| The first spadeful revealed five crocosmia corms stacked vertically, like buns in a bakery. |
| The day's work ends around five, in time for tea and chatter about this or that spadeful of triumph or mystery. |
| But to deny what we cannot prove, not even casts into our ice-house a spadeful of snow. |
| Yesterday a spadeful of diamonds dumped upon a velvet cloth was only a spadeful of diamonds to him, and it was nothing more. |
| Every spadeful of earth was carefully examined, and the probe thrust down anxiously and with great caution. |
| This hypothesis crumbled at the first spadeful below the topsoil. |
