a dipsey line; a dipsey lead

Fresh from the furnace glare, I can see nothing in this inspissated gloom. (James Bridie pseudonym Osborne Henry Mavor, A Change for the Worse, 1943)

[…] first comes the case of tenants with a customary right to shack their sheep and cattle who have overburdened the fields with a larger number of beasts than their tenement entitles them to, or who have allowed their beasts to feed in the field out of shack time.

And so it happened that Japan and the United States had also tickled the dragon's tail. The two subcritical masses called pride and cultural misunderstanding had been shoved together into one critical mass.