catspaw

What astonished me most, however, was the facility with which the Baron made a catspaw of him.

And her poor old catspaw of a pater stood helpless before my little hurricane--a very reed shaken by the wind.

It thought that it could use the South as a catspaw to pull its chestnuts out of the fires of hell.

With hardly a catspaw of wind, Hull drifted into sight of the British fleet off the Jersey coast.

"I'd give something for a catspaw," he said, remembering another nautical term.