cry of wolf

Alarms of this sort do good occasionally, but should not be too often repeated, or the men get so accustomed to the cry of “Wolf!” that they will not believe it when the real animal makes his appearance.

In the preceding chapters we have seen how often the cry of “Wolf, wolf!” was raised when there was no wolf, till we began to think that the much-talked-of robbers of the desert did not exist at all, or, if they did exist, would not dare to touch a European caravan.

Thus, when I rushed up to sound the real alarm, it was treated as a cry of "wolf."

As always happens when the cry of wolf is raised, "the most guilty and foremost and loudest in the cry", those who were denouncing French influence, were to a large extent English propagandists and not of the best type.

Venice and Genoa could have done much more, but they had so often heard the cry of “Wolf” raised that they did not realize the danger to their Eastern trade at its true extent.