feather merchant

But do you know that you are also a feather merchant-you and 120,000,000 other Americans? "Feather Merchants" is G.I. slang for civilians, and Max Shulman has done a book which points out why with a million irreverent, barbed laughs.

Everybody who works for a feather merchant knows where all the trouble is — at higher headquarters. At least, that's what the feather merchant says.

This gentleman was bred a feather merchant, and plumes himself upon his eloquence; but, on the present occasion, “the down of his feelings” (as Mr. Bran; don elegantly expresses it) was considerably ruffled by the hooting of his auditors.

A standard joke among painters is that, "(this or that) feather-merchant is so short he needs a step-ladder to paint the baseboard."

Both ivory and ostrich feathers have lost much of their commercial importance during late years; but there are still feather merchants at Mogador who are in communication with all the districts of the Desert where the bird is found.