They grinned and groveled before their larger clan mates, and produced many loud "whoop" vocalizations.
He has since apologized, groveled even, for his lack of verbal self-control.
Mr. Weiner groveled briefly when the scandal broke, but today, like the dog with a gun in the "Far Side" cartoon, he's through begging.
Mr. Venediktov also said Mr. Putin's aides "groveled at his feet" to entreat him not to take part in a September stunt, in which he flew a motorized hang glider to guide endangered cranes on their first migratory flight, lest he further injure his back.
LeBron James did not give the Nets a thought when they groveled before him in his free-agent summer of 2010.
"I've groveled, I've apologized, I've acknowledged my sins," she said, "but still nothing".
Polyakov never apologized or groveled before his interrogators.
She had a costume for each one and endless variations of her familiar angular stop-and-start dance moves; the men in her troupe spun through gymnastics or groveled at her feet.
On the other, many members and associates were almost pathetic: grown men who groveled to get jobs as flagmen at road crews, or who talked relentlessly on cellular phones about secret meetings, all while the detectives were listening.
Mr. Gore pulled a similar stunt in 1987 when he and Tipper Gore, on the eve of his first presidential run, groveled behind closed doors before Hollywood donors to disown as a "mistake" Mrs. Gore's 1985 anti-rock-smut crusade, which had led to another high-dudgeon Congressional hearing.
There is today no more reason to believe in spiritualism or telepathy than there was in the Victorian era, when the bearded men of science groveled earnestly at the feet of dubious mediums.
