, of Edinburg, was hung for murder. He was not hung while with me. The only thing made me doubt him being a Scotchman was he loved whiskey, and I had been told that the Scotch were a sensible people. John M. Neal said that "drugs was the bait of fools"; it was no science, and the system of drugs was only a trade, followed by the doctor for the money that could be obtained by it from the ignorant sick. He believed that nature was a law capable of vindicating its power ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still

... Chatre had left Fleurier to go northward. I started after him, not waiting even to refresh my horses. When we reached the inn at the end of the town, I had become sufficiently calm to listen to Hugo's advice that it would be best to bait the horses before going further. I began to perceive, too, that myself and Jeannotte needed some nourishment in order to be able to go on a journey. Thus it happened that I stopped at the inn where La Chatre himself was. He had not gone immediately north ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... anxiety had burdened his mind like the corpse of a murdered man, these gains weighed upon his soul like the loathsome body of a dead cat. Never in his whole life had he felt so poor as with this devil's money. The witch-bait which Biberli had given him with the two and the five had drawn it out of the pockets of his fellow gamblers. He would be neither a cut-purse nor a dealer in the black arts. The wages of hell should depart as quickly as they came. While speaking, he seized ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the wild goose crieth, (For) she hath taken her bait; (But) thy love restraineth me, I cannot free her (from the snare); (So) must I take (home) my net. What (shall I say) to my mother, To whom (I am wont) to come daily Laden with wild fowl? I lay not my snare to-day (For) thy love hath ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... was bid, and on his return to the bottom of the lake told the king-fish what Manabozho had said. Just then the bait was let down again near to the king, and Manabozho was heard ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous

... my six little uns," she cried, "and up the cliff they must hurry all, through any wind or weather, or learn nothing. And then they be that tired when they do get home again, they be no use at all about the bait-boxes or the boats. There be sixty school-going children in the village, and I do say there ought to be a ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... city. Therefore, she intended to add, if he would let her make some new dresses for Ingua, she would work for half her regular wages. Her dress as a sewing-girl would carry out this deception and the bait of small wages ought to interest the old man. But this clever plan had suddenly gone glimmering, for in order to gain admittance to the office and secure an interview with Old Swallowtail she had inadvertently stated that she had some real estate to dispose ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)

... would hold out the Perilous Castle for a year and a day. The spirited Sir John de Walton took the damsel at her word, and shut himself up in Douglas Castle; but his prudence did not equal his courage, and he fell a prey to the same stratagem which had deluded Thirlwall, except that the bait, in this case, was sacks of corn instead of wandering cattle. The young knight was slain in the encounter, when his lady's letters were found in his bosom, and brought to Sir James, who was so much touched by this chivalrous incident that he spared the remainder of the garrison, and gave them provisions ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... and made it plain by a look as ancient as Chaldea that he had found favour in her eyes. And then a lank, grey-bearded man, perspiring copiously in a noble passion of self-help, blind to all earthly things save that glaring, bait, thrust between them in a cataclysmal rush towards that alluring "x 5 ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... was trepanned into this thralldom by a heap of flowers artful Angelo had brought him—purple crocuses and cyclamens, and Canterbury bells, and gaudy pea-stalks, all thrown before the child. Gigi, in his little torn petticoat, had swallowed the bait, and flung himself upon the bright blossoms, grasping them in his dirty fingers. Presently the delighted babe turned his eyes upon cunning Angelo standing behind him, showing his white teeth. Satisfied that Angelo was there, Gigi buried himself ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... good-natured. It is not that you must always agree with opinions, or not take exception to what is exceptionable; it is only that you shall not say things in a sour, cross, disagreeable way. Impale the bait on your arming-wire, but handle it as if you loved it. Talk thunderbolts, if necessary, but don't "make faces." The soft south-wind is very, charming; the northwest-wind, though sharp, is bracing and healthful; but your raw east-winds,—oh! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various

... by the sun we came pretty nearly due east, I have not the slightest idea of the road. The coachman could not speak a word of English. I should say we came about seven miles an hour and stopped once to bait the horses, so I suppose that it must have been between four and five miles from ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... with all the details. Scrobby had purchased the red herrings and strychnine, and had employed Goarly to walk over by night to Rufford and fetch them. The poison at that time had been duly packed in the herrings. Goarly had done this and had, at Scrobby's instigation, laid the bait down in Dillsborough Wood. Nickem was now at work trying to learn where Scrobby had purchased the poison, as it was feared that Goarly's evidence alone would not suffice to convict the man. But if the strychnine could be traced and the herrings, ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... a fair game, George. They tire you out. And I'm not well. My stomach's all wrong. And I been and got a cold. I always been li'ble to cold, and this one's on my chest. And then they tell you to speak up. They bait you—and bait you, and bait you. It's torture. The strain of it. You can't remember what you said. You're bound to contradict yourself. It's like Russia, George.... It isn't fair play.... Prominent man. I've been next ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... only half a mile off the direct road to Barchester, and was almost half-way from Hogglestock parsonage to the city. This would, at any rate, bring the walk within a practicable distance. Mr Crawley was instantly placed upon his guard, like an animal that sees the bait and suspects the trap. Had he been told that farmer Mangle was going all the way to Barchester, nothing would have induced him to get into the cart. He would have felt sure that farmer Mangle had been persuaded to pity him in his poverty and his ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... wise he became the union-pearl of his age and the goodliest of the folk of his time and his day; fair of face and of tongue fluent, carrying himself with a light and graceful gait and glorying in his stature proportionate and amorous graces which were to many a bait: and his cheeks were red and flower-white was his forehead and his side face waxed brown with tender down, even as saith one, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... the bait that has drawn the old scientist here, to study it all out, and write up the history of the people who looked on this very picture so many hundreds of years back. Why, Frank, some of the cliffs they say are about a mile high! That's hard to believe, ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... inter-stellar journeys perhaps there was nothing so amusing to me as to see a company of these water creatures fishing for land animals. They would creep up near shore and throw out their wire lines with various kinds of bait, according to what they wished to catch. Then followed the inevitable waiting until some innocent Jullep or Petzel would grasp the tempting morsel on the hook. A skillful jerk fastened the victim, and instead of pulling him in the water, the fisherman held his breath and rushed out of the water to ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris

... won about five hundred pounds," said his daughter. "Marcus was laying ground bait. She did not know what horses he had backed until after the race was run, when he invariably appeared with a few mille notes and Lydia's pleasure was pathetic. Of course she didn't win anything. The twenty thousand francs was a sprat—he's coming to-night ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... glares still more hungrily at them. I have heard how in the Fraser River the fish positively pack and jostle as they move up. So here; but the unhappy sportsman has nothing to catch them with. Brass coal-scuttles and duplex lamps are about all that remains in the way of bait, and these are the only things they won't rise to. He rushes off to Kitchener. "Give me a train a day. Give me a train a week." "You be d——d," growls Kitchener. Back he comes. The hungry eyes are still ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... Antoine that their voluntary retreat would do no prejudice to their honor,[137] retired from the royal court, but went no farther than the neighboring city of Chateaudun. The Prince of Conde, swallowing the bait, did not hesitate a moment to place himself, the very next day, in the hands of the queen mother and his brother, and was led more like a captive than a freeman from Beaugency to Talsy, where Catharine was staying. Becoming alarmed, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... trips over the trap lines. Nepeese had entered into an exciting bargain with him this winter. Pierrot had taken her into partnership. Every fifth trap, every fifth deadfall, and every fifth poison bait was to be her own, and what they caught or killed was to bring a bit nearer to realization a wonderful dream that was growing in the Willow's heart. Pierrot had promised. If they had great luck that winter, they would go down ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... of the river near our resting place, I caught, within an hour, some dozen good-sized fish: using a bait of kangaroo flesh. There were two sorts, one of the shape of a trout, and ten inches long; it had a dirty orange-yellow belly, and a muddy bronze back; the lower hole of the nose had a raised margin. The other measured seven inches, and resembled in shape a small fish at home, known to ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... I thought of offering her a glass of wine; then I remembered that if I did it might be a bait to bring her there again, and this I was desirous to prevent. She rose while the thought was passing through my mind. Her pasteboard box lay on the chair she had first occupied; she took it, wrote an address on the cover, laid it down, ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson

... Oxford; he was certainly the son of the innkeeper's wife. A rumor, which Davenant always countenanced, alleged that William Shakspeare, a poet of some considerable repute in those times, being in the habit of passing between Stratford-on-the-Avon and London, was wont to bait and often lodge at this Oxford hostelry. At one of these calls the landlady had proved more than ordinarily frail or the poet more than ordinarily seductive,—who can wonder at even virtue stooping to folly when the wooer was the Swan of Avon, beside ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... you have bungled! You bait the trap, the poor man walks into it, and you allow another to forestall you. Not only that, but you actually allow Japan to come into the game, and but for Mr. Lutchester's appearance we might both of us have been left plante ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... crevice; the unhinged doors and broken windows; the ladder rotting as it leans against the moss-grown roof, the broken well-sweep and deserted barn, offer an aspect of desolation and decay which should prove sufficient bait to tempt ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... valuable pawn to play in Radziwill's game of vengeance and ambition. But the Prince was by no means disposed to snatch the bait hurriedly. Experience had taught him caution. He must count the cost carefully before taking the step, and while writing to the Princess, "I consider it a miracle of Providence that it has provided so great a heroine for my unhappy country," he took his departure ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... like the Ossifrage[FN106] which, for precaution against the hunters, abode in the upper air, of the excess of his subtlety; but, as he was thus, he saw a fowler set up his nets and when the toils were firmly staked down bait them with a bit of meat; which when he beheld, desire and lust thereof overcame him and he forgot that which he had seen of springes and of the sorry plight of all birds that fell into them. So ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... drive; each occupied with individual thoughts running in separate channels; she glad that her eyes were looking their last on the wind-lashed prairies blackened by the scourge; he casting about in his mind for some bait with which to entice her ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris

... renegade she-wolf, to fill herself of the meat which she had not helped to kill. She was a slinking, hollow-backed, quick-fanged creature, still rib-thin from the sickness that had come of eating a poison-bait; a beast shunned by her own kind—a coward, a murderess even of her own whelps. But she was none of these things to Miki. In her he saw in living flesh and bone what his memory and his instinct recalled to him of his mother. And his mother had come ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... amusing. "Yes, there can be no question that this is Finality in perfection; and it is a great advantage to have the doctrine so beautifully worked out, and shut up in a corner of a dock near a fashionable white-bait house for the edification of man. Thousands of years have passed away since the first junk was built on this model, and the last junk ever launched was no better for that waste and desert of time. The mimic eye painted on their prows ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... straight up to our tents. Although none of our people were gone to bed, although all were up and about talking, not a single person saw them coming but myself; and I only saw—none of us heard, so noiselessly did they steal over the sand. This troop merely came in to bait for the night. They, however, brought some person with them who is about to be married to a ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... caught in the branches of the stunted birches which bordered the stream—which was not of infrequent occurrence—they would run to his assistance and help to untangle the hook; they would often search for and carry to him worms to serve as bait. Both kinds of service were sure to be rewarded by a piece of "black sugar," as Bell styled licorice, which he always carried with him for use ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett

... scattering it abroad, quenching their camp-fire, and rolling up the bay until it invaded their reedy island and hissed in their ears. It drove the game from Jim's gun; it tore the net and scattered the bait of Li Tee, the fisherman. Cold and half starved in heart and body, but more dogged and silent than ever, they crept out in their canoe into the storm-tossed bay, barely escaping with their miserable lives to the marshy peninsula. Here, on their enemy's ground, skulking in the rushes, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... here. "Take Le Merquier for instance. Instead of giving him your money outright in a big purse as you would do with a seraskier, you beat around the bush. The fellow likes pictures. He is always trading with Schwalbach, who uses him as a bait to catch Catholic customers. Very good! you offer him a picture, a souvenir to hang on a panel in his cabinet. It all depends on getting your money's worth. However, you shall see. I'll take you to him myself. I'll show you how the thing ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet

... Dolton went across to New York as directed and stayed for three weeks at the Johnston House, without hearing anything from the missing man. It is probable that some injudicious comments in the Press may have warned him that the police were using them as a bait. However, this may be, it is certain that he neither wrote nor came, and the women were eventually compelled to return ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... but do not move, whilst hundreds of young bass, an inch or two in length, shoot from the innumerable crevices like so many fresh-water shiners. The very foundation of the bridge seems to be alive with them. There are also a number of giant sun-fish here which seldom refuse a bait. At daybreak on fine mornings, when camping there for a day or two, I have caught in less than an hour half a dozen two-pound bass, not counting other fish and small bass which I tossed back. I used one ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford

... for animals, and this game we skinned; the meat we dried and the pelts we hoped to use in the winter. The fats I dried out and kept in a skin pouch Hal made. Some of the game could not be eaten, so we used that for bait. ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... trap will induce him to refrain from making the last fatal spring. This is a peculiarity of the whole feline species. It has been found in India that when a hunter pickets a goat on a plain as a bait, a tiger has whipped it off so quickly by a stroke of his paw that it was impossible to take aim. To obviate this difficulty a small pit is dug, in the bottom of which the goat is picketed, with ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne

... from the common ground-worms, which boys dig to bait fishes, rubbed on with the hand, is said to be excellent, when the sinews are drawn up by any disease ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... contracting for their works or otherwise, losing. The reason is, because the extent to which they can pay is known, and the people who deal with the company calculate accordingly. Unlimited liability existing in some indefinite parties, while it too often ruins these parties themselves, is a bait for that indefinite credit which produces their ruin, and sometimes leaves the careless creditor unpaid, even when he has taken the last ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various

... myself, at this rate I shall soon be with my dear father and mother; and till I had got, as I supposed, half-way, I thought of the good friends I had left: And when, on stopping for a little bait to the horses, Robin told me I was near half-way, I thought it was high time to wipe my eyes, and think to whom I was going; as then, alack for me! I thought. So I began to ponder what a meeting I should have with you; how glad you'd both be to see me come safe and innocent to you, after ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson

... benefits, which all the world, as well as the receiver, must attribute to fear. Yet something is due to decency; and the best apology for Lesly, is his zeal for propagating presbyterianism in England, the bait which had caught the whole parliament of Scotland. But, although the Earl of Leven was commander in chief, David Lesly, a yet more renowned and active soldier than himself, was major-general of the cavalry, and, in truth, bore away the laurels of ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... is necessary and the squid is a favorite bait. A squid is a baby octopus, or "devil fish." The squid is caught by jigging up and down a lead weight filled with wire spikes and painted bright red. It seizes the weight with its tentacles. When raised into the boat it releases ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace

... deficiency to be looked for, we fear, in the ensuing quarter: with all this before him, will any member or supporter of the late Government—of all other persons—be found hardy enough to rise in his place next session, and bait Sir Robert Peel about the repeal of the income-tax? The country will not tolerate such audacity. We shall not reason with them; but to those who, like ourselves, are smarting under the effects of the late Ministry's misconduct, who have a right ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... advice temporarily, but it was not in him to long repress the spirit of adventure that bubbled in him. The temptation to bait this bear drew him irresistibly. He could not let him alone, the more that he sensed the danger to himself of the prods he sent home ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine

... fastened on my hook a peeled shedder crab. My line was of linen, six hundred feet long, and no heavier than that used for trout, but very strong. By a quick movement which an old bass-fisherman taught me I made my bait dart like an arrow straight over the water more than one hundred feet, my reel at the same moment whirling, in paying out, as if it would fuse from friction. Well, I soon hooked a fifty-pound fish, and we had a tussle that ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... hands, had suffered every outrage and insult which could be offered her. They were almost living skeletons. One was shot through the thigh, and after the Bishop had dressed her wound, Mr. Walters said quaintly, "Poor thing, she has not meat enough on her bones to bait a rat-trap." It is a wonder how the poor creatures lived at all, under the treatment to which they were subjected. When the Bishop asked some of the men whether their wounds hurt much, they answered, "Nothing hurts so much as the salt water the Illanuns gave us to drink. We never had ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... mizen-chains, and drops his line. Well, he fished (but I don't know whether he caught any) till the boat was hailed in which the first lieutenant was coming on board, and then Jack thought it time to haul in his line; but, just at that moment, there was a jerk; and Jack, who knew that fish was at the bait, could not for the life of him pull up his line—for, you see, he was a fisherman heart and soul; so Jack trusted to Providence and the first lieutenant's going down below as soon as he came ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... of here," Dan snarled, sitting bolt upright. "You gave it to Carl Golden, a long time ago when he was with you, remember? Carl's my boy now—do you think I'll swallow the same bait?" ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

... prolific veins of the precious metals in Hispaniola, and the prospect of an indefinite extent of unexplored country, opened by the late voyage of Columbus, made the viceroyalty of the New World a tempting bait for the avarice and ambition of the most potent grandee. They artfully endeavored, therefore, to undermine the admiral's credit with the sovereigns, by raising in their minds suspicions of his integrity, founded not merely on vague reports, but on letters received from the colony, charging ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... singular. This great artist painted a Magdalen on a canvas fabricated at Rome. A broker, in concert with Mignard, went to the Chevalier de Clairville, and told him as a secret that he was to receive from Italy a Magdalen of Guido, and his masterpiece. The chevalier caught the bait, begged the preference, and purchased the picture at a very ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... wasting your time with us, sir," Jack continued, firmly. "We may, one of these days, be asked to enter the American service permanently. We would not enter any other country's service, no matter what the bait. Do not give the matter any further thought, please, for ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... as soundly as ever, there was an end to all his uneasiness, and he lent a complacent ear to the very liquorish language in which Marialonso addressed him. "Oho," said he to himself, "that's what you would be at, is it? Well, you will do capitally as a bait to fish with for ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... valley, but was pursued by the Matebele, as Mosilikatse never could forgive his former defeats. They came up the river in a very large body. Sebituane placed some goats on one of the large islands of the Zambesi as a bait to the warriors, and some men in canoes to co-operate in the manoeuvre. When they were all ferried over to the island, the canoes were removed, and the Matebele found themselves completely in a trap, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... something to eat if we had it. Needless to say the slight respite was greatly appreciated. But it was by no means the general practice. One or two of the sentries were so deeply incensed against England that they took the opportunity to bait and badger the men in their charge without mercy. They kept the prisoners under them going hard ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... women generally sing; and I have often seen them in their canoes chewing muscles or cockles, or boiled fish, which they spit into the water as a bait. In these canoes, they always carry a small fire laid upon sea-weed or sand; wherewith, when desirous of eating, they find a ready material for dressing their meal. This fire accounted for an appearance which we noticed in many of the women about the small of the back. We at first thought it ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... three of the ponies stampeded, Snatcher making for home and Nobby for the Western Mountains, while Victor, with Bowers still hanging on to him, just bolted here, there and everywhere. Wilson and P.O. Evans at once started after their ponies, and the former by means of a biscuit as a bait managed to catch Nobby west of Tent Island, but Snatcher arrived, with a single trace and dangling sledge, by himself at Cape Evans. Half an hour after Wilson had returned Bowers brought in Victor, who had a gash in his nose, and was very much distressed. 'I don't know,' ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... said the fisherman, "it is no joke. With that queer looking rod and line fastened to its nose it angles for other fishes. It hides amongst the sea-weed at the bottom of the sea, and the fleshy shreds attached to its nose, floating about in the water, act as natural bait, and attract the unwary little fishes in its neighborhood, but the instant one of them makes a bite at the tempting morsel it is whisked away, and the poor fish is caught in the huge mouth of the fisherman fish, and crushed up by ...
— Fun And Frolic • Various

... paper-mill; and all things were going on fairly well until in an unguarded moment I read an advertisement in the New York Herald. It ran as follows: "A gentleman with experience requires a partner with capital, in a safe business, with no risks." The bait took, and I had an interview with "the gentleman," and saw the persons to whom he referred me, and we joined, with the result that in less than seven months we had changed places. I had the experience and he had the ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights

... told my guardian that she ought to send me to some tutor who could bestow upon me more continuous attention. I was as near as possible to being sent to a tutor at Brighton,—a reverend gentleman with aristocratic connections,—but he missed having me by the very bait which he held out to attract my guardian. He boasted in a letter of the young lords he had educated, and said he had one or two still in the house with him. We had a near neighbor and old friend who was herself ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... our bait, it would be impossible to locate his special gun, and that's the one we were after, because they all sound alike, ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey

... again, Dick, and that won't go any longer. You've got to fish or cut bait, and do one ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... very imperceptibly into the hole. His nose was within an inch of the prize, and he could actually touch it with his tongue. Away with cowardly prudence! what recked he of the consequences? Up went his hind legs, down went his head, and the tempting bait was ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... Larner was supervising the construction of a big net of strongly woven wire mesh, in which it was hoped to catch one of the vampires. It was decided to bait the trap with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... dry droops the corn in the heat, Down by the river a robin sings sweet, Gray squirrels chatter as if they might say: "Who's the chump talkin' of workin' to-day?" Robin's song tells how the pickerel wait Under the lily-pads, hungry for bait; I ought ter make for that cornfield, I know: But, "Where's the fishin'-pole? ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln

... then, coy Zephyr, waft my feathered bait Over this rippling shallow's tiny wave To yonder pool, whose calmer eddies lave Some Triton's ambush, where he lies in wait To catch my skipping fly; there drop it lightly: A rise, by Glaucus!—but he missed ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... it all along. I've been told so; I've already been informed." (Mr. Sipiagin did not know this in the least, and no one had told him, but recollecting Solomin's visit and their midnight interview, he promptly threw out this bait, which caught Paklin ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... have there thrown you a bait, and you, good judicial fishes, bite directly! That is very well, you are now in a good way! Only go on, and I will help you to find me guilty, if it be only of simple high-treason. It will then be left to the mercy of your empress to declare ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... that some twenty hours were consumed in the transit, Mr. P. thought that, considering his hurry, he had better, perhaps, have gone to Newark for a day's fishing off the piers. But he was at the St. Lawrence now, and it would not do to complain. He hired a boat, lines, bait and two navigators, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various

... when to stop and let the bait dangle. He fussed with a fresh cigarette, paying no apparent attention to Johnny, which gave that young man an idea that he was wholly unobserved while he dizzily made a mental calculation. Fourteen hundred a week—go-od golly! In a month—or would it last ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... temptations beset them,—perils by night and perils by day,—perils in the house and by the way. Their fierce and hungry young souls, rioting in awakening consciousness, ravening for pleasure, strong and tumultuous, snatch eagerly at every bait. They want then a mother able to curb, and guide, and rule them; and only a mother who commands their respect can do this. Let them see her sought for her social worth,—let them see that she is familiar with all the conditions of their life,—that her vision is at once ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... ecstasy, and the chamberlain confessed he had never seen so perfect a creature. Thinking there was too much danger in this sight for the poor jeweller, he led him into the town, and begged him to think no further of the affair, since the abbey was not likely to liberate so good a bait for the citizens and nobles of the Parisian stream. In fact, the Chapter let the poor lover know that if he married this girl he must resolve to yield up his goods and his house to the abbey, consider himself a bondsman, both he and the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... me of man's falsehood and baseness. I observed that quickly enough for myself, and see it every day behind the scenes. You think that to every woman who is in the theater you can boldly talk about your love as though it were some trifle, in the hope that perhaps she will swallow your bait! Actresses are so playful and so silly, aren't they?" she said with stinging scorn. "Would you dare to tell me the same, if I were at home? No, you wouldn't dare tell me you loved me, if you didn't, for there, I would be a woman in your eyes, ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... till of the blue chest, by means of which he confidently expected to bring matters to a speedy and satisfactory issue between himself and his wary antagonist. But the latter would not touch the bait that concealed the hook. Driven to desperation by this unexpected discomfiture, Max next made sundry attempts to spear and "harpoon" him, all of which signally failed, so that at the end of the brief interval of fine weather, this patriarch of the lake, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... which he had played, and merely told him that the ram would not eat the grass in that field, and it might be well to drive him to the pasture by the river, where his own flock was feeding. The second brother eagerly swallowed the bait, and that evening the wolf was driven down to the field where the young man kept the sheep which had been left him by his father. By the next morning they also were all dead, but the second brother likewise ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... at the true state of the parties was simple enough; we had only, whilst halting to change horses or bait, to touch upon the absorbing topic of the day, and the village loungers, landlord, bar-keeper, and guests, might have been placed upon a canvassing roll without a chance of error, so decidedly did they make "their ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... also, for the guns were abandoned about eleven and the Boers did not venture to seize them until four. Not only could the guns have been saved, but they might, one would think, have been transformed into an excellent bait for a trap to tempt the Boers out of their trenches. It must have been with fear and trembling that Cherry Emmett and his men first approached them, for how could they believe that such incredible good fortune had come to ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... out from among all the millions of men, born or unborn, and bring him back to me. Therefore also she chose a young black dog who would live for many years, and bade the god to take him with her, and told him of the wealth of our people that it might be a bait upon the hook. Do you see, Vernoon, that yellow dirt was the bait, that I—I am the hook? Well, you have felt it before, so it should not gall ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard

... I were standing near the cook's scuppers fishing for shark with fat pork for bait. More than once I had caught the flash of a white-bellied monster, but Mr. Shark was wary ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... a raw onion, and he swung his legs idly, for there was nothing to do, and, on the whole, he was glad to have the mad Burman to bait ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... then? Don't bait us so, William. Did you get a squint of the pond through the trees? Funny nobody else saw it ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... The bait took. He launched forth into a description of several spans of horses he had seen and stables he had visited. I asked him if he could possibly stay over and select the horses. I knew very well that he would wish to see them and drive them many times which would ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... did he bring, on his return from some nocturnal ramble, dead bodies with him into the barrack; but they were invariably the dead bodies of cod, gurnard, and hake. I know not where his fishing-bank lay, or what bait he employed; but I observed that almost all the fish which he caught were ready dried and salted. Old John Fraser was not without suspicion that there were occasional interferences on the part of the carter with the ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... line, the fish come round him without suspicion; but when they are caught on the hook concealed in the bait, they feel the line tighten and they try to escape. Is the fisherman a benefactor? Is the fish ungrateful? Do we find a man forgotten by his benefactor, unmindful of that benefactor? On the contrary, he delights to speak ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... began castin' homesick glances back in a westerly direction. Natural-like, Uncle Samuel is willin' to welcome home all his prodigal sons, if he can get 'em back, and he's specially forgivin' considerin' that his army at the beginnin' of hostilities is just about one day's bait on a real war-like front. As for flyers, he hasn't got enough of 'em, trained, to do observation work for an energetic battery of heavies. So he makes medicine talk with Johnny Bull and with France, and for once ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke

... about we could not ascertain, but next morning we found near the spot one of the bags usually carried by gins and containing the following samples of their daily food: three snakes; three rats; about 2 pounds of small fish, like white bait; crayfish; and a quantity of the small root of the cichoraceous plant tao, usually found growing on the plains with a bright yellow flower. There were also in the bag various bodkins and colouring stones, and two mogos or stone hatchets (Figure 5). It ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... following manner: a large chest, or wooden frame, is made, supported upon four wheels, and is dragged by oxen to a place where the traces of tigers have been discovered. In the furthest corner of the chest is put a putrid piece of flesh, by way of bait, which is no sooner laid hold of by the tiger than the door of the trap falls; he is killed by a musket ball, or a spear thrust through the crevices of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various



Words linked to "Bait" :   jeer, fisherman's lure, device, trap, cod, bait casting, banter, scoff, bait and switch, josh, barrack, flout, gibe, assail, attack, set on, fish lure, chaff, hook, jolly, ground bait, stool pigeon, kid, enticement, bemock, mock, assault, temptation, entice, chum, tempt



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