Up a stump

GEO. Why it's got to. Suppose we wandered out of it and took a chance at the language on our own responsibility, where the nation would we be? Up a stump, that's where. Our only safety is in sticking like wax to the text.

Manager Dahlen said that Callahan and Stengel were so evenly matched that he was "up a stump" trying to pick between them.

Whereas your ordinary middle-ranking persons, they never had the least notion of what it was, so naturally they were up a stump every time they come across it, you see.

In fact, Darwin was unable to decide on a suitable present, telling his roommate that he was up a stump about what to get for his sister and new brother-in-law.