Her words fell on Leonard like a cold douche.

Those dreadful, filmed green eyes acted somewhat like a cold douche.

It was in this atmosphere of craven piety that Lillian Hellman, the playwright who had carte blanche in Hollywood to write what pictures she liked, administered a cold douche to the nation's conscience by stating unequivocally that she refused to inform on anybody else but herself.

In explanation of his conduct it is only fair to remember that he had already that morning endured all the terrors of an expected martyrdom and all the anticlimax of fourteen compulsory cold douches.

To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on the keeper concurred but nevertheless held to his main view.

The cold douche returned Leopold to a consciousness of the nearness of his impending fate.

The thought of that, the humorousness of it, I mean, acted like a cold douche.

And inwardly he offered up a thanksgiving to St. Bavon for this cold douche upon his flaming temper.

Juraet's words S. T. HAYMON were a cold douche, drowning the Professor of Contemporary Institutions' pitiful little moment of truth.

I'll have no deck hands on my quarter-deck," he cried, and the reproof braced the whole crew like a cold douche.