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More "Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the same body would be sinful waste, with one like the Sergeant's daughter in danger. I shall hold myself in resarve against accident, lest a fourth reptile appear, for one of your hands may prove unsteady. By no means fire until I give the word; we must not let the crack of the rifle be heard except in the last resort, since all the rest of the miscreants are still within hearing. Jasper, boy, in case of any movement behind us on the bank, I trust to you to run out the ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... of our peppery little Captain!" cried Billington. "Some day thou 'lt see me take him between thumb and finger and crack him like a flea if he mells too much ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... rock. She opened the door and put the hot lid of the skillet on it to cool. Stood it up sideways. Then they heard a noise at that door. It was pegged. So she went along with the cooking. It wasn't late. He found a crack at the side of the stick and dirt chimney, put the muzzle of the gun in there and shot her through her heart. The man flew. She struggled to the edge of the bed and fell. The children was asleep and I was afraid to move. The moon come up. I couldn't ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... ANTI-DEAD CENTER FOR FOOT-LATHES.—A flat, spiral spring (A), with its coiled end attached to firm support (B), has its other end pivotally attached to the crank-pin (C), the tension of the spring being such that when the lathe stops the crack-pin will always be at one side of the dead-center, thus enabling the operator to start the machine by merely pressing the foot downwardly on the ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... dead. Grey night falls on your going and black night on your returning. You go Under the thunder of the guns, the shrapnel's rain and the curved lightning of the shells, And where the high towers are broken, And houses crack like the staves of a thin crate filled with fire; Into the mixing smoke and dust of roof and walls torn asunder You go; And only my ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... serjeanty; for which, on Christmas day every year, before our sovereign lord the King of England, he should perform altogether, and at once, a leap, puff up his cheeks, therewith making a sound, and let a crack. ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... Like the crack of doom came the last gabbled utterance, and the croupier's rake descended sharply on a claw-like hand which was attempting to insinuate a coin on to the cloth "after ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... for me," he reflected. "Trevanion is always there, and any one can see he's madly in love with her. He bears one of the oldest names in England too, he's heir to an old title, and he's Captain in one of the crack regiments. And Nancy loves a soldier. She comes of a fighting race, and thinks there's no profession in the world worthy of being compared with ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... Malachi; "for as soon as the boy hears the crack of the rifles, he will leave his prisoners, and join us; that I'm sure of. No, sir, the Strawberry can be left with the prisoners. I'll give her my ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... left off to trouble me. Oh methought Christ, Christ, there was nothing but Christ that was before mine eyes. I could look from myself to Him, and should reckon that all those graces of God that now were green upon me, were yet but like those crack-groats, and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in their purses, while their gold is in their trunks at home. Oh, I saw my gold was in my trunk at home. In Christ my Lord and Saviour. Further the Lord did lead me into the mystery ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... room was just opened, and in the crack I saw the face of Zinaida, pale and pensive, her hair flung carelessly back; she stared at me with big chilly eyes, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... know he'll be a hard nut to crack. He won't want to hear what I've got to say, but he has got to hear it. And after all you're his daughter, and if he has any bowels of compassion ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... some men there is no need now to dwell upon. By slow, imperceptible, certain degrees the evil gains upon them. Yesterday's sin smooths the path for to-day's. The temptation once yielded to gains power. The crack in the embankment which lets a drop or two ooze through is soon a great hole which lets in a flood. It is easier to find a man who has never done a wrong thing than to find a man who has done it only ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... to stand on his feet so Chick-chick kneeled down at his side to rub some circulation into his wrists and ankles. Suddenly a great noise of running was heard. Chick-chick looked out through the crack of ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... thousands of peasants employed under our engineers in getting up some tremendous works some fifteen miles this side of Lisbon. I should not be surprised yet if Massena finds the chief a nut too hard to crack, with all his force." ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... million pounds in the last few years and expects to treble or quadruple its business this season if supplies can be secured. The trouble with most walnut cracking machines is that they crush instead of crack and small bits of shell are apt to stick to the meats. But there is machinery now to remove these bits of shell. There are wild black walnuts that run 16 to 18 per cent kernels, though the average ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... Cousin Rachel ten years ago," said Cecily, "and asked her if she might open the chest to see if the moths had got into it. There's a crack in the back as big as your finger. Cousin Rachel wrote back that if it wasn't for one thing that was in the trunk she would ask mother to open the chest and dispose of the things as she liked. But she could not bear that any one but herself should see or touch that one thing. So she ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... week I got one. Before I procured him I examined into the merits, and price, of about one hundred dogs. My dog was named Pete, but I determined to make a change in that respect. He was a very tall, bony, powerful beast, of a dull black color, and with a lower jaw that would crack the hind-leg of an ox, so I was informed. He was of a varied breed, and the good Irishman of whom I bought him said he had fine blood in him, and attempted to refer him back to the different classes of dogs from which he had been derived. But after I had had him awhile, ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... rolling, coiled together, down the slimy sides of the dyke into the black waters, struggling to and fro, while the cannon from the rebel fleet and from the royal forts mingled their roar with the sharp crack of the musketry, Catholics and patriots contended for an hour, while still, through all the confusion and uproar, the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fellow who was the crack sprinter of his town—somewhere in the South—was unfortunate enough to have a very dilatory laundress. One evening, when he was out for a practice run in his rather airy and abbreviated track costume, he chanced to dash past the house of that dusky lady, who at the time was a couple of weeks ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... One day, however, he was in the furthest recess of his cave, when he felt that among the rocks a little thin wind blew constantly from one corner; and feeling about with his hands, he found that it came out of a small crack in the rocks. The stone above it seemed to be loose; and he perceived after a while that the end of the cave must be very near to the seaward face of the crag, and that the cave ran right through the rock, and was only kept from opening ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... within, the daughter of Petamounoph approached, though not a pebble cracked under her light step, nor a dog marked her presence by a bark. She went around the hut, pressing her hand to her heart and holding in her breath, and discovered, by seeing it shine against the dark ground of the clay wall, a crack wide enough to allow her glance to penetrate the interior. A small lamp lighted the room, which was less bare than might have been supposed from the outward appearance of the cabin. The smooth walls were as polished as stucco. On wooden pedestals, painted in various colours, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... closer, listening again, but when she heard a short groan mingled with the sobs, she immediately tapped on the door. Instantly the sobs ceased and the room became still. Kate put her lips to the crack and said in her off-hand way: "It's only a school-marm, rooming next you. If you're ill, could I ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... look of her eggs, apart from the fact that his mother would not permit him to buy them. Mrs. Dobbs used some artificial dyes which stained the eggshells a horrible purple or a less horrible red, and John had a feeling of sickness when he looked at them. Mrs. MacDermott said that if the eggs were to crack during the process of boiling, the dye would penetrate the meat and might poison anyone who ate it; and even if the shells remained uncracked, the dye would soil the fingers and perhaps soil the clothes. She wondered at ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... the post! Her heart-strings like to crack; For much she feared the grisly Ghost Would leap upon ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... is a very mean village in the United States—particularly in the South and West—that does not furnish one or more public billiard-tables; and among Americans may be found some of the most expert (crack) players in the world. The "Creoles" of Louisiana are ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... made the discovery that tri-nitro-cellulose, when combined with pyro-nitro-cellulose, could be much more readily gelatinated and made an excellent smokeless powder, while powder made from pure nitro-cellulose would warp and crack all to pieces in drying. The present German powder is made from such a compound ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... satisfaction of seeing at work among the squads of labourers several real kings, the Arabian chiefs who had been pursued and captured in the heart of the desert by Assur-bani-pal's generals; they plodded along under their heavy baskets, stimulated by the crack of the whip, amid insults and jeers. This palace was one of the largest and most ornate ever built by the rulers of Assyria. True, the decoration does not reveal any novel process or theme; we find ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... "The big thing the Legion's got to teach is Americanism and let those crack-brained fools know just what this country stands for." While still another injected, "The average 'long-beard' has been so crazed by persecution in Russia that he would mistake Peacock Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria in New York for a Siberian ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... photograph of himself at the age of thirteen, holding a puppy in his arms. He had given it to Anne on the last day of the midsummer holidays, nineteen hundred. Also he found a pair of Anne's slippers under the bed, and, caught in a crack of the dressing-table, one long black hair. This room leading out of ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... hotel, and as he lay for a long time in the bathtub, letting the warmness drift away from the water, the thought ran over and over in his mind. They might be able to stay there, Allenby said to himself. They might be able to stay there. He smiled warmly at a crack in the plaster as he thought of the first of the week ...
— Pleasant Journey • Richard F. Thieme
... messenger on horseback, And he must alarm the city: 'Put up quickly all your banners, Load your cannons for saluting, And erect an arch of honour!' Then we enter the next evening Through the ancient gate in triumph, And my whip I'll crack so loudly That the town-house windows rattle. Then I hear the aged Baron Asking sharply: 'What's the meaning Of these banners and this uproar?' From afar I shout already: 'Heaven's blessing rests upon us; Here a bridal ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... Annabel, inwardly raging, struggled to put a bold face on her defeat, Persis was busy with the gown she was resolved to make her masterpiece. The children were not allowed to enter the room where the work was progressing, though they sometimes took awe-stricken peeps through the crack at the mysterious, sheet-draped object suspended from hooks, and in the twilight taking on an aspect distinctly ghostly. It was necessary, too, to carpet the floor of the workroom with sheets when Diantha had a fitting, all of which ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... this dinner, this festival for the consummation and celebration of the betrothal of beautiful Laetitia and Laetitia's darling Harry. That sick dis-ease of hers had wonderfully vanished when she came into the house, when she was hugged fit to crack her to Aunt Belle's bosom with "Dear child! Dear child! He's just arrived! He's with your uncle downstairs. Look at Laetitia! Lovely! Isn't she lovely? Kiss me again, again, dear child!" When she was floated to by Laetitia, exquisitely arrayed, pink and white, doll-faced, doll-headed, ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... pain. "Now you see you are where you ought to be," repeated the ruffian, brandishing the horsewhip over him, "and now take the advice of a friend, and make no more noise. The lads are ready for you with the darbies, and they'll clink them on in the crack of this whip, unless you prefer another touch of it first." They then were advancing into the room as he spoke, with fetters in their hands (strait waistcoats being then little known or used), and showed, by their frightful countenances and gestures, no unwillingness to ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... anything with Othello; that he were best to apply to the lady Desdemona to mediate for him with her lord; that she was of a frank, obliging disposition, and would readily undertake a good office of this sort, and set Cassio right again in the general's favour; and then this crack in their love would be made stronger than ever. A good advice of Iago, if it had not been given for wicked purposes, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... bring you up to the point where I began to suspect," Ren continued. "I described the feeling I had that was something like watching a large chunk of the bank of a stream break away, starting first as a jagged crack in the turf, with it widening slowly at first, then faster, until the broken chunk becomes a separate THING, dissociated from the bank. It breaks away, drops into the stream—and vanishes; while the bank itself remains, enclosing and ...
— Unthinkable • Roger Phillips Graham
... was going on as usual along one of the straight, dusty, unlovely roads that lead to the city of Rubens. It was full midsummer, and very warm. His cart was very heavy, piled high with goods in metal and in earthenware. His owner sauntered on without noticing him otherwise than by the crack of the whip as it curled round his quivering loins. The Brabantois had paused to drink beer himself at every wayside house, but he had forbidden Patrasche to stop a moment for a draught from the canal. Going along thus, in the full sun, on a scorching highway, having eaten nothing for ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)
... already had them. But an adult criminal who had the money to invest in robotic components, or went to the trouble to steal them, had something more lucrative in mind than street fights or robbing barrooms. To crack a bank, for instance, took a cleverly constructed, well-designed robot and plenty of ingenuity on the ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... dere, yo' sassy feller," he sputtered. "Ah jus' like to get one good crack at yo' an' Ah rip yo' side open. Don' yo' perambulate dis yer way again if yo' know what ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... that you are a penman, which means that you could be a forger; you have said that you are a mechanic, which means that you could crack a crib if necessary; you called yourself a druggist, which means that you know how to use the chemicals, and the poisons, too, if necessary; and you would not refuse to tackle a bank job if one should come your way. Do you happen to have the mark of ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... basement to Avrillia's kitchen. A smell of something delectable scorching enveloped them as they opened the door. And there beside the stove, all deliciously sticky and comfortable, lay Yassuh, fast asleep and half melted; while little wisps of smoke curled out of the crack between the oven and the door. The stove was almost as big as the tin one Jimmy had given Sara for Christmas, but much more massive and efficient-looking. On the table, looking so delicious that they made your mouth ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... partly 'polished after the similitude of a palace,' while much remains in the rough. The builders of these temples have mouldered away and their unfinished handiwork will lie as it was when the last chisel touched it centuries ago, till the crack of doom; but stones for God's temple will be wrought to completeness and set in their places. The whole threefold divine cause of our salvation supplies the measure, and lays the foundation for our hopes, in the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... to feel the presence of the nearest antagonist, whom he could by no means see; for he struck out with both bare, clenched fists, one after the other, with his weight behind each, and both blows landed. The sounds of their impact rang like pistol-shots, and beneath his knuckles he felt naked flesh crack and give. Something fell away from him with a grunt like a poled ox. And then, in an instant, before he could recover his poise, even before he knew that the turned-in stone of the emerald ring had bitten deep into his palm, he was the axis of a vortex of humanity. And he fought ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... in the midst of the longest winter night. There is the rumble of some avalanche, as, after a drifting storm, a mass of snow, too heavy to keep its place, slides and tumbles from the mountain peak. There is also, now and then, a loud crack of the ice in the nearest glacier; and, as many declare, there is a crackling to be heard by those who listen when the northern lights are shooting and blazing across the sky. Nor is this all. Wherever there ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... in taking any man's dollars unless I gave him something for it—something in the way of rolled gold jewelry, garden seeds, lumbago lotion, stock certificates, stove polish or a crack on the head to show for his money. I guess I must have had New England ancestors away back and inherited some of their stanch and rugged fear ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... the lip arises as a small lump, like a wart generally, on the lower lip in men from forty to seventy. Sometimes it appears at first simply as a slight sore or crack which repeatedly scabs over but does not heal. Its growth is very slow and it may seem like a trivial matter, but any sore on the lower lip in a man of middle age or over, which persists, should demand the immediate attention of a surgeon, because ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... subterranean heat. Needless to say, it was an extremely hazardous undertaking, despite the very careful surveys that had been made, for the little parties of workmen could never tell when they would strike a crack or an unexpected crevice that would let down upon them with a terrible rush, the waters of the Atlantic. But hazard is adventure, and as the two little groups of laborers dug toward each other, the eyes of the press followed them with more persistent interest than it has ever followed the daily ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... Lord always,' says Paul. That is a hard nut to crack. I can fancy a man saying, 'What is the use of giving me such exhortations as this? My gladness is largely a matter of temperament, and I cannot rule my moods. My gladness is largely a matter of circumstances, and I do not determine these. How vain it is to tell me, when my heart is bleeding, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... you; that's why I want to pin him first. I might hit him a good crack, but snakes are hard to kill, and he might throw his head about and bite even then, though I arn't quite sure even now that they don't sting with ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... child whom Grandma Padgett still held upon her lap, refused food and continued to demand her mother. She leaned against the old lady's shoulder seeing every crack in the walls, every dish upon the cloth, the lawyer who sat opposite, and the concerned faces of Bobaday and Corinne. Supper was too good to be slighted, in spite of Carrie's dangerous position. The man of the house was a Quaker, and while his wife stood up ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... and was allowed to pass on with his charge. In less than a quarter of an hour they were at the Palazzo Saracinesca. Gouache made Faustina stand in the shadow of a doorway on the opposite side of the street and advanced to the great doors. A ray of light which passed through the crack of a shutter behind the heavy iron grating on one side of the arch showed that the porter was up. Anastase drew his bayonet from his side and tapped with its point against ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... philological trouble for which the Sanscrit could not afford at least a conjectural cure? A dictionary of that extremely venerable tongue is an ostrich's stomach, which can crack the hardest etymological nut. The Sanscrit name for the Lotus is simply Padma. The learned Brahmins call the Egyptian deities Padma Devi, or Lotus-Gods; the second of the eighteen Hindoo Puranas is styled the Padma Purana, because it treats of the "epoch when the world was a golden Lotus"; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... was a hard nut to crack then as now. As to Nero's edict, New York enacted it for its own protection ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... trees of their bark some years before they are felled, is as old as the time of Vitruvius, but is much less followed than it deserves, partly because the timber of trees so treated inclines to crack and split, and partly because it becomes so hard as to be wrought with ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... the snake angry. He partly raised himself up and began to rattle, when K[)u]t-o'-yis cut him into pieces with his knife. Then he turned around and killed all his wives and children, except one little female snake, which escaped by crawling into a crack in the rocks. "Oh, well," said K[)u]t-o'-yis, "you can go and breed young snakes, so there will be more. The people will not be afraid of little snakes." K[)u]t-o'-yis said to the old woman, "Now you go into this snake's lodge and take it for yourself, and ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... a century of rule by France, Algeria became independent in 1962. The surprising first round success of the fundamentalist FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) party in December 1991 balloting caused the army to intervene, crack down on the FIS, and postpone the subsequent elections. The FIS response has resulted in a continuous low-grade civil conflict with the secular state apparatus, which nonetheless has allowed elections featuring pro-government and moderate religious-based parties. FIS's armed wing, the Islamic ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... had just reseated himself, turned his chair round at that question with such vivacity that Mrs. Mivers heard it crack. Her chairs were not meant for such usage. A shade fell over her rosy countenance as ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... succour was very seasonable, and compelled Hannibal to sound a retreat. The latter, as he was retiring, said, "That the cloud which had been long hovering on the summit of the mountain, had at last burst with a loud crack, and caused a mighty storm." So important and seasonable a service done by the dictator, opened the eyes of Minucius. He accordingly acknowledged his error, returned immediately to his duty and obedience, and showed, that ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... in the dimly defined shapes about him; his attention had been attracted by a crevice in the smooth rock ledge at his feet. This ledge, barren of vegetation, and as level as a slab of rough marble, showed a long black line like a crack in a stone pavement. At the man's feet the crevice was perhaps two feet wide, but as it stretched toward the west it narrowed gradually, and disappeared under a mass of disorganized stones, as a ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... these unwieldy vessels and away to the North? I'll lead thee to a better land than Egypt—a land of lake and mountain, and great forests of sweet-scented pine; ay, and find thee a girl fit to mate with—my own niece—a girl strong and tall, with wide blue eyes and long fair hair, and arms that could crack thy ribs were she of a mind to hug thee! Come, what sayest thou? Put away the past, and away for the bonny North, and be a ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... that relieve mild depression, increase energy and activity, and include cocaine (coke, snow, crack), amphetamines (Desoxyn, Dexedrine), phenmetrazine (Preludin), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and others ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the storm came the thud of torn branches striking the house and the sharp crack of breaking glass. In three minutes every pane in the west and north windows was broken and the hail poured in through the apertures covering the floor with stones, the smallest of which was as ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the learned poet's good; Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Than the squirrels' teeth that crack them." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... you," said Major Hunt-Goring, his eyes boldly passing her to rest upon Violet. "Managed to crack my thumb tinkering at my old motor. Dr. Wyndham tells me that you have been kind enough to ask me to lunch. How do you do, Miss Campion? Charmed to meet you! Someone told me you were ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... watched the hungry wolves eat up his nicely browned fat ducks. His foot pained him more and more. He heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long teeth and eat out the oily marrow. Now severe pains shot up from his foot through his whole body. "Hin-hin-hin!" sobbed Iktomi. Real tears washed brown streaks across his red-painted cheeks. Smacking their lips, the ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... occupied almost the whole of the back seat, and Jo was squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven hours' ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... Terry heard a sharp out-cry from one of the guards, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. Whirling, he saw the brush on his right agitated by the movements of a figure that crashed unseen through the tangle of vegetation. Two soldiers flung themselves off their ponies and leaped in pursuit, pausing fruitlessly for sight of the fleeing ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... defect; was an insatiable and universal reader; meant for the Church, took to poetry and philosophy, became an author, putting forth the strangest books with the strangest titles; considered for a time a strange, crack-brained mixture of enthusiast and buffoon; was recognised at last as a man of infinite humour, sensibility, force, and penetration; his writings procured him friends and fame, and at length a wife and a settled pension; settled ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was at least as dear to him as religion. And when he came au Caho',[1] he hadn't a word for a poor man. At Prairie du Pont he had built himself a fine brick house; the bricks were brought from Philadelphia by way of New Orleans. You have yourself seen it many a time, and the crack down the side made by the great earthquake of 1811. There he lived like an estated gentleman, for Prairie du Pont was then nothing but a cluster of tenants around his feet. It was after his death that the village grew. Celeste did not stay at Prairie du Pont; she was ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... strength. Now comes the culminating point, a truly terrifying moment, the very anguish of which frightened me, as I looked around for the lifeboat, and I saw that even the commodore's cold and self-satisfied dignity was disturbed. The hawsers strain again. Creak, crack! creak, crack! The lifeboat watches and comes nearer to us. There is a mighty yell. We cannot go! Yes, we can! There is a mighty pull, and you feel the boat almost torn asunder. Another mighty pull, a tremendous quiver of the ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... the passage—it is perfectly pellucid in meaning, rings on the ear like the crack of a rifle, is sonorous, rich, and swift. One can fancy the whole passage spoken by an orator; indeed it is difficult to resist the illusion that it was "declaimed" before it was written. We catch the oratorial tags and devices, the repeated phrase, the incessant antithesis, the alternate rise ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... a tin baking-sheet in the bottom of a pan, as without it the fish can not be easily taken up. Lay the fish on this; pour a cup of boiling water into the pan, and bake in a hot oven for one hour, basting it very often that the skin may not crack; and, at the end of half an hour, dredging again with flour, repeating this every ten minutes till the fish is done. If the water dries away, add enough to preserve the original quantity. When the fish is done, slide it carefully from the tin sheet on to a ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... could do this; and that with no rash potion, But with a ling'ring dram, that should not work Maliciously like poison: but I cannot Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, So sovereignly being honourable. I ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... afraid to trust it, if it were not for the dogs. He can't crawl out between the logs, that much is certain; but the door is almost ready to drop from its hinges, and has a good deal of play back and forth behind the bar. If he had a thin, stout stick he could slip it through the crack, lift the bar and take ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... and wheeled in behind her, shooting steadily at the horde of men who poured in upon them, and, with a groan, Gaston seized her bridle and urged the horses back in the direction from which they had come. The noise was deafening, the raucous shouting of the Arabs and the continuous sharp crack of the rifles. Bullets began ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... in the evening, soon after he had waked up, Benjamin was positively ferocious. But the more he ate, the pleasanter he grew. And by the time faint streaks of light began to show in the east he could smile and crack a joke ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... cut the lashings of the ship's long-boat and stayed there all the time, having put on board the nautical instruments, two or three fish-hooks, a gross of lucifer matches, and a sauce-pan. At last the storm struck the ship, as I have stated, and at the first crack away went the vessel to the bottom, leaving my grandfather floating alone on the surface of ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... you tell him that his course is ruinous—ruinous to imbecility? If he thinks I am going to throw away a winter's work on that bill he's mistaken his man. It's taken me the whole session to get that measure through the legislature, and I'm not going to have it defeated now by any crack-brained moralist. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... in a heap upon the floor of a grey chamber. A small fire smoldered in the corner, the smoke disappearing in a crack. In another corner was a bed of faded hemlock boughs and two blankets. Cooking utensils and clothes lay about, with boxes and ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... thee hard, Ne'er may disease thy steps attend: Listen, ye gents; rude Boreas hold your tongue! The pomp advances, and my lyre is strung. First comes Marshal Thackeray, Dress'd out in crack array; Ar'nt he a whacker, eh? His way he picks, Follow'd by six, Like a hen by ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... rifle went up to his shoulder; there was a sharp crack, a dark figure leapt up from the snow fifty yards away and then fell headlong down again. It seemed to Tom almost magical. His eyes had been fixed in that direction for the last five minutes, and he could have sworn that ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... Presently came the crack of an arquebus, and spattering sounds behind me told me where the shot had struck the water. I turned to swim upon my left side, and so I got a glimpse of the quay that I had left. By the hurried movement of torches, I saw that the body that had gone to ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... suffer hell so to prevail? My breast I 'll burst with straining of my courage, And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder, But I will ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... ashore; he went to the nearest house he saw and thumped on the door. There was no light to be seen, and for long there was no sound to be heard inside; but at last he heard the bolts drawn back. A white-faced woman peered at him through a crack. ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... furious raids on the mob of spectators who pressed round the door, and stood with their eyes glued to every crack in the bark of which the hut was made. The next door neighbours on either side might have amassed a comfortable competence for their old age, by letting out seats for the circus. Every hole in the side walls had a human eye in ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... was well worth the labour. The silk skirt crackled and rustled and glistened with every movement; the new hat was perched on her head with all its ribbons and flowers nodding. She was now engaged in painfully forcing on a pair of lemon-coloured gloves, but suddenly there was the sound of a crack, and her smile changed to a ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... I trust in God that you are not all given over to "hardness of heart and reprobacy of mind." A word to the reader. Pass on—hear me through—never mind my harsh expressions and uncouth language. Truth is not very palatable, to any of us, at all times. Crack the nut; it may be that you will find a kernel within that will reward you ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... as a lesser evil than talking of the burglary in the street; and in my rooms I told him of his late danger and my own dilemma, of the few words I had overheard in the beginning, of the thin ice on which he had cut fancy figures without a crack. It was all very well for him. He had never realized his peril. But let him think of me—listening, watching, yet unable to lift a finger—unable to ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... which sends out flames and ashes from the tops of high mountains, or makes the solid earth tremble and crack, is at work also below the bed of the sea, and from time to time islands are raised there either slowly or by some sudden convulsion, just as we have also reason to believe that other islands are even now sinking ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... thump-pet-ty crack! In go the shoe-nails with many a smack. Zu! zu! pull the thread through; Soon will the shoe be, done, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... roared; and, as though at a thunder-clap, the velvet curtain split asunder: Patti-Patty was revealed on the stage, while the band played as if possessed. Lily, in the shadow of the wings, put her hand to her heart; her veins were ablaze. And that audience, at which she peeped through a crack in the scenery; that audience was hers, with its rustling silks, its bare shoulders, its diamonds, its flowers! She would have liked to ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... private concern. But as that did not satisfy him, and as he seemed to be one of those quarrelsome fellows that are the bane of every community, I took him suddenly by the throat and the shoulder, and bent his neck with the old, quick turn till I heard it crack, and had unhanded him before any of his neighbours had seen what had befallen. The fierce press of the crowd held him from slipping to the ground, and so he stood on there where he was, with his head nodded forward, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... alimentary canal, with constipation and much flatulence in the bowels. My teeth are decaying quickly, my nails have got softer, and I have become anaemic and generally debilitated, being unable to properly assimilate my food. All my joints crack when moved, and the knee joints creak as well. Is this a uric acid condition, or do you think it merely due to a lack of nourishment, causing a lack of synovial fluid? The joints are not swollen and not painful, they merely crack. My whole ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... later Virginia Page, sitting fully dressed in the darkness of her bedroom, got quietly to her feet and went to the door leading to her office. With wildly beating heart she stood listening, seeking to peer through the crack of the door she had left ajar. She had heard the faint, expected sound of some one ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... fired his big revolver in the air, and in another moment there was an echo of many shots, the sharp crack of the forty-fives mingling with the thunder of hoofs, the yells, and the clatter of ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... his fancy luxuriated in this scheme, he well knew that he would not accomplish anything of the kind—knew well that he would wait here humbly, eagerly, even though Zuleika lingered over her toilet till crack o' doom. He had no desire that was not centred in her. Take away his love for her, and what remained? Nothing—though only in the past twenty-four hours had this love been added to him. Ah, why had he ever seen her? He ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... was a fizz, a sharp hiss, a writhing worm of quick flame, and then came a fearful report that split the air like the crack of doom. ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... tooth to know who they were.(137) [Looking around.] Where is my gun? I left it on a little bush. [On examining he finds the rusty barrel of his gun.] Hillo! [come up, here's a grab!](138) the unmannerly set of sharpers! stolen one of the best fowling-pieces that ever made a crack; and left this [worthless,](139) rusty barrel, by way of exchange! What will Dame Van Winkle say to this! By the hookey! but she'll comb my hair finely! Now, I went to sleep beneath that hickory;—'twas a mere bush. Can ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Rip van - Winkle • Charles Burke
... such a ludicrous little thing; for, you see, the whole story turns upon nothing but a crack in ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... It was rather tight for me, and was much too small for him. He put it on, nevertheless, but with great difficulty, bursting all the seams. Saveliitch uttered something like a smothered howl, when he heard the threads crack. As for the vagabond, he was well pleased with my present. He re-conducted me to my kibitka, and said, with a profound bow: "Thanks, my lord, may god reward you. I shall ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... was sitting with his chin clasped in both palms, still staring at the half facetious words of introduction which the plump newspaper man had penciled across that card, when the door of the small office in the front of the gymnasium was pushed open a crack, some scant fifteen minutes after his peremptory summons had gone out over the wire, and made him lift ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... perilous delight of this bad eminence, I was (again, I think, rather like the Arabian prince) forthwith plunged into the cellar; where I curled myself up on the upper step, close to the heavy door that had been locked upon me, partly for the comfort of the crack of light that squeezed itself through it, and partly, I suppose, from some vague idea that there was no bottom to the steps, derived from my own terror rather than from any precise historical knowledge of oubliettes and donjons, with the ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the slow and ordinary action of natural powers. Leisurely movement is the eternal and universal law. And it is no use complaining; you cannot alter it. You cannot make a hen hatch her eggs in less than three weeks, do what you will. You may crack the shells, thinking to let the chickens out a little earlier; but you let death in, and the chickens never do come out at all. "The more haste the less speed." I have had proof of this more than once in my own experience. I once lived in a house terribly infested with rats, ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... cautious steps, Toward the middle skates; They hear a crack! They cry, "come back To ...
— The Adventure of Two Dutch Dolls and a 'Golliwogg' • Bertha Upton
... mortar, and spread over the glass or stone retorts. The latter is made of pure clay and pounded stone-ware mixed together, and used in the same manner. This dries and hardens by the fire, so as to form a true supplementary retort capable of retaining the materials, if the glass retort below should crack or soften. But, in experiments which are intended for collecting gasses, this lute, being porous, is of ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... of that fireless, empty, forsaken house, where the winter sun shines in and creeps slowly along the floor; the bitter cold is in and around the house, and the snow has sifted in at every crack; outside it is untrodden by any living creature's footstep. The wind blows and rushes and shakes the loose window-sashes in their frames, while the padlock ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... gay bold tones, calling, "Up! up! my merry men, all! Let not the French dogs find the wolf asleep in his den. They will find our inner bartizan a hard stone for their teeth—and it will be our own fault, if they crack it before the coming of our brave comrades ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... But that yon rosy maiden, early afoot, Is o'er her shoulder watching, with wild fear, A horned host that rushes by amain, Bellowing bassoon-like music. Angry shouts Of drovers, horrid menace, and dire curse, Shrill scream of imitative boy, and crack Of cruel whip, the tread of clumsy feet Are hurrying on:—but now, with instinct sure, Madly those doomed ones bolt from the dread road That leads to Brighton and to death. They charge Up Brattle ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... out, some fifty years before this, had become the property of a certain Mr. Armstrong, a civilian who had made a great fortune in the East, in an age when great fortunes were commonly made by East-Indian traders. His only son had been captain in a crack regiment, and had sold out of the army after his father's death, in order to marry Lady Laura Challoner, second daughter of the Earl of Calderwood, a nobleman of ancient lineage and decayed fortunes, and to begin ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... again, from one side street into another. Inside his head everything seemed to be going round, and at every step he felt as if it would crack. Suddenly he seemed to hear hasty but familiar steps behind him. Ellen! He turned round; there was no one there. So it was an illusion! But the steps began again as soon as he went on. There was something about those steps—it ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... to say to the farmers about their farms, and seemed to know all their horses by name. There was an old fellow, with a round, ruddy face, and a night-cap under his hat, the village wit, who took several occasions to crack a joke with him in the hearing of his companions, to whom he would turn and wink hard ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... needs them water-holes in his business bad. Without 'em he loses the whole Round Top range. He might take a crack at turning the screws on ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... there was a loud crack, and the great limb of the cedar swept rattling down across his shutters, twisted, snapped off at the trunk, rolled over in the air, and striking the ground on its back, lay like a huge ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... rough-and-tumble, hard scratch! And so I war a-head of the Major, and the Major war behind, and the fight had made him as vicious as a wild cat, and he war hungry for a shot; and so says he to me, for I war right afore him, 'Git out of my way, you damned big rascal, till I git a crack at 'em!' And so I got out of his way, for I war mad at being called a damned big rascal, especially as I war doing my best, and covering him from mischief besides. Well! as soon as I jumped out of his way, bang went his piece, and bang went another, let fly ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... are none of us surprised when we find in our newspaper criticisms artiste, ballet, conservatoire, comedienne, costumier, danseuse, debut, denoument, diseuse, encore, ingenue, mise-en-scene, perruquier, pianiste, premiere, repertoire, revue, role, tragedienne—the catalogue stretches out to the crack ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... The clepsydrae that measure the centuries as they drop from the dizzy cliffs—the glaciers, by the descent of which "time is marked out, as by a shadow on a dial," and which thunder out the high noon of each revolving year with their frozen tongues, as they crack beneath the summer's sun—have registered a new centennial circle, and at the very hour of its completion, Switzerland vindicates her ancient renown in these fair pages, at once pledge and performance, of another of her honored children. May the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... gazed where the Singing Mouse pointed, quite beyond the dusty walls, and there I saw as it had said. I heard not the thunder of the hoofs of buffalo, nor the faint crack of the twig beneath the panther's foot. I saw not the lurching gallop of the long-jawed wolf, nor the high, elastic bounding of the deer. The level swinging speed of the antelope, the slinking of the lynx, the crashing flight of the wapiti—no, it was none of these that came to mind; nor ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... eagerly; "Brandenstein, Schweppermann, and Heidenab brought the tidings. The Emperor received them at the gate of the citadel, where he was keeping watch ere he mounted his steed. He heard him call to the messengers, 'So our Heinz Schorlin will have a hard nut to crack.'" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... brain in an instant moment, like things happen in a dream, and then he was brought up sudden and fell so light that he knew he weren't dead yet, but heard something crack at the same moment. And then Amos discovered he was on a rotten landing-stage of old timber, with the shaft hole above him and a head, outlined against the stars, looking down, and another hole extending below. He was, in fact, catched ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... It is a term which, under various titles, has been applied to every American patriot since our gran'- sires held the British lion up by the caudal appendage and beat the sawdust out of the impudent brute—since they appealed from a crack-brained king to the justice of heaven and wrote the charter of our liberties with the bayonet on the back of Cornwallis' buccaneers. Its synonym was applied to Thomas Paine, the arch-angel of the Revolution, whose pen of fire made independence imperative—who through ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... an Indian whom I was to know during many years, was one of our neighbors. He frequently passed our cabin with his canoe and people. He was a great hunter, a crack shot, and an all-round Indian of good parts. Many is the saddle of venison that he brought me in the course of years. Other pioneers likewise had special friends among ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... Peking branch of the Tract Society is bankrupt just now—and get them out, you shall have specimens. Probably they won't look well, being first attempts, but you need not be ashamed of the Mongol of them, as they have been written under my direction by a "crack" native scholar, and carefully revised by Schereschewsky, who is a general linguist of good ability, and has paid so much attention to Mongolian that he revised the Gospel by Matthew in conjunction with Mr. Edkins, and is at present at work ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... and an almost indispensable element in such a work as mine. Had it consisted solely of exhortations to industry and rules of economy, it would have been dismissed with an "Ou ay, it's braw for him to crack that way: but if he were whaur we are, 'deed he wad just hae to do as we do." But by mixing up the science with politics, and giving it an occasional political impetus, a different result may be reasonably expected. In these days no man can be considered a patriot ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... were on excellent terms with each other. His father, though a very grave, pious man, whose delight was to go to the Old South Church with his large family, allowed little Ben to crack his jokes on him. ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... rest were praying and shrieking he had cut the lashings of the ship's long-boat and stayed there all the time, having put on board the nautical instruments, two or three fish-hooks, a gross of lucifer matches, and a sauce-pan. At last the storm struck the ship, as I have stated, and at the first crack away went the vessel to the bottom, leaving my grandfather floating alone on the ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... unwearied diligence supplied every defect; was an insatiable and universal reader; meant for the Church, took to poetry and philosophy, became an author, putting forth the strangest books with the strangest titles; considered for a time a strange, crack-brained mixture of enthusiast and buffoon; was recognised at last as a man of infinite humour, sensibility, force, and penetration; his writings procured him friends and fame, and at length a wife and a settled pension; settled in Baireuth, where he lived thenceforth diligent and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... had looked forward to taking students, but they were all to have been Portias, every woman Jane of them; and before her own learning was fairly dry (which I think an eminently proper adjective to describe legal learning) there appeared to her an obviously crack-brained old party in an india-rubber cloak, who kept a candy-store and wanted her daughter to become a lawyer. No wonder Mrs. Tarbell was embarrassed. Was she to say to the crack-brained one, "Madam, pay me one hundred dollars per annum and I will take your daughter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... beside her and grabs her and picks her up, and about as quick as she knew anything, she was gagged and bound and being bore along through the air. I reckon it was a terrible moment for her. Now there is a crevice in the top of the mountain that nobody don't never explore, because it's just a crack in the rock that ain't to be climbed out of without a ladder. So the Injun carries her there, and lets her down with a rope that it seems he must of had handy somewheres, and he puts out; and there she is, in a holler in the mountain, not able to move or cry out no more than if she'd ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... our eyes; then bumped our heads together with a crack in our eagerness to lean over and see where we ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... went up, and crack! crack! crack! in quick succession, three or four or five reports—I don't know how many. At the first shots the Sheriff fell forward on his face. Williams started to run along the side-walk; the groups ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... extraordinary military feat of their victory over the Gurkhas of Nepal, when a force of seventy thousand men of the Middle Kingdom crossed the whole width of the most inaccessible country in the world, and, fighting at a distance of two thousand miles from their base, defeated the crack warriors ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly, Till he was aware of his father's mare in the gut of the Tongue of Jagai, Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back, And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... slander, my lady," he cried, pointing at Sir John, who stood like a man who wakes from long sleep and is bewildered by the thoughts which rush through his brain. "I laughed till I was like to crack my sides." Then to Sir John, "Thou hadst but just left Clo Wildairs and I rode with thee to Essex. Lord, how I laughed to watch thee groping to find a place safe enough to put it in. 'I'm drunk,' says thou, 'and I would have it safe till I am sober. ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Crack! At the report of the pistol the hares bounded forward. In barely more than a minute afterwards they were ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... you see you are where you ought to be," repeated the ruffian, brandishing the horsewhip over him, "and now take the advice of a friend, and make no more noise. The lads are ready for you with the darbies, and they'll clink them on in the crack of this whip, unless you prefer another touch of it first." They then were advancing into the room as he spoke, with fetters in their hands (strait waistcoats being then little known or used), and showed, by their frightful ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... crash seemed to rend the very heavens above them: a crack as of the thunder that follows close upon the bolt,—a rending and crashing as of a forest snapped through all its stems, torn, twisted, splintered, dragged with all its ragged boughs into one chaotic ruin. The ground trembled under them as in an ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... out all time. The step was a big limestone rock. She opened the door and put the hot lid of the skillet on it to cool. Stood it up sideways. Then they heard a noise at that door. It was pegged. So she went along with the cooking. It wasn't late. He found a crack at the side of the stick and dirt chimney, put the muzzle of the gun in there and shot her through her heart. The man flew. She struggled to the edge of the bed and fell. The children was asleep and I was afraid to move. The moon come up. I couldn't get her ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... crystals hung from the ceiling or formed rows of pillars, even the copper which made the walls of the cave had a coating of green. Wayland broke off a huge projecting lump and left the cave, which instantly closed up so that not a crack remained to tell where the opening ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... France; Everywhere men bang and blunder, Sweat and swear and worship Chance, Creep and blink through cannon thunder. Rifles crack and bullets flick, Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. Bones are smashed and buried quick. Yet, through stunning battle storms, All the while I watch the spark Lit to guide me; for I know Dreams will triumph, though the dark Scowls above me where I go. You can hear me; you can mingle ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... retorted Wright, kicking the bar with his foot, "nine feet of it, by Master Percy's computation, and, I warrant, as many years will be required to see the further side. Try it, good Catesby, 'tis a nut a giant could scarce crack, though he ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... into his brother's by determining to get on the scene early enough to have first crack at the treasure. He meant to get away with that, leave his brother to deal with Alwa's men, circle round, and then attack his ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... ice was perfect; the utter stillness of the air at the time when the final congelation of the waters had taken place had resulted in the formation of a surface that for smoothness would rival a skating-rink; without a crack or flaw it extended far beyond ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... the name that forest bears, Where rude old Winter raves and tears. Now splits a beech with such a crack That all the valleys echo it back. —My goodness! when these sounds I hear I'm glad a pious stove's so near, Which warms you so the long hours through That night seems fraught with blessings too. —Just now I well might feel afraid, When thieves and murderers ply their trade; 'Tis ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... there was a faint rasping sound, then a sharp crack, and the rustle of two half-nutshells through the leaves. One of them struck the side of the hazel-stump and bounded off like an elastic ball. Before the dormouse had collected his wits, a fine kernel was thrust through the nest and the squirrel had ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... help of some people I found in the bar-room, I took him into the public house. Bedad, it was a hard crack you guv him," added the hackman, in a low tone. "If you pay me the tin dollars, I ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... principle till he had thrown it into a paradox.) And paradox, of course, invites contradiction, and so controversy. On subjects upon which he considered himself more or less an apostle, he liked to stir people's minds by what startled them, waking them up, or giving them "nuts to crack." An almost solemn gravity with amusement twinkling behind it—not invisible—and ready to burst forth into a bright low laugh when gravity had been played out, was a very frequent ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... He was mad clean through when he made that crack to Moraga. I tell you there's no use being a ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Again Hinkson's good aim brought another wolf to the ground, but a few of the pack, mad with the taste of blood, kept on in hot pursuit. Hinkson brought down a third and dodged a fourth that sprang at the horse's flanks. Again the wolf jumped and would have crippled horse and rider had not the crack of another gun sounded upon the frosty air. It belonged to Thomas Keats, then on his way home from town meeting. The wolves, frightened by the double-attack and weakened in numbers, slunk away into ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... efforts to crack down on career criminals, organized crime, drugpushers, and to enforce tougher sentences and paroles are having effect. In 1982 the crime rate dropped by 4.3 percent, the biggest decline since 1972. Protecting ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... through the air. A smart crack followed and up into the blue leaped the ball, defying the pursuit of ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... neither the height nor the weight, being a flimsy creature alongside a man like me, and, besides, I was blazing to that height of wrath that I could have bit into a chisel. I gave him first the one and then the other, so that I could hear his head rattle and crack, ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... appears, in the shape of some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack- crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... upon a group of men who were standing in an open door way packing a dead body into a coffin too small for it. There was something truly revolting in the way they doubled up the arms and legs and squeezed in the shoulders of the deceased man—one could hear the bones crack. I watched the brutal proceedings for a minute or so, and then ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... slapping his open palm down on his knee. "Greenfield's the hardest nut we've got to crack in the whole business. He's the sort of man you can't talk to on a square business basis. You've got to mince things damned fine with him, and he's chairman of the Railroad Committee, you know. He'd have a tremendous amount ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... could be, except that its throat moved (the window and lizard, are reduced to about one-fifth of life size), and its eye meditated evil. I ventured to put the end of my stick near it, and it went off with such alarming speed that I hastily withdrew my stick. It had vanished into a crack, I'd never have dreamed a small crevice in a window sash could hold such an extraordinary creature! I must look him up in "E. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... You are not so small as I, And not half as spry. I'll not deny you make A very pretty squirrel track; Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; If I cannot carry forests on my back, Neither can you crack a nut." ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... such employment, and therefore left him to roam about with his rifle. This was a glorious country for the youth; wild woods were all around him, and the game, having not yet learned to fear the crack of the rifle wandered fearlessly through them. This he thought was, of all places, the home for him. I hope you will not think that he was the idle and useless boy of the family, for it was not so. While the ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... Nay, though the treach'rous tapster,[2] Thomas, Hangs a new Angel two doors from us, As fine as daubers' hands can make it, In hopes that strangers may mistake it, We[3] think it both a shame and sin To quit the true old Angel Inn. Now this is Stella's case in fact, An angel's face a little crack'd. (Could poets or could painters fix How angels look at thirty-six:) This drew us in at first to find In such a form an angel's mind; And every virtue now supplies The fainting rays of Stella's eyes. See, at her levee crowding swains, Whom Stella freely entertains With breeding, humour, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... "There's intelligence upon both sides. But for my private part I have no particular desire to harm King George; and as for King James, God bless him! he does very well for me across the water. I'm a lawyer, ye see: fond of my books and my bottle, a good plea, a well-drawn deed, a crack in the Parliament House with other lawyer bodies, and perhaps a turn at the golf on a Saturday at e'en. Where do ye come in with your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... well enough that unostentatious immodesty is no part of your partner's programme. Of course, you will find yourself by-and-bye in a sort of perpetual parade with your crack-brained visionary— ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... on deck!" brought the sleeping watch from the bunks below, and the carpenter, steward, and sailmaker from the steerage. The foresail ripped from its bolt ropes with a deafening crack, and tore to ribbons in the gale. As the ship lay into the wind, I could hear the captain's voice louder than the very storm, "Meet her!—Meet her!—Ease her off!" But the reply of the man at the wheel was lost in the rush of ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... She did—with a crack that shook the rigging and caused it to rattle like buckshot in a pan. A terrible cry—such a cry, indeed, as might burst from the lips of a mother seeing her only child run down by the Limited—burst from poor Captain Scraggs. "My ship! my ship!" ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... red at the unexpected compliment, but before she had time to enjoy it, or to reply, there came a sudden knock at the dining-room door, and Janey's black face peered in at the crack. ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... the W.N.W.—as we still sank in grey ashes—were two conical hillocks. In the distance, to the west, two small flat-topped plateaux rose above the sky-line, and also two hills shaped not unlike the backs of two whales. On our left we had an immense crack or fissure extending from north-east to south-west between the hill-range on which we travelled and another on the south—both showing huge domes of eruptive rock, apparently extensive flows of red lava subsequently blackened on the surface by weathering. On the opposite side to ours the rock was ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... friend's hand, then went on, very cautiously this time, for a little way, until he heard the crack of the Express, followed by the Hunter's bull voice calling on the men to "stand ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... and growled and barked like mad. Bimeby he got tired, and come back lookin' kind o' skeered, and says I: 'Ye're a purty dog, ain't ye?' Jest then I hearn the thing nigher, and I begun to hear the brush crack. I knowed I'd got to meet some new sort of a creetur, and I jest stepped back and took my rifle. When I stood in the door agin, I seen somethin' comin'. It was a walkin' on two legs like a man, and it was a man, or somethin' that looked like one. He come toward the cabin, and stopped about three ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... stiff, and stretched his limbs to such an extent that we could hear the bones crack. His back became arched, and then he expired with horrible convulsions, which held his limbs stiffened and extended to their utmost limits—truly, the most awful and agonising of deaths, and a torture in the last moments ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... by no means improbable that oxidation may have rendered a portion of the oil insoluble. The decorticated kernels gave a perfectly sweet, inodorous, and almost colorless oil, which rapidly thickens to an almost colorless, transparent, and perfectly elastic skin or film, which does not darken or crack easily by age. These are properties which, for fine art painting, might be of great value in preserving the tinctorial purity and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... not the language of a common woman, but the language of a lady of rank.(2) Then he determined at all hazards to get one glimpse of her face; and he crept round the house, backwards and forwards, peering through every crack and chink. And at last he was able to see;—but therewith an icy trembling seized him; and the hair of ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... had abandoned. However, a strong guard was posted at once; those Bedouin who had taken up their abode on the premises were evicted; and preparations were made to face a somewhat stormy night. All that night through the crack of rifles resounded. Although the bag next morning proved to be small, yet, for days afterwards, Bedouin kept dropping in at our hospitals with bullet wounds to be dressed, as to the cause of which they could ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... long-ago people manage? Their walls were not sheeted, and they did not know the use of building-paper. Our old wide siding had been laid directly on the bare timbers, the studding; every crevice under the windows, every crack in the plaster, was a short circuit with zero. We decided to take off the antique siding, cut out the bad places, and relay it flat, as sheeting. Over it we would lay building-paper, and on top of this, good ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... artist-red hair—was very much taken with their plan. "To turn an honest penny in these hard times, and not be wronging any one, would just suit the likes of her. And there was the store standing empty,—but it might stand till the crack o' doom afore she'd have a drop of rum sold in it. There never was a better man than Den when he was sober, and sure she'd had sorrow enough along wid drinking. And there was Barney growin' up, and the two smaller ones, and she'd never, never ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... nature of the ground so completely favoured our approach, that they did not become aware of it until we were within a few yards of them, and had ascended a little ridge, which, as we afterwards discovered, ended in an abrupt precipice upon the river, not more than thirty yards to our right. The crack of the drayman's whip was the first thing that aroused their attention. They gazed upon us for a moment, and then started up and assumed an attitude of horror and amazement; their terror apparently increasing upon them. We stood perfectly ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... and through a crack of the door obtained Miss Florrie's permission to keep the cloak and skirt for the morning, as he wanted to see later how the drinking was progressing. Florrie consented, and he went to his room ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... the fuz. Not he; he slouches his hat over's eyes, and stands quite cool by fust fuz bush—I minded then as we was out o' our beat. Hows'ever my blood was up; so I at's him then and there, no words lost, and fetches a crack at's head wi my stick.' He fends wi' his'n; and then, as I rushes in to collar'n, dash'd if 'e didn't meet I full, and catch I by the thigh and collar, and send I slap over's head ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... that he cracks his whip? Does he pitend to be angry? If he pitends to be angry, why do all the others pitend that they think he doesn't pitend, but only,—Why does the gentleman crack his whip?" ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... organization to watch the war-makers we shall never end war, any more than a country can end crime and robbery without a police. Specialist must watch specialist in either case. Mere expressions of a virtuous abhorrence of war will never end war until the crack ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Grieve,' he said cheerily, 'we have been agreeing—your husband and I—that it will be best for you to go up to London and have that cheek looked at by one of the crack surgeons. They will give you the best advice as to what to do with it. It is not a common ailment, and we are very fine fellows down here, but of course we can't get the experience, in a particular line of cases, of one of the first-rate ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... an epithelioma of the prepuce occurring in persons past middle life, beginning as a tubercle, crack, or wart, for which he advises an early circumcision; he admits, however, to not having sufficient data to determine whether Jews and circumcised persons are exempt from carcinoma of the penis; but as its usual ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... like a covey of frightened chickens before the echoes were done playing with the gun-bark. On the heels of Blink's shot came the crack of Happy Jack's "howitzer" as he fired blindly toward the hoof-beats. There was more shooting while they scurried to where their horses, snorting excitement, danced uneasily at the edge of the bushes. Only one man ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... right down to the river, all smooth and turfy, you know; and I was standing at the top, when Charlie comes slyly, and saying he would help the little bird to fly, gave me one push, and down I went, roll, roll, tumble, tumble, till Sylvia REALLY thought she heard my neck crack! Wasn't it fun?" ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he had left off doing so? Besides, was it not too late, at his age, to recommence a career? not to speak of the absurd rumors that had been circulating about him, the name which they had given him of a crack-brained genius. He would not find a single patient now, it would be a useless cruelty to force him to make an attempt which would assuredly result only in a lacerated heart and empty hands. Clotilde, on the contrary, had used all her influence to turn him from the idea. Martine comprehended ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... the last ounce of energy in their exhausted frames. They were blind, deaf and dumb, straining, gasping, forcing "heart and nerve and sinew" to drive the leaden boat through those last few yards. Suddenly, far above their heads, rang out the crack of a rifle, and the next instant another. The crew collapsed ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... queer kind of dawn life went on between the small boy and me. Morning after morning he threw a pebble to waken me and I hurried down to our tryst, which extended through the hour that lies between the crack of day and the first glint of the awakening sun. At first I had carried sweetmeats to our tryst, which were accepted with moderate pleasure, but one morning I had taken a huge volume of Rackham's Mother Goose which ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and writing, was done secretly and in spare moments. And his zeal was such that often in the middle of the night it would compel him to rise and, after drawing the shades carefully and stopping the crack under the door with his cassock, light his candle and dig away at his ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... strokes; Then of the joys that charm'd, or woes that wrung, Forces expression from the faithful tongue: But if the actor's words belie his state, And speak a language foreign to his fate, Romans shall crack their sides, and all the town Join, horse and foot, to laugh th' ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... and am looking about me, when my eye lights upon these, gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectly upright, some with their backs and some with their breasts toward me, but every head turned squarely in my direction. Their eyes are closed to a mere black line; though this crack they are watching me, evidently thinking themselves unobserved. The spectacle is weird and grotesque. It is a new effect, the night side of the woods by daylight. After observing them a moment I take a single step toward them, when, quick as thought, their eyes fly wide open, their attitude ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... a very acute and intelligent one, became terrified at these alarming symptoms of danger, especially as the ice began to crack, and loud and prolonged reports reached them from every direction. Another most suspicious thing was the sudden disappearance of the company of merchants, whom they had all along kept well in sight. There was something wrong, he was fully convinced, ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... of room to move, w'ich it ain't so with a flour-barrel. An' then the smell! Oh! you've no notion! W'y, that's wuth the price of a night's lodgin' itself, to say nothin' o' the chance of a knot-hole or a crack full o' sugar, that the former tenants has failed ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... withstand a gradually applied, evenly distributed, and constant pressure, one thousandth part of which, acting at one spot, as a blow, would rend its way through, or establish a crack. This slight rent, giving partial relief to the sudden but comparatively small force that causes it, would be nothing very serious in itself,—no more so than a rent produced by the hydraulic press,—if the whole force, equal, perhaps, to that of a thousand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable[64] of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach, and bide his own time,—happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone that this day he has seen something ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... wouldn't sell it to you for that much. You've been so kind to me that I ought to be willing to make any sacrifice for you. I happen to need four dollars very particular just now, and I've a mind to sell him to you on your own terms." He paused a moment, looking thoughtfully at a crack in the floor, as he stood by the fire with his hands in his pockets. "Yes," he said, at last, "you can have him for four dollars, if you'll keep mum about us being here for one more day. You can leave the ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... chemical books and attend chemical lectures, but that he should actually perform the fundamental experiments in the laboratory for himself, and thus learn exactly what the words which he finds in his books and hears from his teachers, mean. If he does not do so, he may read till the crack of doom, but he will never know much about chemistry. That is what every chemist will tell you, and the physicist will do the same for his branch of science. The great changes and improvements in physical and chemical scientific education, which have taken place of late, have ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... lest of the reward for whoso exceedeth in talk and vexeth the folk and turneth their joy to annoy.' This is what I wish, and no more." Said the Caliph, "Allah grant thee that thou seekest! Let us crack one last cup and rise ere the dawn draw near, and to-morrow night I will be with thee again." Said Abu al-Hasan, "Far be it!" Then the Caliph crowned a cup, and putting therein a piece of Cretan Bhang,[FN20] gave it to his host and said to him, "My ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... landing was made immediately, and while some of the men held the boats ready to pick up a prize, the others beat the island. I was assigned to man our boat, and as we waited up against the bank under the bushes, we could hear the rifles crack. Then all was still. Suddenly I heard a crashing of bushes and a hundred yards above us a superb black-tail sprang into the water and swam for the east bank. My sensation was divided between a desire to see the deer escape, and a desire to ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... blazes, as the blazing hayrick burned, The sucking pigs were in a crack, all into crackling turned; Grilled chickens clog the hencoop, roasted ducklings choke the gutter, And turkeys round the poultry yard on ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... at a time. Close to the front line of spectators, however, there came a check. People were vexed at the audacity of the girl and the elderly woman, and would have pushed them back, but at the critical second the blue and silver uniformed band of Rhaetia's crack regiment, the Imperial Life Guards, struck up an air which told that the Emperor was coming. Promptly the small group concerned forgot its grievance, in excitement, crowding together so that Virginia was pressed to the front, and only Miss Portman ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... what I'd do with it if it was mine. First, I'd buy pocketfuls of gingerbread; then I'd buy ever so many apples and nuts. Don't you love nuts? I'd buy nuts enough to last me from this time to Christmas, and I'd make little Newton crack 'em for me, for that's the worst of nuts; there's the trouble of ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... also a portentously swollen under-lip, with a crack in it which showed signs of festering. Now there was a base hospital at Figueira, to the surgeon in charge of which fell the duty of inspecting the men as they landed and detaining those who were sick or physically unfit. I need not say that his eye was arrested ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... tumult moving in his mind and soul. He pulled out his watch and laid it on the top rail of the old oak fence: there was not enough light to read the time, but he could count the ticks he had to live. Suddenly hope flashed through his heart, like the crack of a gun, like a lightning fork—a big rat was biting an elbow of the yarn where some tallow had fallen upon it. Would he cut it, would he drag it away to his hole? would he pull it a little from its fatal end? He was strong enough to do it, if he only understood. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... time for your mind to be calm. But I must not affront you by my incredulity. Speak, then, but be quick, for I do not pretend to be calm; it not being, thank my stars, 'mon metier d'etre philosophe.' Crack goes the last seal—speak now, or for ever after hold your tongue, my calm philosopher of Oakly-park: but do you wish me to attend to what you are going ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... at daybreak by the chiming of bells, and soon afterwards muskets began to crack, near and far. Then there were noises all over the house, and presently what seemed to be a procession of horses or elephants began to thunder up and down the wooden stairs. In vain I tried to snatch the last ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... Foster's activity was always salutary, in that Foster would prove to any man how small a space the acquisitions of a lifetime could be made to occupy when the object was not to display but to pack them. Foster could put all your pride on to four wheels, and Foster's driver would crack a whip and be off with the lot of it as though it were no more ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... paraffin has been suggested as a means of overcoming this growth, the cheese being dipped at an early stage into melted paraffin. Recent experiments have shown that "off" flavors sometimes develop where cheese are paraffined directly from the press. If paraffin is too hard, it has a tendency to crack and separate from the rind, thus allowing molds to develop beneath the paraffin coat, where the conditions are ideal as to moisture, for evaporation is excluded and the air consequently saturated. The use of formalin (2% solution) has been suggested ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... Sergeant crack jokes like two old cronies. The embarrassed orderly, failing to find a retort, goes away ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... smith only said, rudely: "It's none of your business what I do." So Fausch gave the trader a new nut to crack, though he had long puzzled over the smith's behavior and character. But Simmen, the landlord, of whom he also asked the cause of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... At the crack of the gun one of the largest mountain lions we have ever seen (you can imagine how large he appeared to the bold hunter) sprang from a cliff of rocks, and landed not over thirty feet from Curnutt, in an attitude looking anything but friendly, ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... a good deal to say, for it was a great fleet of vessels sailing out of Gloucester; but even so, even allowing for a young skipper's pride in his first crack vessel, it meant a whole lot coming like ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... Johnny. He put his hands close together on the rim of the wheel, settled his big shoulders, and hauled. With a sharp crack the wheel broke off in ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... man for his rank, not over thirty, with a fine, soldierly figure, handsome face and rather dandified air. He wore a brilliant uniform, which looked like that of some crack regiment of Guards. A cigar was in his mouth, and he was making a little nest for himself with rugs and books and papers, and a box of choice Havanas. A superb despatch box, with silver mounts, was plainly marked with his initials, ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... the two looked over together in that wainscoted parlour at Booth's Edge lie now in an iron case in a certain muniment-room. They are yellow now, and the ink is faded to a pale dusky red; and they must not be roughly unfolded lest they should crack at the creases. But they were fresh then, written on stout white paper, each occupying one side of a sheet that was then folded three or four times, sealed, and inscribed to "Mistress Marjorie Manners" in the middle, with the word "Haste" in the lower corner. ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... once or twice daily with a moderately stiff brush dipped in soft water into which has been dropped a few drops of the tincture of myrrh. A brush of badger's hair is best. If tartar accumulates, have it removed by a dentist. Do not bite thread or crack nuts with the teeth, or use the teeth for other purposes than those for which nature designed them." He bent toward his hearer with a smile of irresistible sweetness, drew his lips away from his gums, snapped ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... said Hamilton, and dropped his hand on his revolver, but before it was clear of his holster, there came a sharp crack, and the snake leapt up and fell back as a bullet went snip-snapping through the undergrowth. Then Hamilton saw Bones. Bones in his shirtsleeves, bareheaded, his big pipe in his mouth, who came hurriedly through the ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... had felt it before; no claw of desert beast was firmer or more unrelenting. Young Hortensius felt his whole body give way, his very bones crack beneath that mighty grip. His head, overheated with wine, fell back against the cushions of his couch, and he felt as if the last breath in him was leaving ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to the water's edge. The stream, says our author, "was frozen over thinely," but Miller "makes no more adoe, but venters over the haven, which is by the long bridge, as I gesse some forty yards over; yet he made nothing of it, but my hart aked when my eares heard the ise crack all the way. When he was come unto me," continues Armin, "I was amazed, and tooke up a brick-bat, which lay there by, and threw it, which no sooner fell upon the ise but it burst. Was not this strange that a foole of thirty yeeres was borne of that ise which would ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... kind to hurt or frighten their neighbors," began Nelly; but as she spoke, a plump white dove walked in, looked about with its red-winged eyes, and quietly pecked up a tiny bug that had just ventured out from the crack where it had taken refuge when the ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer of the skeptic biographer, who weighed all men by the sum of ages and not by the age in which they lived, or the religious hero who carried a flaming cross into the darkness of the unknown West, as his reverential historians ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... remunerations they receive, to the newspaper and periodical press. But, in the fifteenth century, the vast majority of writers of manuscripts,—those who were in general employment from not commanding the high prices obtained by the "crack" transcribers, and might be compared to "penny-a-liners" among us, suppliers of scraps of news to the papers,—were still to be found only in convents, knowing more about ploughs than books, and for literary ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... rubbish, brush, old wood, and sods, and converting them into ashes or charcoal, is one which we could often adopt with decided advantage. Our premises would be cleaner, and we should have less fungus to speck and crack our apples and pears, and, in addition, we should have a quantity of ashes or burnt earth, that is not only a manure itself, but is specially useful to mix with moist superphosphate and other artificial manures, to make them dry enough and bulky enough to be easily and evenly distributed ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... no one seems to know what it is; to one and all he is "Jules," a capital patron who, having been a waiter himself, knows how to look after the personal tastes of his customers. These include the officers of the grenadiers, the crack Belgian regiment, whose barracks are close by, judges and barristers from the Palais de Justice, members of the King's household (the royal palace being nearly opposite), actors from the Moliere Theatre, sportsmen who foregather here on race-days, and the better-class Bohemians. ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... time of excitement. Dan Anderson himself drew the warrant. As it was read later by himself to Curly at the Lone Star, it did not lack a certain charm. It began with "Greeting," and ended with, "Now, therefore, in the name of God and the Continental Congress." Anderson did not crack a smile in reading it, and so far as that is concerned, the warrant worked as well as any and better than some. Curly, because he felt that he was in the hands of his friends, made no special demurrer to the terms of the "writ," and in a few moments the Lone Star was ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... the higher command; they have always wished to be in the front line"; and General Coybet said of the 371st and 372nd: "The most powerful defenses, the most strongly organized machine gun nests, the heaviest artillery barrages—nothing could stop them. These crack regiments overcame every obstacle with a most complete contempt for danger.... They have shown ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... cramped to stand on his feet so Chick-chick kneeled down at his side to rub some circulation into his wrists and ankles. Suddenly a great noise of running was heard. Chick-chick looked out through the crack of the door. ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... here," another one of the men said. "We wuz promised a station, but we haint goin' ter have no changin' of names. The railroad folks tried that down ter Skunk Hollow, settin' up a jim-crack station, all red shingles and fancy roof, and callin' it Ozone Valley. But they can't come any ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... bad when these great singers marry themselves into silence before they have a crack in their voices. And the husband is a public robber. I remember Leroux saying, 'A man might as well take down a fine peal of church bells and carry them off to the steppes," said Sir Hugo, setting down his cup and turning ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... charm which he recognised in some of Schubert's melodies, he did not care to hear those whose contours were too sharp for his ear, where feeling is as it were denuded, where one feels, so to speak, the flesh palpitate and the bones crack under the grasp of anguish. A propos of Schubert, Chopin is reported to have said: "The sublime is dimmed when it is followed by the common or ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... and curses in harbor-English, and a second engine-room signal and a cessation of the screw thrashings. This was followed by a shower of carbine-shots and the plaintive whine of bullets above the upper-works, the crack and thud of lead against the side-plates. At the same time Blake heard the scream of a denim-clad figure that suddenly pitched from the landing-ladder into the sea. Then came an answering volley, ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... Kew, and finding only a constable in charge, I made a thorough search through the place. In the dead man's room I naturally expected to find it, and after nearly a couple of hours searching in every nook and every crack I succeeded. It was hidden in the mould of a small pot-fern, standing in the corridor ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... he politely took off his old-fashioned top-hat; with his right he caught Prince Saradine so ringing a crack across the face that the white top hat rolled down the steps and one of the blue flower-pots rocked ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... "They'll crack old Tony on the skull, And preach and roar like Bashan bull, Or braying ass, of mischief full, Then seize old Jacob by the wool, And pull for ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... struck his wrist with a force that jerked up the barrel of the revolver. The spurt of flame, the sharp crack of the shot, the clatter of the Colt striking the edge of the precipice, all seemed to the girl to come simultaneously. A belated second afterward Lynch's furious curses came to her. With dilated eyes she saw him snatch frantically at the sliding weapon, and as ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... knees he looked round, and then crawled to a crack that appeared much wider than the rest, the boards being more than half an inch apart. Lying down over it, he was able to obtain a view of a portion of the room below. He could see a part of a long table, and looked down upon the heads of five men sitting on one side ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... heard Whigs crack o' the Saints in the Bass, my faith, a gruesome tale; How the Remnant paid at a tippeny rate, for a quart o' ha'penny ale! But I'll tell ye anither tale o' the Bass, that'll hearten ye up to hear, Sae ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... busy hum of men were already hushed in death, and the survivors, so used to scream and screech in their earnestness whenever they bought or sold, now showed an unwonted indifference about the affairs of this world: it was less worth while for men to haggle and haggle, and crack the sky with noisy bargains, when the great commander was there, who could “pay all their debts with the roll ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... group of impulsions and habits. Citing a few absurd impulsions: a person feels compelled to step over every crack, to touch the posts along his journey, to take the stairs three steps at a time. The habits range from the queer desire to bite one's nails to the quick that is so common in children and which persists in the psychasthenic ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... Soviet Union has surrounded itself with captive and sullen nations. Like a crack in the crust of an uneasily sleeping volcano, the Hungarian uprising revealed the depth and intensity of the patriotic longing for liberty that still burns within ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... bereft—stricken down by the blow— is still in a state of syncope, the faithful negress doing what she can to restore her, there are sounds outside unheard by either. A dull rumble of wheels, as of some heavy vehicle coming along the main road, with the occasional crack of a whip, and the sonorous "wo-ha" ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the old man. We hid your revolver and money- belt under the seventh palm, on the beach to the right of this shack. If I'd known you had twenty double eagles on you all this time, I'd have cracked your skull myself. The crack you've got is healing, and if you pull through the fever you'll be all right. If you do, give this woman twenty pesos I borrowed from her. Get her to hire a boat, and men, and row it to Amapala. This island is only fifteen miles out, and the Pacific Mail boat touches there Thursdays and Sundays. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... know, gentlemen, that if the negro had never had the right to vote until the majority of the rank and file of white men, particularly foreign-born men, had voted "Yes," he would have gone without it till the crack of doom. It was because of the prejudice of the unthinking majority that Congress submitted the question of the negro's enfranchisement to the Legislatures of the several States, to be adjudicated by the educated, broadened ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... are not going to crack up the same people as the other papers," said De Haan; "otherwise we should not supply a want. We must dole out our praise and blame quite differently, and we must be very scrupulous to give only a little praise so that it shall be valued ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... his walk, the type so by itself—his wide observation quite suggested—among those of the peacemakers of the earth. The pair stepped straight in—no word was said; but as he closed the door behind them Mark heard the infallible crack of a discharged pistol and, so nearly with it as to make all one violence, the sound of a great fall; things the effect of which was to lift him, as it were, with his company, across the threshold of the room in a shorter ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... observe what was transacting in the city. As he was passing through a street in that part of the town inhabited only by the meaner sort, he heard some people talking very loud; and going close to the house whence the noise proceeded, and looking through a crack in the door, perceived a light, and three sisters sitting on a sofa, conversing together after supper. By what the eldest said, he presently understood the subject of their conversation was wishes: ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... in the office that Pevensey was too quiet ever to make a crack reporter. On a big story full of human interest he was no good. It was not that he failed to realize the possibilities of such stories; he had as sure an eye for the picturesque and affecting as Dicky Chatworth himself, the city editor's especial favourite; ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... is done these same bees set themselves to work to carefully close up every opening which is round about the lower part of the hive. Finally when every crack has been carefully looked over, filled up and covered with propolis, they begin to varnish the whole of the interior sides. By this time guardians are placed at the entrance of the hive, and very soon a number of the working bees start on their ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... barefoot. He did not have to turn out at every mud-puddle, and he could plash into the mill-pond and give the frogs a crack over the head without stopping to take off stockings and shoes. Paul did not often have a dinner of roast beef, but he had an abundance of bean porridge, brown ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... is his disposition to "do murder." This may account for his love of "sport," or it may only be an hereditary trait derived from the period when he had not yet concerned himself with agriculture, but slew wild beasts and used his implements of stone to crack their bones and get the marrow out. The instinct to slay birds, beasts and fishes is certainly strong within us, whatever be its remote origin, and it is very little affected by what we are pleased to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... the hungry wolves eat up his nicely browned fat ducks. His foot pained him more and more. He heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long teeth and eat out the oily marrow. Now severe pains shot up from his foot through his whole body. "Hin-hin-hin!" sobbed Iktomi. Real tears washed brown streaks ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom." Ikki ducked quickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling his nose-bristles, and Mowgli told Baloo what Ikki had said. Baloo looked very grave, and mumbled half to himself: "If I were alone I would change my hunting-grounds now, before the others began to think. ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... week Mis' Sally wuz feedin' de chickens when she heard somethin' in de polk berry bushes behin' de hen house. She didn' go 'roun' de house but she went inside house an' looked through de crack. Dare wuz Burrus layin' down in de bushes. He wuz near 'bout starved kaze he hadn' had nothin' to eat since ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... acceptivity of the audience, which is more noticeable in the Law Courts than in any other London theatre, and the willingness of his fellow-performers to "feed" him, as stage-folk have it; that is to say, provide him with materials upon which (again resorting to stage language) he may "crack his wheezes." The other day, for example, that excellent comedian, JOHN SIMON, was his principal ally in this way, and nothing could have been better than the sympathy between the two funny men. To CHARLES DARLING naturally fell the fat of the dialogue, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... knowledge, either by sight, by hearsay or by actual acquaintance. They sat stolidly in their little chairs, eyes roving to the windows, the blackboard, the pictures; they clubbed together and fished a pin from a crack in the floor during one of Mary's most thrilling appeals; finally they appeared so bored by the whole proceeding that she felt a certain sense of embarrassment in the midst of her despair. She took ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... figure disappeared from view, to be replaced by that of the President, his supporters exchanged sidelong glances and meaning smiles. They had chosen their champion well, a nasty fighter, to crack the whip over the class from ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... reach Lyons. Lyons? No; that's going a little fast—say Valence or Montelimar. Pass me the time-table again. Let us settle everything, and leave nothing to chance. Oh, look at her! She has nibbled nuts for the last fifteen minutes, and how she cracks them—crack! one little bite—and what pretty little teeth! She is very pretty even while eating—an important thing. It's very rare to find women who remain pretty while eating and sleeping, very rare. Little Adelaide, the red-headed one, you remember, ate stupidly. And this one over ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... ancestors, saying, "It is well, it is well!" Corn and bacon are granted: not a very sublime boon, on such conditions; a boon moreover which, on such conditions, cannot last!—No: America too will have to strain its energies, in quite other fashion than this; to crack its sinews, and all but break its heart, as the rest of us have had to do, in thousand-fold wrestle with the Pythons and mud-demons, before it can become a habitation for the gods. America's battle is yet ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... now rejoice,— Now—for the holidays of life are few; Nor let the rustic minstrel tune, in vain, The crack'd church-viol, resonant to-day, Of mirth, though humble! Let the fiddle scrape Its merriment, and let the joyous group Dance, in a round, for soon the ills of life Will come! Enough, if one day in the year, If one brief day, of this brief life, be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... of lightning lit up the scene, accompanied by a crack of thunder that made some of the boys crouch down for a second. Then came more wind ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... 'you are a happy man, and in all your afflictions you can console yourself with a joke, let it be ever so bad, provided you crack it yourself. I should be very happy to laugh with you, if it would give you any satisfaction; but, really, at present, my heart is so sad, that I find it impossible to levy a contribution ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... consulted no stockbroker on this weighty point; he did not even buy a shilling book of advice such as we have seen advertised for those who do not know what to do with their money. The question was answered in a moment by the young worldling of sixteen: he would enter a crack regiment and invest his guineas in the thousand per cents. of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... lightning flashes, could not hope for success. It was the old and still active Hikozaemon, the oyaji (old chap), the hardened warrior of Iyeyasu, who scented out the threatening move. He sprang off into the dark wood, almost as the crack of the musket was heard. They would seek the life of the himegimi with deadly missiles! How contemptible; for great as yet was the scorn of such use. Vigorous was the old man's pursuit of a foe, seeking to ascertain his success and reluctant to flee. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... moment when I have not loved her! To see her once was all that I had craved,—as a lost soul might covet, ere the Pit take him, one splendid glimpse of Heaven and the Nine Blessed Orders at their fiddling. And I find that she loves me—me! Fate must have her jest, I perceive, though the firmament crack for it. She would have been content enough with Noel, thinking me dead. And with me?" Contemplatively he spat out of the window. "Eh, if I dared hope that this last flicker of life left in my crazy carcass might burn clear! ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... limit to the marvellous things animals do. Elephants, for example, carry leafy palms in their trunks to shade themselves from the hot sun. The ape or baboon who puts a stone in the open oyster to prevent it from closing, or lifts stones to crack nuts, or beats his fellows with sticks, or throws heavy cocoanuts from trees upon his enemies, or builds a fire in the forest, shows more than a glimmer of intelligence. In the sly fox that puts out fish heads to bait hawks, or suddenly plunges in the water and immerses himself ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... obeisant children, wisdom, and a fair-voiced wife— Thus, great King! are counted up the five felicities of life. For the son the sire is honored; though the bow-cane bendeth true, Let the strained string crack in using, and what service shall ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... crouching down, we crept on till we reached the rock. For an instant we waited to recover breath, then we lifted up our rifles and rested them on a ledge of the rock. It would be impossible to have got a better aim. Crack— crack—we both fired. Off scampered the herd up ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... Prothero, "I don't see the money coming through that crack, I'll begin shooting through this door, and ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... horse. Two or three bounds on foot, with the sword clutched in both hands, and he was close behind the elephant. A bright glance shone like lightning as the sun struck upon the descending steel; this was followed by a dull crack, as the sword cut through skin and sinews, and settled deep in the bone, about twelve inches above the foot. At the next stride the elephant halted dead short in the midst of its tremendous charge. Taher had jumped ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... Hall at that early hour, and what it would be like there in the dead of night, and how soon it would be proper for him to go and leave a card on Mr St Aubyn, and what Lubin would think of it all, and how it was he had never before noticed that great crack in the ceiling just above his head. At last he slipped carefully out of bed without waiting for Martha to bring him his hot water, and hopped as best he could to the open window and looked out. There was Lubin, mowing vigorously away, and the air was full of sweet garden scents and the early twittering ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... rather too bad when these great singers marry themselves into silence before they have a crack in their voices. And the husband is a public robber. I remember Leroux saying, 'A man might as well take down a fine peal of church bells and carry them off to the steppes," said Sir Hugo, setting down his cup and turning away, while Deronda, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... called her father, through the crack of the door. "You two had better stop that love-feast and get ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... my dear, you may spend as much time as you like at it; but if I peep over the transom, or listen through a crack in the door, you mustn't scold. I don't know that I can wait much longer to find ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... came to offer five pounds reward to anybody as could 'elp 'im to become a teetotaler. He went off 'ome one night as usual, and arter stopping a few seconds in the parlour to pull hisself together, crept quietly upstairs for fear of waking 'is wife. He saw by the crack under the door that she'd left a candle burning, so he pulled hisself together agin and then turned the 'andle and went in and began to try ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... the "cire perdu" process, Benvenuto Cellini warns you to beware lest you break your crucible—"just as you've got your silver nicely molten," he says, "and are pouring it into the mould, crack goes your crucible, and all your work and time and pains are lost!" He advises wrapping it in ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... Already our efforts to crack down on career criminals, organized crime, drugpushers, and to enforce tougher sentences and paroles are having effect. In 1982 the crime rate dropped by 4.3 percent, the biggest decline since 1972. Protecting victims is just as important as safeguarding the rights ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... the weight in grams of the kernel recovered on first crack, secured without the aid of nut pick, is recorded. In this comparison the Duke, because of large size, might be expected to be an easy winner and it was in 1946 and in 1950; but in 1948, though second in average weight of nut for that year, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... Craggs, 'everything is. Everything appears to me to be made too easy, now-a-days. It's the vice of these times. If the world is a joke (I am not prepared to say it isn't), it ought to be made a very difficult joke to crack. It ought to be as hard a struggle, sir, as possible. That's the intention. But, it's being made far too easy. We are oiling the gates of life. They ought to be rusty. We shall have them beginning to turn, soon, with a smooth sound. Whereas ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... to eliminate the renegade Indian, and long before the Security scuttlebug, now on its way from Earth loaded with crack troops, should arrive, Security would be in complete command not only of the Space Lab, but of the weapon, which would by then be ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... other than a nation of mere lovers and would-be imitators of Charles Lamb. The moralistic type of humor, the crack of Juvenal's whip, as well as the delicate Horatian playing around the heart-strings, has characterized our humor and satire from the beginning. At bottom the American is serious. Beneath the surface of his jokes there is moral ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... should be afraid to trust it, if it were not for the dogs. He can't crawl out between the logs, that much is certain; but the door is almost ready to drop from its hinges, and has a good deal of play back and forth behind the bar. If he had a thin, stout stick he could slip it through the crack, lift the bar and take ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... shooting crackers on the banquette instead of peering into the crack, as was his wont, his big, round, black eyes would have grown saucer-wide to see little Miss Sophie kiss and fondle a ring, an ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... drew back slightly, the captain cried "Fire!" and with a heavy, sharp crack a puff of white smoke darted from the muzzle and began to expand forward like a grey balloon, obscuring everything from the sight of the lookers-on for about a minute, before it rose clear, and then the darkening sea ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... interrupt your music lessons long enough to listen to an idea that some of us have been talking over?" called Dick. "Now, fellows, you know this is the time when the crack Gridley High School football team is hard at work. We're all proud of the Gridley High School eleven. A lot of you fellows expect to go to High School, and I know you'd all like a chance to play ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... dropped to the bottom!" thought Ned. "He knew the Shark couldn't get a good crack at the Sea Lion when she lay on the bottom. Wonder if the ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... manners of the age) fairly well alive, forces me to perpetual and almost endless transcriptions. On the back of all this, any correspondence hangs like a thundercloud, and just when I think I am getting through my troubles, crack, down goes my health, I have a long, costly sickness, and begin the world again. It is fortunate for me I have a father, or I should long ago have died; but the opportunity of the aid makes the necessity none the more welcome. My father has presented ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... somehow or other persuaded him at last to go into the tent and lie quiet. The remainder of the affair, indeed, was witnessed by him from behind the canvas, his white and terrified face peeping through the crack ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... with great dragon-adorned roofs. Further towards the centre of the Fu is Prince Su's own palace and his retainers' quarters; to the south of this is an ornamental garden full of trees, a vast and mournful enclosure, standing in which the crack of outpost rifles can only be distantly heard. Moving across to the southern side—that is, the side near the French Legation and the protected Legation Street—the Christian refugees are found gathered ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... women, whose husban's an' brudders had gone to de wah. Ted,—dat's de boy on de "Hatty" long ago,—went to de wah wid a great flourish, promisin' Mandy Ann he'd shoot the Colonel shu' ef he got a chance. An' what do you think? At de fust crack of de cannon in de fust battle he seen, he cut an' run, an' kep' on runnin' till he got hyar, beggin' me an' Mandy Ann to hide him, 'case he was a deserter. I held my tongue, an' let Mandy Ann do as she pleased, an' she hid him till de Federals come, when he jined them, an' did get hit, ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... the deep bay formed by the two huge tentacles that run south and south-east from the crab-like body of the island, when suddenly, above the noise of the engine, they heard the sharp crack of a shot, then two or three more. Glancing up the bay to his left, Smith saw a large junk, its sails hanging limp, surrounded by a number of small craft which from their appearance he guessed to be praus. He ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... scouted around the wreck, looking for signs of its former structure while Scotty attacked the stern with a crowbar. Under Scotty's prying, a timber suddenly gave with an audible crack, and a huge grouper that must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds rushed past Rick, startling him half to death until he saw what ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... of their standing there, hand clasped in hand, the current of life between them rushed to mingle—humble adoration in her, a triumphant certainty in him. But scarcely had the impetuous forces met before they were dissolved and lost. The sharp crack of a gun broke the stillness outside, and Tira tore her hand from his and screamed piercingly. She threw herself upon Raven, holding him ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... of this chapter. I can write no other. Sometimes the broad smooth levels of life are crossed by a black-edged jagged crack, rent, as it seems, by an outburst of the fiery force below. We find ourselves suddenly close upon it; it opens right ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... remember I've established a quarantine. I'll crack your head if you break over the line ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... did we miss it. On that occasion it had passed a few minutes before we arrived, but, knowing it stopped for breakfast at Griffin's Corners, four or five miles beyond, I hastened on afoot, running most of the way, and arrived in sight of it just as the driver had let off the first crack from his whip to start his reluctant horses. My shouting was quickly passed to him by the onlookers, he pulled up, and I won the ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... Lord; but let me tell you a story. In a sea fight in the reign of Charles the Second, there was a very bloody engagement between the English and Dutch fleets, in the heat of which a Scotch sea-man was very severely bit by a louse on his neck, which he caught; and stooping down to crack it between his nails, many of the sailors near him had their heads taken off by a chain-shot from the enemy, which dashed their blood and brains about him; on which he had compassion upon the poor louse, returned him to his place ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... unsullied freshness of flower-strewn valley and bountiful woodland, the native fauna of the land browse in fearless joy and wander wild and free, unfretted by sound of huntsman's horn, the long-drawn bay of the hound, and the sharp crack of ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... the other in a whisper, closing the front door with infinite softness. "He won't let me go in, the doctor won't; I—I ain't seen him in four days. Ask the doctor if I can't just have a blink at him—just a little blink through the crack of the door. Just think, Miss, I ain't seen him in four days! Just think of that! And look here, they ain't giving him enough to eat—nothing but milk and chicken soup with rice in it. He never did like rice; that's ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... was clear and cloudless, the sun unusually warm. So warm, indeed, that long clefts, caused by the unequal expansion of the ice, appeared here and there. The man from the plane had not gone more than fifty yards when he halted sharply. With a crack like thunder, a cleft had opened at his very feet—a rift ten feet deep in places, apparently bottomless in others, and very long. Not wanting to go around it, he slid down one side and, with an ice pick, started to hack a ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... pox confound your similitudes, sir. Speak to be understood, and tell me in plain terms what the matter is with him, or I'll crack your fool's skull. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... "you have sworn your lamb to that hyena, have you? Well, look out that he does not crack your bones as well as hers, and perhaps some others also. Why does God give some men a worm in their brains, as He does to the wildebeeste, a worm that always makes them run the wrong way? I don't know, I am sure; but you who are very ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... yourself of what I came here on purpose to tell you—not to disturb you, as I have been so unfortunate as to do. You are perfectly safe from him. I will not let the enemy know your sentiments, or how decided you are on the subject. I will perhaps, if you will let me, crack the whip a little over their heads, and keep them in a pleasing uncertainty. But as long as he is afraid that she will take proceedings against him, he will take none, you may be sure, against her. So you may throw aside all your precautions and be ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... happily, "safe and sound in the corn-crib, and it's hotter than all get out in there. He can't escape unless he slips through a crack in the floor. I just caught him red handed as he was bending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tried to tell me, Miss Kit? He said he was looking for caterpillars." Shad laughed riotously at the recollection. "Did you call ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... she had shown to many a larger craft. Surely it was but yesterday that I rowed out to her where she was moored a hundred feet from shore, climbed aboard, hoisted sail, and, with my pipe drawing sweetly, sat down beside the tiller and played out the sheet till the sail filled; there was a crack and snaffle of straining tackle, the boat leaped forward, the tiller batted my ribs, the Idler heeled over, and then quietly, softly, as rhythmic as a song, the water raced hissing along her rail, the little waves slapped beneath her bow—and the world ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... out of this, ma'am, or I'll make you!—you and your cowardly man-pup there, as is afraid to look me in the face through the crack o' the door! Get out, I say, ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... deep thought, and stared into the fire. Mr. Buxton was about to speak, but Buck held up his hand for silence, and the quiet remained unbroken till the American slapped his knee with a crack like a pistol-shot, looked round ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... evident that the cleft must continue much farther down than we thought, and that it must be extremely narrow at the bottom. It is certainly a splendid guide, and there can be no mistaking it. Unless I had been standing on the exact line, I should not have noticed the star till later, and the crack is so much wider towards the top that it could probably be seen on a line half a mile across. It will be strange if we cannot find the place in the morning. Certainly we searched in the stream just where I was standing, and found nothing. ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... Shaken by his fall, he could make no effective resistance, and he was dragged a few yards through the bush and flung into a wagon. He tried to pull the jacket from his face, and failed; somebody brutally beat him down against the side of the vehicle when he struggled to get up. He heard a whip crack, the wagon swayed and jolted, and he knew the team was starting ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... supported by the Forty-first Honved Division, against Ivaniska; they moved along roads converging on Opatow. The Twenty-fifth Austrian Division, commanded by the Archduke Peter Ferdinand, was composed of crack regiments, the Fourth Hoch and Deutschmeisters of Vienna, and the Twenty-fifth, Seventeenth, and Tenth Jaeger battalions. The Russians were outnumbered about 40 per cent. The supposedly demoralized Russians were not expected to give any battle short of their fortified ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... peeping from the crack of the kitchen door, and felt mortally offended when the company went out by the front way. "Was it not enough that the folks were too far removed from the kitchen to permit Sary to overhear what was said at table, but now they have to walk out at ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... could note; but no more. He saw the glance of recognition pass over Elsley's face, and that an ugly one. He saw him draw something from his bosom, and spring like a cat almost upon the table. A flash—a crack. He had fired a pistol full ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... bench, the end of which was near a door leading to the corridor of the building. A door opposite led into the dock. A number of prisoners were seated there and two men in uniform formed a guard. One of them spent practically all his time glancing through the door, which he held on a crack, ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... greaser a back-handed crack in the mouth. Sure it was a crack! Lorenzo went over the counter backward an' landed like a pack load of wood. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... was desired to lay myself down amongst them. Then, as many of them as could get round me, began to squeeze me with both hands, from head to foot, but more particularly on the parts where the pain was lodged, till they made my bones crack, and my flesh became a perfect mummy. In short, after undergoing this discipline about a quarter of an hour, I was glad to get away from them. However, the operation gave me immediate relief, which encouraged me to submit to another rubbing-down before I went to bed; and it was so effectual, that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... can't! I'll split your skull against the—" and he made a wild run backwards at the balcony. Giles saw his danger, seized the balcony in time with both hands, and whipped over it just as the giant's head came against it with a stunning crack. The people roared with laughter and exultation at the address of their little champion. The indignant giant seized two of the laughers, knocked them together like dumb-bells, shook them and strewed them flat—Catherine shrieked and threw her apron ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... back, and says she, in a whisper, 'You go in first, Jane; I'm afraid.' So I went in first and Mary follered. For a minute we couldn't see a thing. There was two windows to the cabin, but they'd been boarded up from the outside, and there was jest one big crack at the top of one of the windows that let in a long streak of light, and you could see the dust dancin' in it. The door opened jest enough to let us in, and we both stood there peerin' around and tryin' to see what sort of a place we'd got into. The first thing I made out ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... relieve mild depression, increase energy and activity, and include cocaine (coke, snow, crack), amphetamines (Desoxyn, Dexedrine), ephedrine, ecstasy (clarity, essence, doctor, Adam), phenmetrazine (Preludin), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and others ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... small pail. Cootie, leg-plumed. Corbies, ravens, crows. Core, corps. Corn mou, corn heap. Corn't, fed with corn. Corse, corpse. Corss, cross. Cou'dna, couldna, couldn't. Countra, country. Coup, to capsize. Couthie, couthy, loving, affable, cosy, comfortable. Cowe, to scare, to daunt. Cowe, to lop. Crack, tale; a chat; talk. Crack, to chat, to talk. Craft, croft. Craft-rig, croft-ridge. Craig, the throat. Craig, a crag. Craigie, dim. of craig, the throat. Craigy, craggy. Craik, the corn-crake, the land-rail. Crambo-clink, rhyme. Crambo-jingle, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... forget; but someway I gradually reconstructed the life-history of this trudger of the lanes. It was much the same, no doubt, as that of many others who are from time to time pointed out to one as having been aforetime in crack cavalry regiments and noted performers in the saddle; men who have breathed into their lungs the wonder of the East, have romped through life as through a cotillon, have had a thrust perhaps at the Viceroy's Cup, and done fantastic horsefleshy things around the Gulf of Aden. And then ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... Sir (my Lord) I could doe this, and that with no rash Potion, But with a lingring Dram, that should not worke Maliciously, like Poyson: But I cannot Beleeue this Crack to be in my dread Mistresse (So soueraignely being Honorable.) I haue lou'd thee, Leo. Make that thy question, and goe rot: Do'st thinke I am so muddy, so vnsetled, To appoint my selfe in this vexation? Sully the puritie and whitenesse of my Sheetes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... style of the passage—it is perfectly pellucid in meaning, rings on the ear like the crack of a rifle, is sonorous, rich, and swift. One can fancy the whole passage spoken by an orator; indeed it is difficult to resist the illusion that it was "declaimed" before it was written. We catch the oratorial tags and devices, the repeated phrase, the incessant antithesis, the alternate rise and ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... Sez she, a-squinting them venomous eyes of her'n, till they looked like knitting needles red hot: 'I leave the sarching to be done by the cunstable—when you are 'rested and handcuffed for 'betting of murder.' Then my dander riz. Sez I, 'Crack your whip and go ahead! You know how, seeing you is the offspring of a Yankee overseer, what my marster, Gin'l Darrington, had 'rested for beating one of our wimen, on our 'Bend' plantation. You and your pa is as much alike, as two shrivelled ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... every one of the senators, for he has already come openly to detest them. It will suffice if he so much as offers his hand to be saluted. Caligula, being a "god," had sometimes offered his foot, but only that crack-brained emperor had ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... we were about ten yards past the shack, standing all in a group. The person inside couldn't see us through the opening in front of the shack but for all we knew he might be peeking at us through some little crack or hole. It made me feel funny to think that he was in there staring at us and we not able to ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... fired first and who didn't; but I think it was Stepp's shot that killed the Klamath chief; for it was at the crack of Stepp's gun that he fell. He had an English half-axe slung to his wrist by a cord, and there were forty arrows left in his quiver; the most beautiful and warlike arrows I ever saw. He must have been the bravest man among them, from the way he was armed, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... looked at the sergeant, and dropped back. The latter could see that he had him located, for he slowly poked his rifle up without showing his head. Johnson rolled swiftly to one side, aiming with his deadly revolver. Up popped the Indian's head, crack went the six-shooter; the head turned slowly, leaving the top exposed. Crack again went the alert gun of the soldier, the ball striking the head just below the scalp-lock and instantly jerking the ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... cried the athlete. "Why, I was first reserve for England against Wales, and I've skippered the 'Varsity all this year. But that's nothing! I didn't think there was a soul in England who didn't know Godfrey Staunton, the crack three-quarter, Cambridge, Blackheath, and five Internationals. Good Lord! Mr. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tortures, or, rather, children playing at frightening one another. Lily, for instance, in India: two eyes glaring at her in the dark, gee! And, in New York, a fall into a mirror; all over blood; half dead. She grew excited, in her desire to outdo Laurence and Crack-o'-Whip: the steel-buckled belt, the kicks in the ribs! Stories of brutal treatment picked up on every side—from the Gilson girl, from Ave Maria, from all the boys and all the girls and all the monkeys who had been through the mill—she made every one ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... and have a bite if you don't keep me too long. You see I mean to make a roundabout trip into that stretch of woods you told us about I'd like the worst kind to get a crack at a deer. That ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... waters of the rapid, swirling twenty feet below in the deep bed of the river, which was slowly rising each day, for the time of its inundation was near at hand. For a moment I saw a woman's horror-stricken face in the moonlight and heard her agonizing cry, then the sharp crack of Denviers' rifle rang out, and one of her assailants relaxed his grasp. Before Denviers could take a shot at the second mountaineer, he seized the captive woman and deliberately thrust her over the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... equipment and inadequate makeshifts of every kind to hold the Company system together that the pioneers might have the water, without which the work of reclamation could not be done. He knew every stake and pile and plank and crack and patch in the whole system. He had learned the tricks of the river and was familiar with the conditions peculiar to the desert country. He knew the terrible danger of the flood season that was only two months away. He had planned and prepared to meet emergencies ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... victim collapsed, Palus would leap back from him, sheath his sword, and saw the air with his empty left hand, fingers extended and pressed together, thumb flat against the crack between the roots of the index finger and big finger, twisting his hand about and varying the angle at which he sawed the air, so that all might see that he wished his fallen adversary spared and was suggesting that the spectators nearest him imitate his gesture and give the signal ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... or cut off bottles, lamp chimneys, etc., first make a scratch as before; then heat the handle of a file, or a blunt iron—in a blast-lamp flame by preference—till it is red-hot, and at once press it against the scratch till the glass begins to crack. The fracture can be led in any direction by keeping the iron just in front of it. Re-heat the iron as ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... to sob as he goes 60 Groping down to the sea 'neath his mountainous snows; Where the lake's frore Sahara of never-tracked white, When the crack shoots across it, complains to the night With a long, lonely moan, that leagues northward is lost, As the ice shrinks away from the tread of the frost; Where the lumberers sit by the log-fires that throw Their own threatening shadows far round o'er the snow, When the wolf howls aloof, and the wavering ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... him, and as he seemed to be one of those quarrelsome fellows that are the bane of every community, I took him suddenly by the throat and the shoulder, and bent his neck with the old, quick turn till I heard it crack, and had unhanded him before any of his neighbours had seen what had befallen. The fierce press of the crowd held him from slipping to the ground, and so he stood on there where he was, with his head nodded forward, as though he had fallen asleep through heaviness, or had fainted through ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... Black Sunday. We were all seated at dinner and the Hut was quivering in the tornado-like gusts which followed a heavy "blow" reaching a maximum hourly average of ninety-one miles. One mighty blast was followed by a crack and the sound of a heavy falling body. For a moment it was thought that something had happened to the Hut. Then the messman ran out to the trap-door and saw that the northern wireless ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... it's her vanity that has beautifully done it—putting her years ago in a plate-glass case and closing up the receptacle against every breath of air. How shouldn't she be preserved when you might smash your knuckles on this transparency before you could crack it? And she is—oh amazingly! Preservation is scarce the word for the rare condition of her surface. She looks naturally new, as if she took out every night her large lovely varnished eyes and put them in water. The thing ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... dungeons and the scowl of night. (Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. 254-5). To look like her are chimney-sweepers black, And since her time are colliers counted bright, And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. Dark needs no candle now, for ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... the heavy one worked with brush and paint marking some barrels. If Billy applied an eye to a crack in his hiding place he could watch every stroke of the fat black brush, and see the muscles in the swarthy cheeks move as the man mouthed a big black cigar. But Billy was not interested in the new freight agent, and remained in his retreat, watching the ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... the darkness. O'Reilly had the uncomfortable feeling that the cavalcade bulked monstrous big and must be visible at a great distance; he experienced much the sensations of a man crossing a sheet of thin ice with nerves painfully strained, awaiting the first menacing crack. In spite of all precautions the animals made a tremendous racket, or so it seemed, and, despite Hilario's twistings and turnings, it was impossible to avoid an occasional loop of barbed wire, therefore flesh and clothing suffered grievously. But at length the party brought up under the railroad ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... the simplest of words, affected no solicitudes, put on no gilt smiles, wore no reproaches: spoke to him as if so it happened—he had necessarily a journey to perform. One could see all the while big drops falling from the wound within. One could hear it in her voice. Imagine a crack of the string at the bow's deep stress. Or imagine the bow paralyzed at the moment of the deepest sounding. And yet the voice did not waver. She had now the richness of tone carrying on a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Even Henry VIII. himself, then one of the most brilliant and graceful gentlemen of his time, would sometimes arrive in his royal barge, and talk theology or astronomy with Sir Thomas; or, it might be, crack jests with him and his daughters, or listen to the music in which all were skilled, even Lady More having been persuaded in her old age to learn to play on various instruments, including the flute. The daughters were early given in marriage, and with their husbands, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of news for you and your father. If I waited for him to take the initiative I'd wait until the crack ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... bright-colored insects, the prairie dogs in their curious towns, sitting on their haunches at the doors of their little dugouts, so similar to his own, and barking, then running at whistle or crack of whip into the holes to their odd companions, the owls and the rattlesnakes; the herds of antelope emerging from the skyline and brought down to equally diminutive size by the infinite distance, disappearing into the skyline mysteriously as ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... reward and the lest of the reward for whoso exceedeth in talk and vexeth the folk and turneth their joy to annoy.' This is what I wish, and no more." Said the Caliph, "Allah grant thee that thou seekest! Let us crack one last cup and rise ere the dawn draw near, and to-morrow night I will be with thee again." Said Abu al-Hasan, "Far be it!" Then the Caliph crowned a cup, and putting therein a piece of Cretan Bhang,[FN20] gave ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the woman's clothes, and laid the child's bones, which he had not yet devoured, in her basket. After that he went to the woman's home, where her two daughters were, and called in at the door: "Open the door, daughters! Mother has come home!" But they looked out through a crack and said: "Our mother's eyes are not ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable[64] of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach, and bide his own time,—happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone that ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... mathematics and architectural drawing at the Lakeview Hall school that the girls were attending. "You can be sure that neither Dr. Prescott nor I would take any chances on that score. A heavy logging team went over it yesterday, and the ice didn't even creak, let alone crack. And every day that passes of this kind of weather makes it thicker ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... auld Scotland's light, And Douglas bright, and Scrymgeour's might, And Murray Bothwell's gallant knight, And Ruthven light and trim— Kirkpatrick black, wha in a crack Laid Cressingham upon his back, Garr'd Edward gather up his pack, And ply his spurs and rin, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... not 'spin his brains' but something much better." He "has got hold of another clue—that of Nature and history—and long may he spin it, 'even to the crack of doom!'" Scott's success lies in not thinking of himself. "And then again the catch that blind Willie and his wife and the boy sing in the hollow of the heath—there is more mirth and heart's ease in it than in all Lord Byron's Don ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... "under the thumb" means unhappiness; Mary North desired only her mother's welfare, and lived fiercely for that single purpose. From morning until night (and, indeed, until morning again, for she rose often from her bed to see that there was no draught from the crack of the open window), all through the twenty-four hours she was ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... carefully at the glass door and said no, the marble had not been able to crack the ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... (putting her fingers in her ears) "you crack my tympanums with your rude Anglicisms. But, how is our well-beloved John? Do tell me about him. The poor man must be in a sad way. What did he say to my behaviour the other night? ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... greedy ears to every word which fell from my lips, as, seated directly fronting him, my back supported by the binnacle, I read in a clear and distinct voice, and with due emphasis, the crude absurdities of a crack-brained ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack- crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite pour l'amour ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... With Franklin, and Mangles, and six dozen more, The first to spring forth at Britannia's call! And long may we live with all peaceably here— For olive, not laurel, is Glory's true wreath— But if the wolf comes, he had better keep clear Of a Club of crack shots ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... himself is without any mixture of malice towards others; he will only not be disturbed in the pleasant repose of his sensuality, and this he obtains through the activity of his understanding. Always on the alert, and good-humoured, ever ready to crack jokes on others, and to enter into those of which he is himself the subject, so that he justly boasts he is not only witty himself, but the cause of wit in others, he is an admirable companion for youthful idleness and levity. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... had occurred. A Russian detective "wanted" Vera, who, to be sure, was a Nihilist. To catch Vera he made an alliance with "The Whiteley of Crime." He was a man who would destroy a parish register, or forge a will, or crack a crib, or break up a Pro-Boer meeting, or burn a house, or kidnap a rightful heir, or manage a personation, or issue amateur bank-notes, or what you please. Thinking to kill two birds with one stone, he carried off Rose for her diamonds and ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with obvious relief the appearance of ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... his special meanings. But the beauty of the work is for us all-important. We may expect him to mark his scenes. We may not care to crack that kind of a nut.[A] It is really not good eating. Rather must we be satisfied with the pure beauty of the fruit, without a further hidden kernel. There is no doubt, however, of the ingenuity of these ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... old man left the room, while Mary Darrell, who had been anxiously watching his movements through a crack of the opposite ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... Wellington remembered a crack in the wall, at the back of the house, through which he could see and hear, and quietly stationed ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... English: we can be sentimental, tender, witty, pretty, pompous, and glorious in our songs; but we ever want the essential quality of gaiety—gaiety of heart—the dancing life of the spirit, that makes the voice hum, the fingers crack merrily, and the feet fidget restlessly on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... boots was in the girls' hands, and they were creeping softly through the empty corridors toward their respective rooms. As fate would have it, the only one who reached her room was Lilly White. To be sure, Fraeulein Sausmann, the German teacher, heard steps in her corridor, and, opening her door a crack, peeped out. When she saw Lilly White creeping along on the toes of her great feet, her boots, like two boats, held one in each hand, she only smiled, and said to herself, "Oh, Fraeulein White! She matters not. She studies no times at all," and shut ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... you dare crack a coward's crown, Or quarrel for a pin, You dare not on the wicked frown, ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... some sense! We ain't slippin' you nothin'. I'd take the dogs 'n' leave you 'n' Peewee ride if I knew the way. What do you want to make a crack about quittin' fur just as the game's gettin' good?' I says. 'We cops a neat little bundle at our last stop, 'n' we'll grab a nice piece of change here. I feel ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... from here we enter another crevice which serves as a steep stairway descending to a lower level, and measures from top to bottom one hundred and eighteen feet. This is called Rip Van Winkle's Stairway, and although merely a high and crooked crack in the rock, is very beautiful because heavily coated with crystal, the effect being especially striking at the top where the crystal is partly worn away and leaves exposed patches ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... you left it stranded there in the wind and sun, green and sappy as it is now, ye'd have every seam and crack startin' till the ribs shone through, and no amount of calkin' would make it watertight agin. No; my idea is—clear out the brush and shadder around it! Let the light shine in upon it! Make the waste places glad around it, but keep it THERE! And that's my idea o' gen'ral missionary work; ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said the emperor, scratching his head with an expression of ludicrous surprise; "then we have really got back from the peach- stone to political affairs and the war-question. Now, this war- question is a hard peach-stone to crack, and the mere thought of it sets ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... suspended in the box experiment. Evidently the box had suggested to him the banana. For thirty minutes he struggled with the box almost continuously, chewing persistently at the hinges, the hasp, or the lock. Then he took the key in his teeth and tried to push it into one of the hinges, then into the crack beneath the lid ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... much could not be spanned; Fell thunderbolts often on every hand, And verily the earth quaked in answer back From Saint Michael of Peril unto Sanz, From Besencun to the harbour of Guitsand; No house stood there but straight its walls must crack: In full mid-day the darkness was so grand, Save the sky split, no light was in the land. Beheld these things with terror every man, And many said: "We in the Judgement stand; The end of time is presently at hand." They spake no truth; they did not understand; 'Twas the great day of mourning ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... told him. He is vulnerable to reason there—always a few grains of common-sense in an ounce of miserliness. Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to dip on. And there must be a little crack in the Brooke family, else we should not see what we ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... when he was six months old, Baree was almost as large as Gray Wolf—big-boned, long-fanged, with a deep chest, and jaws that could already crack a bone as if it were a stick. He was with Nepeese whenever and wherever she moved. They swam together in the two pools—the pool in the forest and the pool between the chasm walls. At first it alarmed Baree to see Nepeese ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... something much more grossely material then the objects of the rest of the senses, as for instance in the discharging of a canon being a distance looking on we would think it gives fire long before it gives the crack, tho in wery truth they be both in the same instant. The reason then whey we sie the fire before we hear the crack is because the species Wisibiles that carries the fire to our eyes, tho material are ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... That is quite a usual plan with people who are prospectively fashionable. They do nothing with the drawing-room, library, and reception-room until the daughter of the house is pronounced ready. The plastering, after a dry of eighteen years, has had plenty of time to settle, and is not apt to crack the costly papers or ruin the elaborate frescoes; and the wood-work no longer in danger of warping or ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... his cart so as to form a seat for Lavinia, and having helped the girl to mount, bade Hannah adieu, a matter which took some few minutes and was only terminated by a hearty kiss which Hannah received very demurely. Then Giles after a crack of his whip started his horse, at the head of which he marched, and with waving handkerchiefs by Hannah and Lavinia the cart took the road ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... brathed, and still The dew of their great labor, and the blood Of their strong bodies, flowing, drain'd their force. But either's force was match'd till Yniol's cry "Remember that great insult done the Queen," Increased Geraint's, who heaved his blade aloft, And crack'd the helmet thro', and bit the bone And fell'd him, and set foot upon his breast And said, "Thy name?" To whom the fallen man Made answer, groaning, "Edyrn, son of Nudd! Ashamed am I that I should tell it them. My pride is broken: men have ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... continued Garvers, "it was the only explanation I had at the time. Either someone was watching me, which seemed impossible, or I was beginning to crack under ...
— The Untouchable • Stephen A. Kallis
... of the children huddled together for warmth in one bed, and the parents and balance of the family in the other. I slept on the floor near the door in my sleeping-bag, with my nose glued to the crack to get a breath of God's cold air, in spite of the need for warmth—for not a blanket did the house possess. When I asked, a little hurt, where were the blankets which we had sent last year, the mother somewhat indignantly ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Mail-Coach." The proper place to read about the coaches would be in Doctor Lyon's Pony Express Museum, out from Pasadena, California. May it never perish! Old Monte drives up now and then in Alfred Henry Lewis' Wolfville tales, and Bret Harte made Yuba Bill crack the Whip; but, somehow, considering all the excellent expositions and reminiscing of stage-coaching in western America, the proud, insolent, glorious figure of the driver ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... now we are in fog the ice is troublesome; a gale is rising. Now, if our ship had timbers they would crack, and if she had a bell it would be tolling; if we were shouting to each other we should not hear, the sea is in a fury. With wild force its breakers dash against a heaped-up wall of broken ice, that grinds and strains and battles fiercely with the water. This is "the pack," the edge ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... was never to reopen; but through its narrow crack Glennard, as the years went on, became more and more conscious of an inextinguishable light directing its small ray toward the past which consumed so little of his own commemorative oil. The reproach was ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... men, Mirandy's husband among them, surrounded a little fellow about six years old, who, having been made reeling drunk, was trying to walk a crack in the floor. The little victim swayed and tottered and struggled under the hilarious urging of ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... Mary's coaching, Annie did not knock again, but stood in pretty decision with her eyes straight before her. A leisurely footstep sounded within; the latch lifted with dignity, the door opened a crack at first, then more widely; and, outlined against a blacker background, stood the tall, stern, forbidding figure of Miss ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... good the Swedes had been to them; that the Swedes and Indians had been in the time of Governor Printz as one body and one heart; that they would henceforward be as one head, like the calabash, which has neither rent nor seam, but one piece without a crack; and that in case of danger to the Swedes they would ever serve and defend them. It was at the same time further arranged and agreed that if any trespasses were committed by any of their people upon the property ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... of moderation, but who is ready to resent any wilful insult: but I think you would be very wise to do as you say. Half an hour in a pistol-gallery every day is likely to be of vastly more use to you than any amount of Russian. The reputation that a man is a crack shot with a pistol will do more than anything in the world to keep him out of quarrels. Here at the depot at any rate, where the fellows are for the most part young, it would certainly save you a good deal of annoyance if it were known that, although not by any means a quarrelsome fellow, you ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... slowly and with effort, "if I was you, the first thing I did with that hammer, I'd crack ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... moving in his mind and soul. He pulled out his watch and laid it on the top rail of the old oak fence: there was not enough light to read the time, but he could count the ticks he had to live. Suddenly hope flashed through his heart, like the crack of a gun, like a lightning fork—a big rat was biting an elbow of the yarn where some tallow had fallen upon it. Would he cut it, would he drag it away to his hole? would he pull it a little from its fatal end? He was strong ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... rocks and in the formation of debris. Rocks in exposed places are greatly affected by changes in temperature, and in regions where the changes in temperature are sudden, severe, and frequent, the rocks are not able to withstand the strain of expansion and contraction, and as a result crack and split. In the Sahara Desert much crumbling of the rock into sand has been caused by the intense heat of the day followed by the sharp frost of night. The heat of the day causes the rocks to expand, and the cold of night causes them to contract, and these two forces constantly at work loosen the ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... waterfall gave me back the reverberating words! How the lime trees rocked to the final crack of the whip over the unhappy Grafton! "The learned dullness of declamation will be silent; and even the venal Muse, though happiest in fiction, will forget ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... I met him. I left a director's meeting and vital engagements, with indecent firmness, to meet that ship. At crack of dawn on a raw morning in March I arose and drove miles to a freezing pier to meet it. And presently, as I stood muffled in a fur coat, an elderly, grizzled, small man, grim and unexhilarating—presently the soul of this monotonous person broke into song. For out of the early morning, ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... my mind," said Benoit, "that a man that nature twists in back, or leg, or body anywhere, gets a twist in's brain too. There's Parpon the dwarf—God knows, Parpon is a nut to crack!" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... some shop to escape a street mob that was pursued by soldiers. Also, a bomb burst near me, once, in some still street, where, look as I would, up and down, I could see no human being. But my next sharp recollection begins with the crack of a rifle and an abrupt becoming aware that I am being fired at by a soldier in an automobile. The shot missed, and the next moment I was screaming and motioning the signals. My memory of riding in the automobile is very hazy, though this ride, in turn, ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... or pin drill. Where the cutters are secured, as usual, by a key, all mechanics know that it is very difficult to set a cutter twice alike; and the notch, which is filed in the cutter, to prevent it from moving endways, is a great source of weakness, often causing the cutters to crack in hardening, as well as after they are put to work. The inclosed sketch ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... gittin' mad 'bout it. Thet blamed quarter ye giv me rolled down a crack in the stoop, an' got lost. Sure. Got ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... man can hoist his brother into success. It is bound to be every man for himself. You can work over Arlt till the crack of doom, and that's all the good it will do him. People will say 'How noble of Mr. Thayer!' and they will burn moral tapers about your feet; and meanwhile they'll leave Arlt sitting on the floor alone in ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... and I had other cause to regret my course; for passing a door ajar, I looked through the crack, hearing voices, and found Mrs Pratt conversing very much at her ease with my prodigal—a thing which, though well enough in Congreve's comedies, is what I will not have in my family. I am so ill-bred as to be quite insensible to the romantic nights ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... thing thus agreed on, all hearty and hale, The lord and his party, at crack of the dawn, With hounds at their heels canter'd over the lawn. Arrived, said the lord in his jovial mood, 'We'll breakfast with you, if your chickens are good. That lass, my good man, I suppose is your daughter: No news of a son-in-law? ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... of stairs lighted by starlight from a window somewhere high up. At the head of the flight they came to a door, and through the crack beneath it streamed a warmer light than starlight. Ivra opened that door gayly, and through it with her, Eric went ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... in the white robes and the thick head-dress that hid her face, all except a little crack left for the eyes to peep through, whilst Betty, with the help of Inez, arrayed herself in the wondrous wedding robe beset with jewels that was Morella's bridal gift, and hid her dyed tresses beneath ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... furled and gasketed, awnings stretched, and sheets and tackles coiled harbour fashion, David Grief paced the deck and looked vainly for a flutter of life elsewhere than on the strange schooner. Once, beyond any doubt, he heard the distant crack of a rifle in the direction of the Big Rock. There were no further shots, and he thought of it as some hunter shooting a ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... Are you desirous of becoming one, and making me your victim?" asked the hunter, with a look of contempt; "for you will find that no easy job, stout though you be. I have a good mind to crack your crown for coming here to ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... little bit. If you don't know your business, sir, I know mine. Somebody's got to tend that sling, and everybody's business is nobody's business. If I'm not on the job a bundle of shingles may come flying down from above and kill a man, or that heavy cargo block may crack a stevedore on the head. Who's going to look after the broken bundles and see that they're repacked if I don't? I can't do that and mule shingles round in this hold, sir; and what's more I'm not going ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... witnessed on the bloody day of Fuentes d'Onore, that of the Spanish guerilla chief, Julian Sanchez, deserves notice. At the head of his ragged and ill-disciplined band, he had the temerity to charge a crack French regiment, and, as might be expected, was sent back with a sore head. Whilst on the subject of guerillas, Mr Grattan combats an opinion which he believes many persons in this country entertain, "that the Spaniards and Portuguese did as much, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... shame of soldiers, Above the best of generals? crack the world, And bruise the name of Romans into dust, Ere ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... ice and water, the mountains themselves being the residual forms of this grand sculpture. I had heard the Via Mala cited as a conspicuous illustration of the fissure theory—the profound chasm thus named, and through which the Hinter-Rhein now flows, could, it was alleged, be nothing else than a crack in the earth's crust. To the Via Mala I therefore went in 1864 to instruct myself ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... again. Or lead me from this vile place, where one heareth naught but the squawk of birds and the croak of frogs. I would fain see the Green Dragon and the idiot groom that did send me here. I warrant thee I will crack his pate ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... are where you ought to be," repeated the ruffian, brandishing the horsewhip over him, "and now take the advice of a friend, and make no more noise. The lads are ready for you with the darbies, and they'll clink them on in the crack of this whip, unless you prefer another touch of it first." They then were advancing into the room as he spoke, with fetters in their hands (strait waistcoats being then little known or used), and showed, by their frightful countenances and gestures, no unwillingness ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... shelter of the masonry, he lit a splinter and looked about for a door or an opening through which he could get down underground. After looking about fruitlessly for some time, at last he discovered a hole at the foot of the wall, which seemed to lead downwards. He put the burning splinter in a crack in the wall, and cleared out so much earth and rubbish with his hands that he could creep through. After he had gone some distance, he came to a flight of stone stairs, and there was now room enough for him to stand ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... springs, mud-volcanoes, and vapour-vents abound all over the island, whilst earthquakes are by no means uncommon. There is a distinct line in the chain of these mountains which seems to point to a great fissure in the earth's crust, caused by the subterranean fires. This tremendous crack or fissure crosses the Straits of Sunda, and in consequence we find a number of these vents—as volcanic mountains may be styled—in the Island of Sumatra, which you saw to the nor'ard as you came ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... bottom of the wet mess of hair and red and flesh was old Shep, stone-dead. And as Saunderson pulled the body out, his face was working; for no man can lose in a crack the friend of a dozen years, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... gyardin dey had fur tuh skin. Ter fin' de crack whar Satan crept in Dey sarch fur and wide, dey sarch mighty well. Eve, she knowed, but she 'fused fur ter tell. Ole Satan's trail was all rubbed out 'Ceppen a track er two, whar he walked about. Talk about troubles, I ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... over this building—roof to cellar—within the hour. They'd not have overlooked a crack big enough for him to hide in. Put yourself in Clayte's place. Time was the most valuable thing in the world with him right then. If ever he got up to this roof, he'd not waste a minute longer on it than ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... made fast to the quay wall, but in forgetfulness that on a tidal river this fastening must be such as to allow for several feet of fall as the water ebbs. Therefore, about the inevitable hour of one o'clock, in the dark, there was a loud and ominous crack and jerk from the rope, and I knew too well the cause. In the rainy night it was a troublesome business to arrange matters, and next day was a drowsy one with me, spent in the strange ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... ascend to the belfry on moonlight nights, scribbling disparagement on the bells of Eulogius and Eucherius, which had ceased to be rung, and patting and caressing his own, which now did duty for all three. With alarm he noticed one night an incipient crack, which threatened to ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... her, for, swerving suddenly, he made for the crossing without slackening speed. He had almost reached the water's edge when there came a spurt of flame from the door of Doubler's cabin, followed by the sharp whip like crack of ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Cattle this Dragon did eat, Some say he eat up Trees, And that the Forest sure he would Devour by degrees. For Houses and Churches were to him Geese and Turkies; He eat all, and left none behind, But some Stones, dear Jack, which he could not crack, Which on the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... Doctor Bellamy, the better. Obstinate, swell-headed women give me an acute rectal pain. Pitching your curves over all the vizzies in space got you aboard, but it won't get you a thing from here on. And for your information, Doctor Bellamy, one more crack like that and I take you over my knee and ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... approach, that they did not become aware of it until we were within a few yards of them, and had ascended a little ridge, which, as we afterwards discovered, ended in an abrupt precipice upon the river, not more than thirty yards to our right. The crack of the drayman's whip was the first thing that aroused their attention. They gazed upon us for a moment, and then started up and assumed an attitude of horror and amazement; their terror apparently increasing upon them. We ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... readily, when brought to a red heat," said Mr. Arcubus, abstractedly, as he pulled at his long fingers and made their joints crack. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and tough as it cools. Indeed, the true use of gold in this world is only as a very pretty and very ductile clay, which you can spread as flat as you like, spin as fine as you like, and which will neither crack, nor tarnish. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... of years. My dear, how infinitely happier they will be together than they are being now. Funny old dears! Each at its own fireside, saying that it's too old, bless them! And you and I will sing 'Voice that breathed o'er Eden' and in the middle our angel-voices will crack, and we will sob into our handkerchief, and Eden will be left breathing deeply all by itself like the Guru. Why did you never tell me about the Guru? Mrs Weston's a better friend to me than you are, and I must ring for my cook—no I'll telephone ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... came back, Ma was sitting on a velocipede I used to ride, which was in the store-room, and she had her apron over her face, and she just more than bellowed. Pa he was pale, and he told the doc. he was just a playing with me with a little piece of board, and he heard something crack, and he guessed my spine got broke falling off the trunk. The doctor wanted to feel where my spine was broke, but I opened my eyes and had a vacant kind of stare, like a woman who leads a dog by a string, and looked as though my mind was wandering, and I told the doctor there was no use setting ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... Carlyon asked again for the story of the Goddess's discovery, and heard all the details of how there was a ray of light in the dark passage, coming from some cleverly contrived crack on the first terrace. Here Halcyone's foot had struck against the marble upon her original voyage of discovery, and by the other objects she encountered she supposed someone long ago, being in flight, had gradually dropped things ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... Conrad's store, the 7th Louisiana, Colonel Hays, a crack regiment, on picket down stream, had a spirited affair, in which the enemy was driven with the loss of a score of prisoners. Shortly after, for convenience of supplies, I was directed to cross the river and camp some miles to the southwest. The ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... Kentuckians, eager to avenge the slaughter of their friends at River Raisin. For three days the pursuit continued. At last, on the morning of the 5th of October, the army came up with Proctor. Fernando was with the advance guard when they came on a small party of Indians. The sharp crack of their rifles warned the armies to prepare for action, and both ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... hardly backed three paces when he bumped into some one. He was pushed violently forward, and, before he could recover, winced under a stinging crack from a whip. ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... humanity, struggling up or slipping back, it is no culture properly so called, but a sham, a mask of wax, a varnish with cruel glitter; and what a double wrath will be poured on him who cracks the wax and the varnish, not only because of the rude awakening, but because the crack ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... at Liege, to the southeast, still held out, though fiercely bombarded by German siege guns. The fortress of Namur was also being attacked. The Germans had bridged the river Meuse and were moving their crack artillery against the Belgian lines. French troops had joined the Belgian defenders and the main battle line extended from Liege on the north ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... country would be able to afford it; and similar competitive leagues, to supersede trade unions, would soon be formed by other trades. One seems to hear faintly the loud plaudits of the onlookers as two crack teams of West-end road-menders step smartly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... avert the evil eye they hang round a child's neck a nut called bajar-battu, the shell of which they say will crack and open if any one casts the evil eye on the child. If it is placed in milk the two parts will come together again. They also think that the nut attracts the evil eye and absorbs its effect, and the child is therefore not injured. If they think that some one has ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... his party, traced in their corresponding places on the large existing detailed plan of the fort, all the injuries arising from the attack. Every hole in the ground, (whether caused by the mortar shells or round shot,) break in the walls, crack in the masonry, each gun dismantled or disabled, the burnt citadel, the hospital and outbuildings, the destroyed bridges and injured magazines, were noted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... impossible to ignore the horrible truth. The door, cleverly constructed to serve the vengeful purposes of the Duchess, could not be opened from within. Rinaldo laid his cheek against the wall in various spots; nowhere could he feel the warmer air from the passage. He had hoped he might find a crack that would show him where there was an opening in the wall, but nothing, nothing! The whole seemed to be ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... off my rifle at a bird which I took for an eagle, little thinking how soon my wasted bullet (for I did not strike the bird) would be wanted in defence of my life. The crack of my piece reverberated from the green-topped bluffs that rose from the prairie; and I suppose it was this that brought Sir Bruin upon me. He came on with huge strides, and I had nothing but a hunting-knife to use in my defence, ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... crack and looked out. Before her, stretched along the banks of the river, were countless Austrian soldiers, staggering and fighting in a wild attempt to run away from the guns in the wall that mowed them down pitilessly. The officers tried to drive them ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... or unresisting; armed or unarmed; men, women and children alike were pitilessly being put to the sword. Charged was the air of Worcester with the din of that fierce massacre. The crashing of shivered timbers, as doors were beaten in, mingled with the clatter and grind of sword on sword, the crack of musket and pistol, the clank of armour, and the stamping of men and horses in that ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... returned it to his pocket, and clasped his hands about his knees, while he fixed his eyes on the glimmer of red showing itself through a crack in a stove-plate. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... described, we may say that "nigrography" is best adapted for copying drawings of a large size; the copies can with difficulty be distinguished from good autographs, and they do not possess the bad quality of gelatine papers—the tendency to roll up and crack. Drawings, however, which have shadow or gradated lines cannot be well produced by this process; in such cases it is better to adopt "anthrakotype," with which good results will ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... letter for you, Alec!" he cried. "Where's my hammer, Flip? I want to crack some of those nuts we ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... from Cairo he allowed this feature of his character a much freer run. The legend used to be that he was looked upon in Egypt as rather grim, and by no means to be trifled with. He was not the man, we may be sure, to be funny with a Young Turk, or to crack needless jokes with a recalcitrant Khedive. But retirement softened him, and the real nature of Lord Cromer, with its elements of geniality and sportiveness, came ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the whole configuration of the heartless, uncharacterized place there was not one gracious inequality to lean against; not a ledge to rest elbow upon; not a panel, not even a stove-pipe hole, to become dearly familiar to the wistful eye; not so much as a genial crack in the plastering, or a companionable rattle in a casement, or a little human obstinacy in a door to base some kind of an acquaintance upon and make one less lonely. Through the grim, untwinkling windows, gaping sullenly the wrong way with ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... Columbus has been greatly misunderstood, and his 600 biographers have in turn invested him with the glory of the religious hero and the contumely of the ill-tempered and crack-brained adventurer. An impartial critic must admit, indeed, that he was something of both, though more of the hero than the adventurer, and that his biographers have erred considerably in what Mr. R. L. Stevenson would ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... is War," says Julius Fraithorn. He pulls out his handkerchief and wipes his damp forehead and the beady blue lines about his mouth, and the crack and rattle of rifle-fire sweeping over the veld and through the town, and the ping, ping, ping! of Mauser bullets flattening on the iron gutter-pipe and the corrugated iron of the roof above them seem ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... right before the boat. Blue lightning streamed on a lane of tumbling waters at its foot. Was this the entrance? With the vague notion of shortening sail, I let the sheet go from my hand. There was a jerk, the crack of snapped wood, and the next flash showed me Castro emerging from the ruins of mast and sail. He uprose, hurling the wreck from him overboard, then flickered out of sight with his arm waving to the left, and I bore accordingly on the tiller. In a moment I saw him again, erect forward, with the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... host to-day should be the bugler Peterkin, And he should lead our smugglers up that steep and narrow track, A band of noble brigands, bearing each a mighty pack Crammed with lace and jewels to the secret cave of Peterkin, And he should wear the biggest boots and make his pistol crack,— The Spanish cloak, the velvet mask, we'd ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... business over again, sergeant," said one of the troopers. "I was on this job before, and I reckon we landed hereabouts every time we lit on Retief's trail. But we never got no further. Yonder keg is a mighty hard nut to crack. I guess the half-breed's got the bulge on us. If path across the mire there is he knows it and we don't, and, as you say, who's goin' to follow him?" Having delivered himself of these sage remarks he stepped to ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... it will not run through the Trencher, though it stand melted upon it; and this is to be helped by blowing the Coals a little, or pouring on new Lead that is hotter: but the cooler the Lead, the larger the Shot; and the hotter, the smaller; when it it too hot, the drops will crack and fly; then you must stop pouring on new Lead, and let it cool; and so long as you observe the right temper of the heat, the Lead will constantly drop into very round Shot, without so much as one with a tail ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... story. In a sea fight in the reign of Charles the Second, there was a very bloody engagement between the English and Dutch fleets, in the heat of which a Scotch sea-man was very severely bit by a louse on his neck, which he caught; and stooping down to crack it between his nails, many of the sailors near him had their heads taken off by a chain-shot from the enemy, which dashed their blood and brains about him; on which he had compassion upon the poor louse, returned him to ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... on the boom, and my companion also adhering to the gaff. Shortly after descending the Cascades, I perceived the barge, bottom upwards, floating near me. I succeeded in getting to it, and held by a crack in one end of it; the violence of the water, and the falling out of the casks of ashes, had quite wrecked it. For a long time I contented myself with this hold, not daring to endeavour to get upon the bottom, which I at length effected; and ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... cooked thus for invalids. The best way of lightly boiling an egg is to put it in boiling water, set the basin or saucepan on the side of the stove, and let it stand just off the boil for five or six minutes. Eggs often crack when they are put into enough boiling water to well cover them, owing to the sudden expansion of the contents. If they are not covered with water there is less danger of them cracking. One can easily tell stale eggs from fresh ones by holding them up to a strong light. A fresh egg looks clear and ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... lamp prevailed. The walls were of unpainted wood, made of slips as thin as laths, and several doors were roughly cut in it. At the end, one of these doors gaped open, music of a peculiar shrillness floated out. Also a smell as of musk and sandalwood drifted through the crack, with small, fitful trails of smoke ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... to form a laager or fort, their families and belongings being placed in the centre. During an attack the women would attend to the men's wants, reload their rifles, and even take a more active part in repelling the enemy, many of them being also crack shots. The above-stated efficient and hardy habits with men and women apply more to the people in the two Republics, and particularly so to those of the Transvaal, while the Colonial Boers on the whole have had no such experience, but instead have ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... burst into song. The Abbe Domenech {42} has observed that the American savage pays attention to every sound that strikes upon his ear when the leaves, softly shaken by the evening breeze, seem to sigh through the air, or when the tempest, bursting forth with fury, shakes the gigantic trees that crack like reeds. "The chirping of the birds, the cry of the wild beasts, in a word, all those sweet, grave, or imposing voices that animate the wilderness, are so many musical lessons, which he easily remembers." In illustration ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... easily heard in the silent vacuum of the storage cabin, alerted him. The crack of the sliding panel door opened and Vye crouched, his hand cupping the only possible weapon, the ration container. Hume edged through, shut the door behind him. He stood there, his head turned so his ear rested against the ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... name of this castle confounded with that of Nueva Cordoba. This latter denomination was formerly synonymous with Cumana.—Herrera, page 14.) The walls of freestone, five feet thick, have been blown up by mines; but we still found masses of seven or eight hundred feet square, which have scarcely a crack in them. Our guide showed us a cistern (aljibe) thirty feet deep, which, though much damaged, furnishes water to the inhabitants of the peninsula of Araya. This cistern was finished in 1681, by the governor Don Juan de Padilla Guardiola, the same who built at Cumana ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... Presently his voice came from its depths, appealing in hollow tones to the sky. "He asks me—thees friend of my soul, thees brother of my life, thees Pancho that I lofe—what it was? He would that I should tell him why I am game in the legs, why I shake in the hand, crack in the voice, and am generally wipe out! And yet he, my pardner—thees Francisco—know that I have seen the mees from Boston! That I have gaze into the eye, touch the hand, and for the instant possess the picture that hand have drawn! It was a sublime picture, Pancho," he said, sitting ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... in us, to see that all His deeds are done in us. Christ's will must become our will, Christ's peace our peace, Christ's sufferings our sufferings, Christ's cross our cross, and then we may know "the eternal Sabbath," and keep "quiet, even if the whole fabrick of heaven and earth crack and the ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... which they were apparently well acquainted, and in this traveling was easy. But Rod gave an involuntary shudder as he gazed ahead into the chaotic tangle through which it led. At any moment he expected to hear the sharp crack of a rifle and to see Mukoki tumble forward upon his face. Or there might be a fusillade of shots and he himself might feel the burning sting that comes with rifle death. At the distance from which they would shoot the outlaws could not miss. Did not Mukoki realize this? Maddened by the thought ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... he said cheerfully. "Stamboul and I have been sliding all over it, so of course it would bear an ox. It did not crack anywhere." ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... get nex' to me wife, de Circassian Beaut',' answers the Stone Breaker. 'He spouts bum poetry about her, an' I won't stand fer it, see? Leave me go an' I'll crack his nut as easy as I would a pavin' stone.' Merritt had lots of fight left in him and tried to break loose, but the Circassian's remarks wilted him and I never knew him to ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... word came to me out of the shadows with startling distinctness. I nodded. I sat there on that spindley, gim-crack chair and stared contemptuously at the paraphernalia of learning and refinement on the great table, at the silver cigarette box, the bronze inkstand, the sphinxes and scarabs and cenotaphs, the bits of papyrus under glass, the books and magnifying glasses. Stared at ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... apathetic way that he had intended to obey her behest but had not understood that she was in so great a hurry. "I am always in a hurry," she said. "I like things to be done—sharp." And she hit the table a crack. "Please bring me some iced water," this of course was addressed to the waiter. "And a glass ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... westward, and had, at the same time, closed in upon the land where the Griper was lying, by which means she was forced against the submarine ice, and her stern lifted two feet out of the water. This pressure, Lieutenant Liddon remarked, had given her a twist, which made her crack a good deal, but apparently without suffering any material injury in her hull, though the ice was still pressing upon her when Mr. Griffiths came away. She had at first heeled inward, but, on being lifted higher, fell over towards the deep water. Under ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... between the forest and an arm of the sea, they gently grounded the Callisto, and not being altogether sure how the atmosphere of their new abode would suit terrestrial lungs, or what its pressure to the square inch might be, they cautiously opened a port-hole a crack, retaining their hold upon it with its screw. Instantly there was a rush and a whistling sound as of escaping steam, while in a few moments their barometer stood at thirty-six inches, whereupon they closed the opening. "I fancy," said Dr. Cortlandt, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... villages above to their canoes in the rivers below. Lovely indeed are these cliffs; first, because of the profusion of fern frond, leaf, and moss, growing from everything that can climb to, lay hold of, or root itself in crack, crevice, or ledge, and droop, glistening with spray-drops, or wave whispering in the wind; next, because of the striking form and colour of the cliffs themselves. They are formed of what is called ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... in which it gets at these seeds shows a correlation of structure and habits, which would point out the "kanary" as its special food. The shell of this nut is so excessively hard that only a heavy hammer will crack it; it is somewhat triangular, and the outside is quite smooth. The manner in which the bird opens these nuts is very curious. Taking one endways in its bill and keeping it firm by a pressure of the tongue, it cuts a transverse notch by a lateral sawing motion of the sharp-edged lower ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... had fallen into a cool whirlpool, a smooth funnel of water swirling about with nauseating rapidity. And then (it must have been a reminiscence of his boyhood) he was walking on the dangerous thin ice of a river, unable to turn back. . . . Suddenly it parted from shore to shore with a loud crack like the ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... soon other and less exclusive regions, however, which I shared with other boys of that bygone day. Regions of freedom and delight, where I heard the ominous crack of Deerslayer's rifle, and was friends with Chingachgook and his noble son—the last, alas! of the Mohicans: where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck made merry, and exchanged buffets with Lion-hearted Richard under the green-wood tree: where Quentin Durward, happy squire of dames, rode midnightly ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... ice seemed now to crack ominously. 'You mean,' she said, 'that you wouldn't have thought of marrying Franklin if it ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... said; "but as I know you are a great deal heavier loser than that, I'll give you a chance to get even, so crack her down." ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... my limbs tottered, my eyelids closed. Then the shadow from the doorway moved towards and THROUGH me, and with the coldness of its passage I revived! With desperate energy I cut a couple of chunks off the washstand, and paring them down, eventually succeeded in slipping them in the crack of the door, and rendering it impossible to open from the outside. That done, I staggered to the bed, and falling, dressed as I was, on the counterpane, sank into a deep sleep. How long I slept I cannot say. I suddenly heard the loud neighing of a horse which seemed to come from just under ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... shot was not a mountaineer. Although it was evident that the firearms used were mostly old smooth-bore muskets, and the smoke from the powder rose in clouds over the undergrowth and drifted to the tree-tops, he had detected the sharp crack of a modern rifle occasionally among the duller reports of the more ancient weapons. The mysterious attackers were apparently numerous and completely surrounded them. Dermot cursed himself for his folly in halting for food instead of pushing on to safety without a stop. But he had calculated ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... curious nature he described to Dr. Silence. Outwardly or inwardly, it happened beyond a doubt, and in spite of the jeers of his few friends who heard the tale, and observed wisely that "such a thing might perhaps have come to Iszard, that crack-brained Iszard, or to that odd fish Minski, but it could never have happened to commonplace little Vezin, who was fore-ordained to live and ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... "that's not a Frenchman, my lads," and he closed the glass with a smart crack. "I say, ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... Katie, when she brought the pressed garments up over her arm and passed them in through a discreet crack in the door, "that these pants will stand more walking than sitting, Mr. K. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a crack in the door Roger saw the crew coming aboard. The engineer was in the lead; behind him came the captain, a tall man of vicious appearance, and a ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... simultaneous, with a less thunderous explosion than on Earth, but singing in a higher key and flaming vastly more, startled and terrified the Martians. Then crack! crack! bang! bang! four other shots in swift succession, followed by the terrific croaking of the wounded Terror-bird, which fell ponderously forward, kicking violently and beating the ground ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... no hiding place, no opening of any sort is found; if the examination of the walls—even to the demolition of the pavilion—does not reveal any passage practicable—not only for a human being, but for any being whatsoever—if the ceiling shows no crack, if the floor hides no underground passage, one must really believe in the Devil, ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... piece, to dash it straight again? Why should she take such work beyond her skill, Which, when she cannot perfect, she must kill? Alas! what is't to temper slime and mire? But Nature's puzzled when she works in fire. Great brains (like brightest glass) crack straight, while those Of stone or wood hold out, and fear not blows; And we their ancient hoary heads can see Whose wit was never their mortality. Beaumont dies young, so Sidney did before, There was not poetry he could live to more, He could not grow up higher, I ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... with a by-day now and then when the country's light, she's the best instance of perpetual motion I know. Well, it's not my fault the chief won't let us hunt our second chargers—that's the charm of being in a crack regiment—I always have one lame at least, and no one will sell me hunters ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... all were prominent men and all of them mental workers of high caliber. That didn't appear peculiar because it is the man of high mentality who is most apt to crack." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... examining the china on a side-table). Why, I declare, Julia! Here is your Dresden that was broken—without a crack in it! ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... the Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus, St. John, and several other figures of different sizes. It was painted on a pannel of 1-1/2 inches in thickness: a crack extended from its circumference to the left foot of the infant Jesus: it was 4-1/2 lines wide at its upper part, and diminished progressively to the under: from this crack to the right hand border, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... in this book in all cases where the term "pressure of the gas" or the like is used. The quantity of acetylene which will flow in a given time from the open end of a pipe is a function of this pressure, while the quantity of acetylene escaping through a tiny hole or crack or a burner orifice also depends on this total pressure, though the ratio in this instance is not a simple one, owing to the varying influence of friction between the issuing gas and the sides of the orifice. Where, however, acetylene or other gas is flowing ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... hammered. Long afterwards I found myself trembling with those waves of vibrating sounds. Worse still, because sharper and more piercingly staccato, was my experience close to a battery of French cent-vingt. Each shell was fired with a hard metallic crack, which seemed to knock a hole into my ear-drums. I suffered intolerably from the noise, yet—so easy it is to laugh in the midst of pain—-I laughed aloud when a friend of mine, passing the battery in his motor-car, raised his hand to one of the gunners, and said, "Un moment, s'il ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... seems finally exhausted. There is not a grain left in the barns where he had garnered up the harvests of the past; there is not a head of wheat to be found in the fields where he had always been able to glean something; if he shakes the tree of knowledge in the hope of a nut to crack or a frozen-thaw to munch, nothing comes down but a shower of withered leaves. His condition is what, in the parlance of his vocation, he calls being out of a subject, and it is what may happen to him equally whether ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... but he would walk Long miles to serve a friend, And though he cares not crack a joke, ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... and less exclusive regions, however, which I shared with other boys of that bygone day. Regions of freedom and delight, where I heard the ominous crack of Deerslayer's rifle, and was friends with Chingachgook and his noble son—the last, alas! of the Mohicans: where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck made merry, and exchanged buffets with Lion-hearted Richard ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... punk's opened the cubicle a crack, looking like he's about to pass out while he's doin' it. This bearded guy, Eltak, stands in front of the cubicle, holding the gadget he controls ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... came a creak or two, a rustling in the corner of the room as of some one descending from above, and, though invisible, the muzzles of the two pieces were slowly lowered in the direction of the noise, till with a crack the door in the corner was thrust inward and the little old priest stood looking wonderingly from one to the other as he raised ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... pops out of a filbert-shell in a crack; and I have known it float on the first glass of Herefordshire cider; it also hath some affinity with very stiff and old bottled beer; but in a morning it seemeth unto me like a ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... whole of the back seat, and Jo was squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven hours' ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... shock is now a more profitable close herder than any cowpuncher who ever wore spurs. This is a sad thing for an old rangeman to contemplate, but it is nevertheless the simple truth. Soon the merry crack of the six Footer will no more be heard in the land, its wild and woolly manipulator being driven across the last divide, with faint show of resistance, by an unassuming ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... fascination about those fearless and richly imaginative theories which explained all the great changes in the crust of the earth by magnificent cataclysms, upheaving, exploding, overwhelming. The crack of doom meant something after all! What had been should be again. Old times had stories to tell of sublime catastrophes, the crash of systems, and the swallowing up of chains of cloud-capped mountains ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... sentence, for the sharp crack of a rifle suddenly split the air, and a bullet, passing through the top of Reynolds' hat, spattered on the rock close to his head. Instantly another shot rang out, farther down the creek, followed immediately by a wild, piercing shriek of ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... an ideal stove for corpses that wanted to endure for ever. The limestone, on which for that matter no rain ever falls from the changeless sky, looks to be in one single piece from summit to base, and betrays no crack or crevice by which anything might penetrate into the sepulchres within. The dead could sleep, therefore, in the heart of these monstrous blocks as sheltered as under vaults of lead. And of what there is of magnificence the centuries have taken care. The continual passage of winds laden ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... stay here and be threshed to pieces," Vic cried. "This crack is drier, anyhow, and ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... would storm at them in a gurgling voice, blinking his short-sighted hazel eyes very rapidly, and wrinkling up his forehead till it looked like squeezed india-rubber. It was on record that he had once hit Lois Barlow a hard crack over the knuckles with his fountain-pen, whereupon she wept—not so much from pain as from injured feelings—and he had apologized in quite a gentlemanly fashion, and picked up the music that in his burst of temper he had flung ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... gone on ahead with the light, so that he had to complete the ascent in darkness. When he was near the top, he saw yellow light shining through the crack of a half-opened door. His companions were standing just inside a small room, shut off from the staircase by rough wooden planking; it was rudely furnished and contained nothing of astronomical interest. The lantern ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... a glimpse of the objects around, and discovered that we were near the extremity of the straight portion of the fissure, where it made a turn to the left. A few struggles more, and we reached the bend, when to our inexpressible joy, there appeared a long seam or crack extending upward a vast distance, generally at an angle of about forty-five degrees, although sometimes much more precipitous. We could not see through the whole extent of this opening; but, as a good deal of light came down it, we had little doubt of finding at the top of it (if ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... order; otherwise I should not be where I am this day. And of one thing I am rather glad; Uncle Reuben well deserves that his pet scheme should miscarry. He who called my boy a coward, an ignoble coward, because he would not join some crack-brained plan against the valley which sheltered his beloved one! And all the time this dreadful 'coward' risking his life daily there, without a word to any one! How glad I am that you will not have, for all her miserable money, that little ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... forefathers landed on the American shore, the music of welcome with which they were greeted, was the clanking of iron chains ready to fetter them; the crack of the whip to be used to plow furrows in their backs; and the yelp of the blood-hound who was to bury his fangs deep into their flesh, in case they sought for liberty. Such was the music with which the Anglo-Saxon came down to the shore to extend a hearty welcome to the forlorn children ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... overwhelmingly voted down in various States—New York, Connecticut, Ohio, etc.—and you know, gentlemen, that if the negro had never had the right to vote until the majority of the rank and file of white men, particularly foreign-born men, had voted "Yes," he would have gone without it till the crack of doom. It was because of the prejudice of the unthinking majority that Congress submitted the question of the negro's enfranchisement to the Legislatures of the several States, to be adjudicated by the educated, broadened representatives of the people. We now appeal to you to lift the decision ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... you're satisfied that a mosquito or so's the only live stock on the premises, I should like you both to crack a bottle ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... said Simon warmly. "This is like the old days! If you were only with us now what a nut there would be for you to crack!" ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... as it may," continued Garvers, "it was the only explanation I had at the time. Either someone was watching me, which seemed impossible, or I was beginning to crack under the strain. ...
— The Untouchable • Stephen A. Kallis
... we made up a tolerable present, both for him and his friends. This old chief had an air of dignity about him that commanded respect, which the other had not. He was grave, but not sullen; would crack a joke, talk on indifferent subjects, and endeavour to understand us and be understood himself. During this visit, the old priest repeated a short prayer or speech, the purport of which we did not understand. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... at this confusion in his personal pronouns, Capua mounted nimbly on pieces of furniture, thrust his pocket-knife through a crack of the wainscot, opened the door of a small unseen closet, and, after groping about and inserting his head as Van Amburgh did in the lion's mouth, scrambled down again with his hand full of charred and blackened papers, talking glibly all ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... or, "That'll take the bark from your nozzle, and distil the Dutch pink for you, won't it?" While to another he would mention as an interesting item of news, "Now we'll tap your best October!" or, "There's a crack on your snuff-box!" or, "That'll damage your potato-trap!" Or else he would kindly inquire of one gentleman, "What d'ye ask a pint for your cochineal dye?" or would amiably recommend another that, as his peepers were a goin' fast, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... fixed for the ninth of July, and the bride and bridegroom were to have four weeks' motoring in the north of England. When the honeymoon was officially over they were to make country-house visits in Scotland for the shooting season. Sidney Vandyke boasted of being a crack shot, and Diana hoped to be proud of her American husband among ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... she dusted the parlour, including all the bric-a-brac, which made dusting here an engrossing occupation. Later she helped grandpa hoe the cabbages, and afterward "puttered around" with grandma in the flower-garden. Then she and grandma listened, very quietly, through a crack in the nearly-closed door while grandpa conducted a hearing in the parlour. To tell the truth, Missy wasn't greatly interested in whether Mrs. Brenning's chickens had scratched up Mrs. Jones's tomato-vines, hut she pretended to be interested because ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... have got one of the hardest nuts to crack that were ever put before me. If I crack it, I get five thousand pounds for the kernel. If I don't crack it—but that's a possibility I ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... complexion, indigestion, loss of appetite, nervous symptoms. Spasmodic muscular contraction of the external sphincter. The bowel contents press upon it; spasm of this sphincter muscle is frequently brought on by the presence of a crack in the mucous membrane, caused by injury inflicted during expulsion of hardened feces. Instead of aiding a bowel movement, the muscles now present an obstruction beyond control of the will and aggravate the condition. The most frequent cause ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... When the ice-crack flies and flaws, Shore to shore, with thunder shock, Deeper than the evening daws, Clearer than the ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... went on, he espied a high tower, and, at one of its windows, there was a light. He made his way to this tower, and quickly ran up the stairs leading to the room that contained the light. At last, seeing its rays through the crack of the door, he turned the ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... across it to the sea. The gladness these streams gave me I cannot communicate. The tide had filled thousands of hollows in the breakwater, hundreds of cracked basins in the rocks, huge sponges of sand; from all of which—from cranny and crack, and oozing sponge—the water flowed in restricted haste back, back to the sea, tumbling in tiny cataracts down the faces of the rocks, bubbling from their roots as from wells, gathering in tanks of sand, and overflowing in broad shallow streams, curving and sweeping in their sandy ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... that were cracked in shipment but the parts were held together with the paper label. As these were single-faced disk records, I used the following method to stick them together: I covered the back of one with shellac and laid the two back to back centering the holes with the crack in one running at right angles to the crack in the other. These were placed on a flat surface and a weight set on them. After several hours' drying, I cleaned the surplus shellac out of the ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... could not help a feeling of anger; and she heard with satisfaction the regular crack of the rifles. Her thought was—"They will make these people find their tongues also, very soon." She was exceedingly anxious for information; and, as she ate her roll and drank her coffees she was considering how they could gain it. For even ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... poplar, into whose heart the flames had eaten, gave a loud crack, quivered above the heads of the startled crowd, and broke in the middle. The lower half remained erect, whilst the upper portion fell blazing upon the ruins of the triumphal arch, as, in a duel, a desperately wounded ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... stop that man first," said he. "But what excuse have I? He may be nothing but a crank, with some crack-brained idea in his head. We'll soon know; for there's certainly ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... some time had elapsed, and it was nearing the hour for going to bed, did Fraulein Rottenmeier venture to open the door a crack and call through, "Have you taken those dreadful little ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... time one heard the crack of a whip behind the hedge; then the gates opened, a chaise entered. Galloping up to the foot of the steps, it stopped short and emptied its load. They got down from all sides, rubbing knees and stretching arms. The ladies, wearing bonnets, had on dresses in the town fashion, gold watch ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... shall be happy if you will sit in my pew on Sunday morning. Your Northern shells did their best in the bombardment—did you say that you rang? I think you had better pull it again; all the way out; yes, like that—in the bombardment, but we have our old church still, in spite of you. Do you see the crack in that wall? The earthquake did it. You're spared earthquakes in the North, as you seem to be spared pretty much everything disastrous—except the prosperity that's going to ruin you all. We're better off with our poverty than you. Just ring the bell ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... hostess of the Northland, Ancient dame of Sariola, While at work within her dwelling, Heard the whips crack on the fenlands, Heard the rattle of the sledges; To the northward turned her glances, Turned her vision to the sunlight, And her thoughts ran on as follow: "Who are these in bright apparel, On the banks of Pohya-waters, Are they ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... irrepressible man with the apron, who always turns up to sell nuts and sweetmeats in a crowd, plied his trade in silence, and found few indeed (to the credit of the nation be it spoken) who had the heart to crack a nut at such a time as this. The police were on the spot, in large numbers, and in mute sympathy with the people, touching to see. Julius, on being stopped at the door, mentioned his name—and received an ovation. His brother! oh, ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... inadequate makeshifts of every kind to hold the Company system together that the pioneers might have the water, without which the work of reclamation could not be done. He knew every stake and pile and plank and crack and patch in the whole system. He had learned the tricks of the river and was familiar with the conditions peculiar to the desert country. He knew the terrible danger of the flood season that was only two months away. He had planned and prepared to meet ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... and moose, the skins of foxes, beavers, mink, Keep glossy guard above the horde that gaily eat and drink; It's oh, the famous yarns we tell and famous yarns we hear, And we taste the grateful viands or we quaff the foaming beer; And many a lively song we sing and many a joke we crack When we're guests of Louis Auer at his Lake ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... to shoot uptown, turning a corner into another deserted boulevard. As it skirted the great Park, he pointed at Central Tower. There seemed to be a slight crack in the smooth surface half way up but, as a moment's mist engulfed the tower, it looked flawless again. Then all the mist was gone and the crack was back, a ...
— Cerebrum • Albert Teichner
... and thunder black, With rain and hail, so much could not be spanned; Fell thunderbolts often on every hand, And verily the earth quaked in answer back From Saint Michael of Peril unto Sanz, From Besencun to the harbour of Guitsand; No house stood there but straight its walls must crack: In full mid-day the darkness was so grand, Save the sky split, no light was in the land. Beheld these things with terror every man, And many said: "We in the Judgement stand; The end of time is presently at hand." They spake no truth; they did not understand; 'Twas ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... that if we meant to get up we'd better stick to him. Walters, however, sent this fellow off with Lucy, and then we fastened on the rope and began to climb. We got up perhaps a hundred feet by kicking steps in the snow, but that's a tiring job for the leader, and when he found a crack in the wall, where we could stop, the guide ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... for. Go out and see if you can't get one of them," Billy the Kid had told the dying man, and through the crack of the door had watched him stumbling over the frozen snow toward the posse, while his numbed fingers fumbled with his revolver butt in a final access of ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... time Farr came into a village, a hamlet of small houses which toed the crack of a single street. It was near the hour of noon and from the open windows of kitchens drifted scents of the dinners which the women were preparing. All the men of the place seemed to be afield; only women were in sight here and there at back doors, pinning freshly washed garments ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... gauging the breed and quality of the horses as he went. The horses were, without exception, splendid animals, while the men were, for the most part, fine, stalwart fellows, well set up; but, accustomed as Escombe had been to the sight of the Life Guards and other crack cavalry regiments in London, he could not avoid seeing that there was plenty of room for improvement in the appearance and discipline generally of his own bodyguard. Yet it was glaringly apparent to him that Umu, their captain, was inordinately ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... in wait for the Premier to utter them. Only by an effort of will could he lift them to a plane of high interest. He could sketch great issues with the solemn hand of a great preacher pronouncing a benediction; but he never could utter an aside, or crack a joke, or tell a story, or forget that once upon a time Fate had picked him to be a leader and so help him he would go through the motions of shepherding while the other men were the real collie dogs of the flock. If only Borden could have broken ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... then went on, very cautiously this time, for a little way, until he heard the crack of the Express, followed by the Hunter's bull voice calling on the men to ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... him a moment and then laughed; and he laughed so rarely that it distorted the yellow parchment of his face as if it must crack it. The sound of his laughter was something like the creaking of a cart imitated by a ventriloquist. But Padre Francesco knit his bushy brows, for he thought the sailor was making game of him, who had been ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... and skill'd in learned rhetorick— Think'st thou 'twere sad to gaze upon the look, That sudden on the harlot's painted features, Set in the stale attraction of forc'd smiles, Darkens so wildly—that, like one amaz'd, From the crack'd glass she staggers, to her brow Lifts her wan, jewell'd finger—tries to think? The wanton provocation of her features Chang'd all to sickly twilight, blank dismay— And when thought comes, to see the poor wretch quiver, Her eyes' fire turn'd to water—those blue eyes, Where once sweet ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... searching look at the objects of his suspicions, he nodded with great sagacity to the listeners, and continued, as he moved slowly towards the interior of the country, "I should na wonder if she carried King George's commission aboot her: weel, weel, I wull journey upward to the town, and ha' a crack wi' the good mon; for they craft have a suspeecious aspect, and the sma' bit thing wu'ld nab a mon quite easy, and the big ane wu'ld hold us a' and no ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... can see, I can see through them. When I was coming out from the Superior's I saw one hiding from me behind the door, and a big one, a yard and a half or more high, with a thick long gray tail, and the tip of his tail was in the crack of the door and I was quick and slammed the door, pinching his tail in it. He squealed and began to struggle, and I made the sign of the cross over him three times. And he died on the spot like a crushed spider. He must have rotted there in the corner and be stinking, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... rash enthusiasm. You respect him so much, you wonder why you do not love him more. It is because he is not open to influence. His goodness is so rigid, his opinions so declared, his character so pronounced, that there is no crack anywhere by which God or man can reach him. He has a whole armor of opinions all round him, and you cannot get through it. He has narrowed himself, and shut himself in, so that he feels no influence of sympathy coming from the wide ocean of humanity around, no influence of love from the ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... are growing Around the palm-tree's crown: I used to climb and pick them off, And hear them—crack!—come down. There all day long the purple figs Are falling, I declare: How pleasant 'tis in monkey-land! Oh, would that I ...
— The Nursery, October 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 4 • Various
... bowstring is that of a sharp twang accompanied by a muffled crack. To avoid this and make a silent shot, the Indian bound his bow at the nocks with weasel fur; this effectually damped the vibration of the string, while the passage of the arrow across the bow, which gives the slight ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... pulled and tugged. Yet though she had not screamed, someone astray in the woods seemed to have heard the struggle. A short but nimble figure came along the woodland path like a humming bullet and had caught Count Gregory a crack across the face before his own could be recognized. When it was recognized it was that of Camille, with the black elderly beard and the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... the carriage drew up before the inn door, the host delivered his most obsequious bow, fair Rosa bade farewell to her lover, the prince and Gulielmo entered the stately vehicle, and, with a loud crack of the coachman's whip, the travellers ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... Long afterwards I found myself trembling with those waves of vibrating sounds. Worse still, because sharper and more piercingly staccato, was my experience close to a battery of French cent-vingt. Each shell was fired with a hard metallic crack, which seemed to knock a hole into my ear-drums. I suffered intolerably from the noise, yet—so easy it is to laugh in the midst of pain—-I laughed aloud when a friend of mine, passing the battery in his motor-car, raised his hand ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... of crack cracks amongst the bones, and turning round he beheld a frightful-looking spectre, pointing with its ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... was master of himself. "Give it to me, Madam, if you please," he said, quietly, and took the knife from fingers which loosened under his grasp. There was no further word spoken. He tossed the knife into a crack of the bunk beyond him. He lay with his right arm doubled under his head, looking up steadily into the low ceiling, upon which the fire made ragged masses of shadows. His left arm, round, full and muscular, lay across the figure ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... See that crack in the wall? Master Jim say yes, and I say, it's just like the open door when the eyes are close to the wall. He peek and see ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... good drink of the clear, cold water from a cup made of a basswood leaf, they washed faces and hands, and went to the flat rock for breakfast. The butternuts were not quite ripe; they stained fingers, and they were hard to crack—with just a stone for a hammer—but there were "lots of them," as ...
— Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Obtyosov walked in. Now she could get a view of them. The doctor was corpulent and swarthy; he wore a beard and was slow in his movements. At the slightest motion his tunic seemed as though it would crack, and perspiration came on to his face. The officer was rosy, clean-shaven, feminine-looking, and as supple ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... an American." The sarcasm was not lost on Truxton King, but he was not inclined to resent it. A twinkle had come into the eyes of the ancient; the deep lines about his lips seemed almost ready to crack into a smile. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the rescue of his help-meet, and pulling her through the door, endeavored to shut it on the instant, to keep out the foe; in doing which the proboscis of Mistress Pettit, which was truly of the Strasburgh order, was unhappily and literally caught in the door crack, and beyond all question somewhat injured thereby. In the language of the trumpeter's wife in Tristram Shandy, it was truly "a noble nose," and the pinch it endured, though transient, it must be confessed, was rather severe and biting. ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... than I've ever loved anybody in this world but one person, and if I should ever be separated from you I think it would break my heart—so that you could hear it crack with a loud ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... music lessons long enough to listen to an idea that some of us have been talking over?" called Dick. "Now, fellows, you know this is the time when the crack Gridley High School football team is hard at work. We're all proud of the Gridley High School eleven. A lot of you fellows expect to go to High School, and I know you'd all like a chance to ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... pleasure was my pleasure; but make my pleasure yours, and you remain to crack many ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cavern, according to Mr. Nicholson, are very vibrant and resonant. One can play a "xylophone solo" on them with practice, he said, but it is dangerous, since a certain pitch would crack them. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... speed but a trifle, they rounded the corner just as the sharp crack of a rifle rang out. Around a second corner they dodged, ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... see," he said, "the wind we had was never anything out of the way; but the sea was really nasty, the schooner wanted a lot of humouring, and it was clear from the glass that we were close to some dirt. We might be running out of it, or we might be running right crack into it. Well, there's always something sublime about a big deal like that; and it kind of raises a man in his own liking. We're a queer ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that I know ye to be well off, which I feared ye were not. The nut to crack is to know whether I hadst best find safety by returning to New York, to live like a pauper on Phil, or seek to lie hid here ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Mater," wrote Dennis, "I'm going to give you a surprise, unless the Gazette's out already. You've heard me speak of Private Hawke of ours, the crack shot of my company, well, he and I have got three days' leave for a special reason. The King is going to present Hawke with the V.C., which he has deserved over and over again, at Buckingham Palace next Thursday. Incidentally I might mention that I am also to receive it on the same day. Also the ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... who work all day in the open air of a mild climate and who sleep at night in huts and cabins where crack and crevice and skylight admit abundant ventilation, will be subject to pulmonary weakness. Now take the same people and transplant them to the large cities of a colder climate, subject them to pursuits which do not call for a high degree of bodily energy, crowd them into alley tenements ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... "I thought thee no such fool! Why crack thy brains with study when I can show thee a surer path to ease and preferment? But I see thou art too proud to do an old man a service. Thou writst thyself gentleman, forsooth, and high blood will ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... there, and our association is doing heroic work, although but two years old; we get our committees together two or three times a year, compare notes and crack the whip for another run. Then when we get together in annual convention there is something doing. We cut out the frills and get at once to business. No welcomes by the mayor and response by Colonel Long Bow with a brass band, but rather like the women ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... doll-like men circling placidly round and round the rink. One bubble cloud rose and slowly swallowed up the sun. Suddenly I heard a sharp crack like the breaking of a twig. "What's that?" I said, stepping forward on to the balcony. "It sounded ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... when I seed fru de winder dat de ladies war gwine, I know'd you'd talk 'bout politics and de darkies—gemmen allers do. So I opened de winder bery softly—you didn't har 'cause it rained and blowed bery hard, and made a mighty noise. Den I stuffed my coat in de crack, so de wind could'nt blow in and lef you know I was dar, but I lef a hole big 'nough to har. My ear froze to dat hole, massa, bery ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... lights upon these, gray, motionless figures. They sit perfectly upright, some with their backs and some with their breasts toward me, but every head turned squarely in my direction. Their eyes are closed to a mere black line; though this crack they are watching me, evidently thinking themselves unobserved. The spectacle is weird and grotesque. It is a new effect, the night side of the woods by daylight. After observing them a moment I take a single step toward them, when, quick as thought, their eyes fly wide open, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... quick-natured, too. She put him out of the kitchen with a coal shovel, after which Herman told her through a crack of the door that she was ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... heaven.' Or they may say, 'Go, become incarnate in some human being.' They stay by the corpse for 1 1/4 pahars or watches or some four hours, until either the skull is broken by the chief mourner or breaks of itself with a crack. Then they bathe and come home and after some hours again return to the corpse, to see that it is properly burnt. If the pyre should go out and a dog or other animal should get hold of the corpse when it is half-burnt, all ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... of but one idea at a time. Close to the front line of spectators, however, there came a check. People were vexed at the audacity of the girl and the elderly woman, and would have pushed them back, but at the critical second the blue and silver uniformed band of Rhaetia's crack regiment, the Imperial Life Guards, struck up an air which told that the Emperor was coming. Promptly the small group concerned forgot its grievance, in excitement, crowding together so that Virginia was pressed to the front, and only Miss Portman ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... brown hand was in his pocket, close to them—a mighty hand, beside which they were pigmies indeed in the land of the giants. What would have been the value of their lives between a finger and thumb that could crack a ripe ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... a hard nut for the opponents of the canal theory to crack, that I am quite prepared to learn that all these careful observations ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... physical history as in the sublime record of that intellectual progress whereby humanity draws constantly nearer to the divine? And as for patriotic feeling, do we not yearly burn tons of powder on the all-glorious Fourth of July, and crack our throats with huzzas for the 'star-spangled banner' and the American eagle? And a caviller might perhaps go farther, and ask the significant question, Are we not known all over the world as a race ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sailed 220 yards. Anson was first to start the applause with a 'Good boy. She's a homer.' Then he led the gallery to the first green. He was puffing when he pulled up at the eighteenth hole, but he felt better than if he had stolen second base. 'I'd like to take a crack at that golf ball,' he said. 'You can put me down for a trial the first chance I get. Wouldn't mind togging up in kilts just to give the Prince of Wales a run for his money.'" For the sake of giving prominence ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... ever makes use of it, leads up towards Due Castelli, now ruinous, but at one time a thriving and important town. On the way, near Orsera, the little island of "Scoglio Orlandino" is passed, rocky and divided into two portions by a chasm or crack. Legend says that Orlando, passing that way, made a slash at it and left it as it ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... Hail to the chief! I salute you. But consider, O conqueror, what it is you are about to do. You are setting a woeful example. There will be a stampede, a panic. People will trample each other under foot in ze mad rush for captivity. The wedding bell will crack under ze strain of so much ringing. Everybody will be getting married, now zat they find it is so easy and so simple. I congratulate you, my friend. You have been very slow,—I have said she was yours ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... of peace, misguided men are dealing death-blows to their fellow men. I hear cries of rage, I hear the groans of the dying. But sadder than these bloody fields of open strife are the dark places of cruelty. I hear the clank of the prisoner's chain, and the crack of the slave-driver's whip. I see desperate and despairing faces revealing tortured souls to whom the light of each day brings more bitter wrongs, viler indignities, until they are ready to curse God for the burden of life. Sadder still, I hear the dark whisperings of those who would destroy ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... children not be in school. Somehow they must all manage to break the bonds that held them there and escape from the death-trap before the fatal swinging menace reached them. The stroke of nine, booming out in that house, would be like the Crack o' Doom to ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... had dismissed the idea from my mind as too disagreeable to be entertained, and, moreover, as so alien from my disposition and character that Fate surely could not keep such a misfortune in store for me. If nothing else prevented, an earthquake or the crack of doom would certainly interfere before I need rise to speak. Yet here was the Mayor getting on inexorably,—and, indeed, I heartily wished that he might get on and on forever, and of his wordy wanderings find ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... someone saw Baree. It was a big beaver swimming down the pond with a sapling timber for the new dam that was under way. Instantly he loosed his hold and faced the shore. And then, like the report of a rifle, there came the crack of his big flat tail on the water—the beaver's signal of danger that on a quiet night can be ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... aloft, there went up a general shout of "Favourite!" His beauty told on the populace, and even somewhat on the professionals, though the legs kept a strong business prejudice against the working powers of "the Guards' crack." The ladies began to lay dozens in gloves on him; not altogether for his points, which perhaps they hardly appreciated, but for his owner and rider, who, in the scarlet and gold, with the white sash across his ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... there was no escape from this position. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat down on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then rose, went to the door of the reception room and peeped through the crack, returned flourishing his arms, and took up a book. His major-domo came in a second time to say that the Frenchman who had brought the letter from the countess was very anxious to see him if only for a minute, and that ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... corn to shell, and hemp to hackle; and at which ever corner of the fireplace Winthrop might set himself down, a pair of little feet would come pattering round him, and petitions, soft but strong, to cut an apple, or to play jackstraws, or to crack hickory nuts, or to roast chestnuts, were sure to be preferred; and if none of these, or if these were put off, there was still too much of that sweet companionship to suit with the rough road to learning. Winnie was rarely ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... sae badly," Sam Ineson agreed, "and we sall hae summat to crack about when we git back to Wharfedale, choose how. Thou'll hae to tak a Sunday schooil class at Gerston, Jerry, an' tell t' lads all about Solomon's pools, where we catched them Turks, an' t' tomb o' t' Prophet ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... danger, but too late to stave it off. His immense head struck the rear of the monster with such momentum that he was lifted fully a foot from the ground, the concussion sounding like the crack of a pistol. ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... thanks to Blue Coat had been moved by Brown Surtout and Crack under both Arms, the Fustian ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... treated them to such a close scrutiny through a pair of field-glasses. They had, for the moment, forgotten all about their Korean friend of the docks; and, in any case, would hardly have expected to find him on the first-class promenade deck of a crack ocean liner. ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... he said at last. "It's a rather hard problem to crack. I wish there was some one in the family we could go ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... in Denis. I don't trust these very cheerful men, who have a ready laugh and a sense of humour. They laugh to conceal the fact that they cannot crow, and they crack jokes because they cannot break hearts. Give me the broody serious men with fierce ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... had got the kernel yourself, and thought that I had taken all the trouble to crack the nut and had found myself with nothing but the shell. Then, when you found you couldn't eat the kernel, that you couldn't get rid of the swag without assistance, you came to me to help you. I began to think then that you were too many ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... I started to scream before the breath was knocked out of me by colliding with some girls who had been skating in front of us. One of them had caught her skate in a crack, and we were so intent on our conversation that we bumped into them, and all tumbled in a heap. Nobody was hurt. That is, nobody was hurt physically. We picked ourselves up and went on skating as before. It was ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... over hill and plain. To halt and change horses is only the work of two minutes —out comes one horse, the other is standing close by and never stirs while the hot harness is being put upon him; in he goes into the rough shafts, and, with a crack of the half-breed's whip across his flanks, away ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... him," he said, happily, "safe and sound in the corn-crib, and it's hotter than all get out in there. He can't escape unless he slips through a crack in the floor. I just caught him red handed as he was bending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tried to tell me, Miss Kit? He said he was looking for caterpillars." Shad laughed riotously at the recollection. "Did ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... was that he never wasted time—he used every spare minute for something. He "would even get in ten minutes of work between river and Hall." He not only became a prize scholar and oarsman, but won walking races; he joined the Volunteers and became a crack rifle shot, and ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... the very same. I see him break Skogan's head at the court-gate, when a' was a crack not thus high: and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent! and to see how many of my ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... a rifle along with them and they were glad they had done so, for as they made their way through a patch of brush a beautiful deer sprang out and dashed off. Jack had the rifle at his shoulder in a minute and the creature bounded into the air, as the crack of the report sounded, ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... ignored its setting of the common and the ridiculous. He looked at her and smiled. Ellen smiled back tremulously, then she cast down her eyes. The fire was roaring, but the room was freezing. The sitting-room door was opened a crack, and remained so for a second, then it was widened, and Andrew peeped in. Then he entered, tiptoeing gingerly, as if he were afraid of disturbing a meeting. He brought a blue knitted shawl, which he put over ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... get her—or crack a cylinder!" and he tried to get a few more revolutions out of the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... singing—Thus far I did come laden with my sin; Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in Till I came hither: What a place is this! Must here be the beginning of my bliss? Must here the burden fall from off my back Must here the strings that bound it to me crack? Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be The man that there was put ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... family, who sat round him on their podgy haunches in a respectfully wide circle, and marvelled fearfully at his robust prowess. They had all yapped before, but this deep, resonant bark—fully one in three had no crack in it—this was an achievement indeed. After a while the grey bitch pup came and tentatively chewed Finn's backbone, with a vague idea that the sound ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... queerly. An official letter was put into the hands of Sir George Grey, as he stood on the seashore at Wanganui, watching a skirmish in progress with the Maoris. He seated himself, opened the envelope, and forgot the crack of muskets in the document it contained. This was the first constitution for New Zealand, and he was instructed to introduce the same. He didn't; only that is a very red-letter tale. It should be told simply, as Sir George Grey ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... been a dark cellar, filled to overflowing with shadows. Down into this cellar he had gone with a beating heart, and had forced himself to search out every crack and cranny, even to the coal-bin. Of course he found nothing to fear, and now it was Philemon who was always ready to go down for apples in the winter evenings, and that too ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... ourselves, so we just kinder managed it, so's without inconveniencin' the nation any or addin' undooly to its expenses, it would do our celebratin' for us. You ain't no notion how grand it makes a body feel to be woke up at the crack o' dawn on one's weddin' mornin' with the noise o' the bombardin' in honor o' the day! I'm like to miss it this year, with only my own four young Yankees spoilin' my sleep settin' off ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... often had I beheld him sit by the hour with his eye on the door behind which his one darling lay ill! Even now, it was easy for me to recall his face as I had sometimes caught a glimpse of it through the crack of the suddenly opened door, and I felt my breast heave and my hand falter as I drew forth the stiletto and moved to place it where his eye would fall upon it on ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... very much if anybody was creeping about outside the fence. The boards were close together, with scarcely a crack half an inch wide anywhere. A light ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... scoundrel," shouted Anthony, and raising his cane, brought it down with a crack on Doyle's head. The chauffeur was half-way up the walk by that time, and broke into a run. He saw Doyle, against the light, reel, recover and raise his fist, but he did not ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and that there we should see the whole English bar, and hosts of distingues besides. So, though I was tired, I hurried to dress in all the glee of meeting an adventure, as Mr. and Mrs. B. and the rest of the party were ready. Crack went the whip, round went the wheels, and ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... If glass be held in one hand under water, and a pair of scissors in the other, it may be cut like brown paper; or if a red hot tobacco pipe be brought in contact with the edge of the glass, and afterwards traced on any part of it, the crack will follow the edge of ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... watching them through a crack in the door, and seeing the girls disappear he gave a joyful ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... had walked on a bit, he came to a smithy, and he turned in and asked the smith if he'd be good enough to crack that ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... His feet slip a little, then catch, and once more Gudruda swings. The sweat bursts out upon his forehead and his blood drums through him. Now it must be, or not at all. Again he lifts and his muscles strain and crack, and she lies beside him on ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... delectable scorching enveloped them as they opened the door. And there beside the stove, all deliciously sticky and comfortable, lay Yassuh, fast asleep and half melted; while little wisps of smoke curled out of the crack between the oven and the door. The stove was almost as big as the tin one Jimmy had given Sara for Christmas, but much more massive and efficient-looking. On the table, looking so delicious that they made your mouth water, were the ingredients with which Yassuh had been ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... intensity of subterranean heat. Needless to say, it was an extremely hazardous undertaking, despite the very careful surveys that had been made, for the little parties of workmen could never tell when they would strike a crack or an unexpected crevice that would let down upon them with a terrible rush, the waters of the Atlantic. But hazard is adventure, and as the two little groups of laborers dug toward each other, the eyes of the press followed them with more persistent interest than it has ever followed ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... for happier times, had had the bad grace to place a skylight, and discussed the time and means of getting away. The intelligence officer, not wishing to be made a prisoner, was for getting a boat of some sort at the first crack of dawn, and the photographers, who had had the roof blown off over their heads, heartily agreed with him. I did not like to leave without at least a glimpse of those spiked helmets nor to desert my friends in the Rue Nerviens, and yet there was ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... cima, or a squall from up-river, was upon us. We took down our hammocks, and then all hands were required to save the vessel from being dashed to pieces. The moon set, and a black pall of clouds spread itself over the dark forests and river; a frightful crack of thunder now burst over our heads, and down fell the drenching rain. Joaquim leapt ashore through the drowning spray with a strong pole, and tried to pass the cuberta round a small projecting point, while ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... in the London Times, "that the Americans have some superior mode of firing." But when Broke with his crack crew in the Shannon beat the Chesapeake fresh out of port, he demonstrated, as had the Americans in other actions, that the superiority was primarily a matter ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... over the fourth and fifth neck and neck. Then I saw Violet stand up, out of the corner of my left eye; and Smedley began to look at us too. After that it was all right. At the sixth hurdle we both rose together, and then I heard a crack and a grunt behind me, and knew poor old Dig had come a cropper. Of course I had no time to grin, as I had my time to beat. But it was very lonely doing those next three hurdles. I didn't know how I was going, ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... With the iron age came a chopper, called in Western India a "koita," with which he can hack his way through most of the obstructions of life. When, with this, he has slashed off the tough outer rind and the inch-thick packing of agglutinated fibres, like metal wires, he has only to crack the hard shell which ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... it out for four months, an' that ain't so rotten for a guy who just grew up on printer's ink ever since he was old enough to hold a bunch of papers under his arm. Well, one day mother an' me was sittin' out on one of them veranda cafes they run to over there, w'en somebody hits me a crack on the shoulder, an' there stands old Ryan who used t' do A. P. here. He was foreign correspondent for some big New York ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the section of the wall that turned and the silver dollar the section of the floor. Both were so nicely fitted into the adjacent portions of the floor and wall that no crack had been noticeable in the dim ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... much time to think," guessed Billy, "and to tell the truth, I don't think he's done much thinking since. That revolver must have hit him a fearful crack." ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... that's your sort!" roared a purple-faced ruffian with a hang-lip. "A right proper gal is that. Give her a huzza and crack yer ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... bread-pans; two ladles, of different sizes; a skimmer; iron skewers; a toasting-iron; two teakettles, one small and one large one; two brass kettles, of different sizes, for soap-boiling, &c. Iron kettles, lined with porcelain, are better for preserves. The German are the best. Too hot a fire will crack them, but with care in this respect, they will last ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... the clamour died away, ceased, began again irregularly, then abruptly stilled. Here and there a bid was called, an offer made, like the intermittent crack of small arms after the stopping ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... storm curtain it was traveling eastward at the rate of sixty miles an hour. In one minute we were all as wet as if we had fallen off the dock at home. We abandoned the car and ran for the shelter of a big tree near-by. We were no sooner under its spreading branches when, with a sound like the crack of doom, lightning struck it and it went crashing to earth in the opposite direction from us. We didn't stop to reflect what would have happened to us if it had fallen in our direction, but made for the open road where there was nothing ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... sister aside that she might take a peep at the unconscious Mr. Peabody. As she put her eye to the crack between the curtains she uttered a little shriek that she tried to stifle with ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... difficult to reach as Mars. However, he approached warily, taking a close look at the ground to make sure there were no hindrances to footwork, and rather humorously whispering: "Brent, if I didn't actually know better, I'd take you for as big an idiot as this boob who'll probably crack your nut." He had as whimsical a way of going into dangers as of going into pleasures, and now there was no ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... declared Pan, in cool contempt. "I'll bet a hundred he elected himself town marshal, as he calls it. I'll bet he hasn't any law papers from the territory, or government, either.... Jard Hardman will be the hard nut to crack. Now, Dad, back in Littleton I learned what he did to you. And Lucy's story gave me another angle on that. It's pretty hard to overlook. I'm not swearing I can do so. But I'd like to know ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... German soldier was able to arouse himself, the Englishman dealt him a heavy blow over the head with his rifle butt. But the noise had brought another to the scene. There was the sharp crack of a rifle, and the English soldier who had caused all the trouble pitched to the ground. To the right Hal and Chester saw another sentry, a smoking rifle ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... disappeared in a moment. But Peter Rugg did not reach home that night, nor the next; nor, when he became a missing man, could he ever be traced beyond Mr. Cutter's in Menotomy. For a long time after, on every dark and stormy night, the wife of Peter Rugg would fancy she heard the crack of a whip, and the fleet tread of a horse, and the rattling of a carriage, passing her door. The neighbours, too, heard the same noises, and some said they knew it was Rugg's horse; the tread on the pavement ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... was the first occasion that he had done so, and she blushed. His hand was cold and thin, and she heard one of the bones in it give a little crack as he held her palm within his own for the briefest space of time. Then, as usual, the moment after he had said "good-by," he appeared to become absolutely unconscious of her presence, and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... indisputable landslips, a doubtful crack, and one slight periodic change of colour, and ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... rushed on to the cow and bore it to the ground; there was a violent struggle, and in the dusky light I could not tell whether he used his mouth or paws in wrenching back the head, which went with a crack. The thing was done in a minute, when he sprang once more to his feet, and the second cow was hurled to the ground in like manner. As his back was turned to me I fired somewhat hastily, thinking to save the cow, but only wounded the tiger, which I lost. Both the cows, however, had their ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... of no use to try to look in through the wall; every joint and crack of the stones was plastered. I ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... beautiful!" Then she whirled about on the men of the reserve squad: "You, Conners," she said, "run up to my room and get the milk out of my ice-chest; and Moore, put on your coat and go around and tell the surgeon I want to see him. And one of you crack some ice up fine in a towel. Take it out of ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... come the sharp crack of the drivers' whips followed by the squealing cry of quivering flesh (a cry wherein was none of the human) the which, dying to a whine, was lost in the stir and bustle of the great galleass. But ever and always, beneath the hoarse voices of the mariners, beneath ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... in the place is intense. Not a murmur of distant life from the surrounding city disturbs the silence. At rare intervals a strong breath of icy wind stirs the dead branches and makes them crack and rattle against the gravestones and against each other as in a dance of death. It is a wild and dreary place. In the summer, indeed, the thick leafage lends it a transitory colour and softness, but in the depth of winter, when there is nothing to hide the nakedness of truth, when the snow ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... consisted entirely of lodging houses, and it being the month of November, and the "season" of the little watering- place having closed, bills with "Apartments to Let" were exposed in the windows of almost all; almost, but not quite all, for my crack-voiced friend when he arrived about the middle of the row stopped in front of one of the most unprepossessing habitations of the lot, without any notice displayed like the others. Here, putting down my box on the steps, he rang a side-bell that gave out a melancholy clang for a moment, and ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... dim light from above had lain on the last step and made it appear as if the floor were near; but there was a gap between the stairway and the bottom of the cellar. The lower steps had been hewn away—perhaps in a quest for the ever-elusive treasure. Maybe a crack had appeared, and people, always searching, had suspected a secret opening and tried to find it. Anyway, there was the gap, and there was a rough pile of broken stone not far off, which had once been the end ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... listened to them and followed them about; nay, I even ventured so far as to go with the attendants to those who were raving mad. A long passage led to their cells. On one occasion, when the attendants were out of the way, I lay down upon the floor, and peeped through the crack of the door into one of these cells. I saw within a lady almost naked, lying on her straw bed; her hair hung down over her shoulders, and she sang with a very beautiful voice. All at once she sprang up, and threw ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... speaking, Colonel Conger, slipping around to the rear, drew some loose straws through a crack, and lit a match upon them. They were dry and blazed up in an instant, carrying a sheet of smoke and flame through the parted planks, and heaving in a twinkling a world of light and heat upon the magazine within. The blaze lit up the black recesses of the great barn till every wasp's ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... exposition of his distresses. He was often a talkative, facetious fellow, prompt at repartee, and not withheld from exercising his powers that way by any respect of persons, his patched cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient jester. To be a gude crack, that is, to possess talents for conversation, was essential to the trade of a "puir body" of the more esteemed class; and Burns, who delighted in the amusement their discourse afforded, seems to have looked forward with ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... The proper place to read about the coaches would be in Doctor Lyon's Pony Express Museum, out from Pasadena, California. May it never perish! Old Monte drives up now and then in Alfred Henry Lewis' Wolfville tales, and Bret Harte made Yuba Bill crack the Whip; but, somehow, considering all the excellent expositions and reminiscing of stage-coaching in western America, the proud, insolent, glorious figure of the driver has ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... I made my aim, and still more hurriedly did I give fire. Again came the bang and flash; again the gun clattered over; but, to my joy, a smacking crack showed that the shot went home. The shock made the old Snail roll. A piece of her bow was knocked off. Two or three bullets ripped through her sail. One bored a groove along her, and the rest went ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... unteachable to tie any of the orthodox knots in the gut; it takes me half an hour to get the gut through one of these newfangled iron eyes, and, when it is through, I knot it any way. The "jam" knot is a name to me, and no more. That, perhaps, is why the hooks crack off so merrily. Then, if I do spot a rising trout, and if he does not spot me as I crawl like the serpent towards him, my fly always fixes in a nettle, a haycock, a rose-bush, or whatnot, behind me. I undo it, or break it, and put up another, make a cast, and, "plop," all the line falls in with ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... age of thirteen, holding a puppy in his arms. He had given it to Anne on the last day of the midsummer holidays, nineteen hundred. Also he found a pair of Anne's slippers under the bed, and, caught in a crack of the dressing-table, one long black hair. This room leading out of Colin's was ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... shall be supplied with these when I enter an inn. How much the man does for us who props our house when it is about to fall, and who, with a skill beyond belief, suspends in the air a block of building which has begun to crack at the foundation; yet we can contract for underpinning at a fixed and cheap rate. The city wall keeps us safe from our enemies, and from sudden inroads of brigands; yet it is, well known how much ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... choice. You can start in by kicking over the traces— with the mischief to pay; or you can let the vanished Footes take a crack at you to see what that can make of you. I advise no boy to run against his father's wishes. But everybody starts out with something in him that's his own—individual—peculiar to him. Maybe it's what the preachers call his soul. Anyhow, it's HIS. Whatever they do ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... solicitudes, put on no gilt smiles, wore no reproaches: spoke to him as if so it happened—he had necessarily a journey to perform. One could see all the while big drops falling from the wound within. One could hear it in her voice. Imagine a crack of the string at the bow's deep stress. Or imagine the bow paralyzed at the moment of the deepest sounding. And yet the voice did not waver. She had now the richness of tone carrying on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... at work until seven o'clock; not to very much purpose, but executing with great labour and hardship the day's work. Then I went to dine with Dr. Hall, the crack doctor here, a literate man, a traveller, and otherwise a kind bigwig. After dinner we went to hear Mr. Sortain lecture, of whom you may perhaps have heard me speak, as a great, remarkable orator and preacher of the Lady Huntingdon Connexion. (The paper ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... he turned his head sharply on the pillow, as an alien might turn at the sound of a familiar voice, but always, after listening intently, it came back to its old position, and the man's restless eyes returned to the crack high up in the tent canvas through which the sun shone upon him like ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... visit, as Frank stood well in the sunshine admiring the old house, that Quantrelle, peering from his box, saw him, and with an oath fell back into the shadow as though hiding from an enemy. Peering from a crack in the door, he waited Frank's departure, and after the carriage had driven away, seized a hat and ran at a mad pace down the narrow street, upsetting children ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... is like the glassy bubble, Which costs philosophers such trouble; Where, one part crack'd, the whole does fly, And wits are crack'd to find ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... bush had! She pulled again with all her might, and the earth round the roots began to stir and crack, so she gave another big pull, and then she let go. She thought there was a rumbling noise right below her feet, and she wondered if the roots went down to some dragon's cave. Then she tried once again, and up came the bush so quickly that Proserpina nearly fell backwards. There she ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... entered. Now, you and I, grownup, walk along the sidewalks of San Francisco and all we see under our calloused old feet is a sidewalk. But to children even a sidewalk blossoms with possibilities. Who but a child invented: "Step on a crack, you break your mother's back." Only the other day I saw a kiddie avoiding every crack and muttering some incantation as he ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... the next ten years are going to do it. Do you know what I did last Saturday? I got fifteen hundred pounds' worth of advertising for our people, from a chap that's never yet put a penny into the hands of an agent. I went down and talked to him like a father. He was the hardest nut I ever had to crack, but in thirty-five minutes I'd got him—like a roach on a hook. And it'll be to his advantage, mind you. That fifteen hundred 'll bring him in more business than he's had for ten years past. I got ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... records that were cracked in shipment but the parts were held together with the paper label. As these were single-faced disk records, I used the following method to stick them together: I covered the back of one with shellac and laid the two back to back centering the holes with the crack in one running at right angles to the crack in the other. These were placed on a flat surface and a weight set on them. After several hours' drying, I cleaned the surplus shellac out of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... well as they could between the tent flaps. They dared not make the crack any wider for fear the man in front might see them. They saw gypsy men, women and children hurrying to and fro, and loading wagons. Some ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... you really think so, Jack?" cried the sad one, his face lighting up with a new hope. "It's awful good of you to crack your brain thinking up such a bully idea for me. And how silly that I never once jumped on that plan. I'm going to try it the very next time our engine kicks up a shindy, ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... briskly; "Mother wouldn't have taken the man up into Jim's bedroom. Why should she? Listen—the door's opening. Now they'll come down. I'll open the door a crack." ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... happy in our nice deep trench, where we contentedly crouched. The waste of good and valuable shrapnel shell by the enemy was the cause of much amusement to the men, who were in great spirits, and, as one of them remarked, were "as cosy as cockroaches in a crack." At the expenditure of many shells two men only ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... was the mate," said one. And another, "I know what I'll say—that I heered a row, jumped out of my bunk, got a jolly good crack on the jaw for my pains, and sailed in myself. Couldn't tell who or what it was in the dark and ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... AEschylus[175] as he says, "Eager to find my lady, I have scoured the whole house with the glances of my eyes—in vain," dwell in the memory as softer touches. And for the sterner, nothing can beat the last fight of Olaf Trygveson, where with the crack of Einar Tamberskelvir's bow Norway breaks from Olaf's hands, and the king himself, the last man with Kolbiorn his marshal to fight on the deck of the Long Serpent, springs, gold-helmed, mail-coated, and ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... aside; he brought the hammer back to full cock and fixed a cap upon the nipple. He stood the gun upright upon the floor and leaned forward, the muzzle against his upper chest, the stock braced against the edge of a crack in the planking. With the great toe of his bare right foot he pressed ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... where it was, and very soon he saw a hole in the wood-work through which the water was coming pretty freely. Examining it more carefully he saw that the pressure was threatening to open up a wide crack in the gate; and, child as he was, he knew that if it were not stopped that little stream would soon become a cascade, a great sheet of water, a torrent, and then a terrible inundation which would end in desolation and death. So the little fellow did not hesitate. He determined ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... there be any inclination, it must tend to the tailpiece, and very slightly, thus checking the certain tendency of the strings to pull it forward, which must be always closely watched, as if it fall on the belly of the violin, it is most liable to break—not only so, but to crack that same soundboard. The outer edges may be either filed to an angle of one-sixteenth of an inch ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... rock making, by the deposit of clay, limestone, etc., this vast plain was lifted seven thousand feet above the sea and rimmed round with mountains. Perhaps in being afterward volcanically tossed in one of this old world's spasms an irregular crack ripped its way along a few hundred miles. Into this crack rushed a great river, perhaps also an inland ocean or vast Lake Superior, of which Salt Lake may be a little remnant puddle. These tumultuous waters proceeded to pulverize, dissolve, and carry away ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... encouragement, I went to school in spite of my bare feet. Often the ground would be frozen, and often there would be snow. My feet would crack and bleed freely, but when I reached home Mother would have a tub full of hot water ready to plunge me into and thaw me out. Although this caused my feet and legs to swell, it usually got me into shape ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... not English: we can be sentimental, tender, witty, pretty, pompous, and glorious in our songs; but we ever want the essential quality of gaiety—gaiety of heart—the dancing life of the spirit, that makes the voice hum, the fingers crack merrily, and the feet fidget restlessly on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... which was never gay, was now more sombre than ever. When the further news was told to Lady Sarah it almost crushed her. "A child!" she said in a horror-stricken whisper, turning quite pale, and looking as though the crack of doom were coming at once. "Do you believe it?" Then her brother explained the grounds he had for believing it. "And that it was born in wedlock twelve months before the fact was announced ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... our deck be swept And masts and timber crack— We can make good all loss except The loss of turning back. So, 'twixt these Devils and our deep Let courteous trumpets sound, To welcome Fate's discourtesy Whereby it will be ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... no doubt. Well (brightening), anyhow, we may as well step over to the "Crown and Thistle," and crack a bottle of champagne. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... winelike kick, it made us vow never to taste another American imitation. Only a smooth-cheeked, thick slab cut from a pedigreed Italian Provolone of medium girth, all in one piece and with no sign of a crack, satisfy ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... head of the accused had flared up, and begun to smoke, causing the chimney to crack with a sharp report. This diversion effected a momentary silence among the crowd, and the Public Prosecutor was able to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Admiralty want to make a further "exhibition" of themselves, they won't have to go very far a-field for material. Here are one or two exhibits that come to hand at once. First, there's those big guns which it ain't safe to fire nohow, and which, if you do load with half a charge, crack, bend, and get sent back to be "ringed" up, whatever that means, and are not safe, even for a salute, ever afterwards. Then, in another case, they might show a foot or two of that blessed boiler-piping which is always leaking, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... was not interested in the dimly defined shapes about him; his attention had been attracted by a crevice in the smooth rock ledge at his feet. This ledge, barren of vegetation, and as level as a slab of rough marble, showed a long black line like a crack in a stone pavement. At the man's feet the crevice was perhaps two feet wide, but as it stretched toward the west it narrowed gradually, and disappeared under a mass of disorganized stones, as a mere slit in ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... of the mahogany ornament in the back of one of them fell off. On the next day, another showed the same evidence of imperfect workmanship. A few evenings afterwards, as we sat at the centre table, one of our children leaned on it rather heavily, when there was a sudden crack, and the side upon which he was bearing his weight, swayed down the distance of half an inch or more. The next untoward event was the dropping of one of its feet by the sofa, and the warping up of a ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... repealed, the blockaded ports are thrown open, and the ringers in Briarfield belfry crack a bell that remains dissonant to this day. Caroline Helstone is in the garden listening to this call to be gay when a hand steals ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... something more. Black and opaque as ordinary coal is, slices of it become transparent if they are cemented in Canada balsam, and rubbed down very thin, in the ordinary way of making thin sections of non-transparent bodies. But as the thin slices, made in this way, are very apt to crack and break into fragments, it is better to employ marine glue as the cementing material. By the use of this substance, slices of considerable size and of extreme thinness ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... nimbly spins about, The grain deep-piercing till it scoops it out: In his broad eye he whirls the fiery wood; From the pierced pupil spouts the boiling blood; Singed are his brows; the scorching lids grow black; The jelly bubbles, and the fibres crack. And as when armourers temper in the ford The keen-edged pole-axe, or the shining sword, The red-hot metal hisses in the lake, Thus in his eye-ball hiss'd the plunging stake. He sends a dreadful groan, the rocks around Through all their ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... proving favourable, the camp was struck, the canoes loaded, and they all proceeded on the way to Montreal Point once more. They only stopped for an hour or so at Spider Islands to melt some pitch, and mend a crack which had opened in the bottom of one ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... whilst some Capuchin friars—European ecclesiastics of the meanest type—were sent there to compete with the American Protestant missionaries in the salvation of natives' souls. A collision naturally took place, and the Governor—well known to all of us in Manila as crack-brained and tactless—sent the chief Protestant missionary, Mr. E. T. Doane, a prisoner to Manila on June 16, 1887. [20] He was sent back free to Ponape by the Gov.-General, but, during his absence, the eccentric ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... were entirely filled with Koorshid's troops; that is to say, with our enemies. Just as my mother was on the point of pushing open a small door, we heard the voice of the pasha sounding in a loud and threatening tone. My mother applied her eye to the crack between the boards; I luckily found a small opening which afforded me a view of the apartment and what was passing within. 'What do you want?' said my father to some people who were holding a paper inscribed with characters of gold. 'What we want,' replied one, 'is to communicate ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... intervening rails, and landed, with brandished sword, upon their fore-deck. A dozen more, with a wild yell, were in the act of following, when they were met by a full volley from the guns of the defenders, poured into their very faces. There was a pause,—a lurch,—a crack of breaking fixtures; and the next moment the schooner, torn away from her fastenings by the force of a monstrous upheaving wave, and thrown around at right angles to the unharmed prey so nearly within her clutches, was seen rolling and reeling on the top of a billow, fifty yards ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... occurred. A Russian detective "wanted" Vera, who, to be sure, was a Nihilist. To catch Vera he made an alliance with "The Whiteley of Crime." He was a man who would destroy a parish register, or forge a will, or crack a crib, or break up a Pro-Boer meeting, or burn a house, or kidnap a rightful heir, or manage a personation, or issue amateur bank-notes, or what you please. Thinking to kill two birds with one stone, he carried off Rose for her diamonds and Vera for his friend, the Muscovite ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... pleased him so well as to ascend to the belfry on moonlight nights, scribbling disparagement on the bells of Eulogius and Eucherius, which had ceased to be rung, and patting and caressing his own, which now did duty for all three. With alarm he noticed one night an incipient crack, which threatened ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... of filthy-tongued creatures!" Hsi Jen laughed, "when you've got nothing to do, you make me the scapegoat to crack your jokes, and poke your fun at! But what kind of death will, I wonder, each ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the point of stepping out into the road again when a horseman rode into sight between the two rocks. In the same instant of his appearance she heard the unmistakable crack of a gun, saw the rider jerk backward in the saddle, throw up one hand—and then ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... highly approved of this idea, and encouraged the children by every means in his power; so that, for more than three weeks, the beans went in regularly and the halfpence in Tuttu's store, which he kept like a magpie hidden away in a crack of ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... to a black walnut like this (showing picture), where you can crack out anywhere from fifty to seventy-five per cent of whole halves, and many entirely whole kernels, the most important problem is solved, and the black walnut has come into ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... limitless as the sea and like the sea mutable, ever-changing, restless—bending to every breath of the summer breeze, full of strange, sweet sounds, of moanings and of sighs, as the emerald sheaths tremble in the wind, or down below the bright yellow carcases of the pumpkins crack and shiver ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... on some clothes and went downstairs. A crack of light showed under the kitchen door, and, pushing it open with some force, he gazed spellbound ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... though I'm so light (oh, the thought makes me shiver), Crack! Bang! And from shore unto shore The water jumped out; I was half in the river, And don't ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... kneeling on the stone floor. Her ear was close to the crack of the door which led into the boat-house. Her face, half turned from it, was set in a strange, concentrated passion of listening; her lips were parted, her eyes half closed. She took no more notice of Hamel or his arrival than if he had been some useless piece of furniture. Every ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... perceived, almost instantly, to my great relief, two fine deer, who appeared not at all disturbed by a man on horseback, though ready enough to fly from a gun, and began to suspect that the robber I was dreading was, after all, only a hunter in the honest pursuit of his living. The crack of the rifle soon proved that the deer, and not my saddle-bags, were the game aimed at, and I found my imagination had for twelve hours been converting very harmless huntsmen into highwaymen of a ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... an air mail pilot, one of the crack fliers of the Transcontinental Airmail Corporation. Let me tell you the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... old friend with whom I had revelled in the halcyon days at Stag Racket Bungalow, Honolulu. He was then on the U. S. man-of-war, Alaska of jolly memory; and he, with his companions, constituted the crack mess of the navy. But the Alaska is a sheer hulk, and her once jovial crew scattered hither and yon; he alone, in the solitude of these unfreighted waters, remains to tell the tale. I thought it a happy coincidence that, having met him first under Old ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... been fully worked out yet," replied Hughson. "I know we're going to play the Denver nine and some of the crack California teams." ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, So sovereignly being honourable. Leo. I have lov'd thee—Make that ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... know Boston, then. And as for that crack-brained demagogue cousin of yours, he calls the Constitution a compact with hell! I hope I'll live to see him ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel: They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... the damage and avenge the outrage. In their lead ran the ticket seller, armed with a pistol and keen for evening up things with the man who had hit him, dashing straight for Circuit. Circuit did not see him, but Lee did; and thus in the very instant Circuit staggered and dropped to the crack of his pistol, down beside Circuit pitched the ticket man with a ball through his head. Then for two minutes, perhaps, a hell of fierce hand-to-hand battle raged, cowboy skulls crunching beneath fierce ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... night, from a man who has just returned from sick leave at Lisbon, that there are thousands of peasants employed under our engineers in getting up some tremendous works some fifteen miles this side of Lisbon. I should not be surprised yet if Massena finds the chief a nut too hard to crack, with all ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... will withstand a gradually applied, evenly distributed, and constant pressure, one thousandth part of which, acting at one spot, as a blow, would rend its way through, or establish a crack. This slight rent, giving partial relief to the sudden but comparatively small force that causes it, would be nothing very serious in itself,—no more so than a rent produced by the hydraulic press,—if the whole force, equal, perhaps, to that of a thousand wild horses imprisoned within, did not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him, 'Come in, Lord and Master!' The rats were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch wide, just as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... he bid them. At the third landing Barney felt for the latch he knew was there—he was on familiar ground now. Finding it he pushed open the door it held in place, and through a tiny crack surveyed the room beyond. It was vacant. The American threw the door wide and stepped within. Directly behind him was Butzow, his eyes wide in wonderment. After him filed the troopers until seventeen of them stood behind their lieutenant and ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... precipitate method gives brilliancy to their compositions at the very moment of their being finished; but their lustre is temporary and of short duration. It renders it impossible for them to clean their paintings, which are, besides, liable to crack and to lose their colour. In a word, it is not uncommon to see an artist survive his works, and to have nothing to expect from posterity." But lest it should be said, as M. Merimee did say, that Tingry, the author of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... not be spanned; Fell thunderbolts often on every hand, And verily the earth quaked in answer back From Saint Michael of Peril unto Sanz, From Besencun to the harbour of Guitsand; No house stood there but straight its walls must crack: In full mid-day the darkness was so grand, Save the sky split, no light was in the land. Beheld these things with terror every man, And many said: "We in the Judgement stand; The end of time is presently at hand." They spake no truth; they did not understand; 'Twas the ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... low over the deep bay formed by the two huge tentacles that run south and south-east from the crab-like body of the island, when suddenly, above the noise of the engine, they heard the sharp crack of a shot, then two or three more. Glancing up the bay to his left, Smith saw a large junk, its sails hanging limp, surrounded by a number of small craft which from their appearance he guessed to be praus. He had read many a time of the fierce Malayan pirates that used ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel: They reel, they roll in changing lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... am gaul'd already, yet I will pray, may London wayes from henceforth be full of holes, and Coaches crack their wheels, may zealous Smiths so housel all our Hackneys, that they may feel compunction in their feet, and tire at High-gate, may it rain above all Almanacks till Carriers sail, and the Kings Fish-monger ride like Bike Arion ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... brave itself—being only militia; but certain it was, that Stubbs was considered a most terrible fellow, and I swore so much, and looked so fierce, that you would have fancied I had made half a hundred campaigns. I was second in several duels; the umpire in all disputes; and such a crack-shot myself, that fellows were shy of insulting me. As for Dobble, I took him under my protection; and he became so attached to me, that we ate, drank, and rode together every day; his father didn't care for money, so long as his son was in good company—and what so ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have had a nice crack of some kind or other on the head," he said, "and he still feels the effects of it, as now and then ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the steersman lost his nerve, and shrank from the coming shock. The galley's helm went up to port, and her beak slid all but harmless along Amyas' bow; a long dull grind, and then loud crack on crack, as the Rose sawed slowly through the bank of oars from stem to stern, hurling the wretched slaves in heaps upon each other; and ere her mate on the other side could swing round, to strike him ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the corral—an acre of grass enclosed by stout post-and-rail fences seven feet high—and by much patience and some subtlety lodged the whole herd within its shelter, without a blow, a shout, or even a crack of a whip, wild as the cattle were. It was fearfully cold. We galloped the last mile and a half in four and a half minutes, reached the cabin just as the snow began to fall, and found ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... down to gather up her treasure, searching for the hair and replacing it, and then mournfully examining the crack that disfigures the once-loved image. Alas! there is no glass now to guard either the hair or the portrait; but see how carefully she wraps delicate paper round it, and locks it up again in its old place. Poor child! ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... me she were dead, they had to set me in the jacket, buckled so tight ye could hear my bones crack. The warden ain't got no blame comin' from me, 'cause I smashed his face afore he'd done tellin' me. And I felled the keeper like that!" He raised a knotty fist and thrust it forth. "But it were all 'cause I wanted to be with her so, 'cause I couldn't stand the knowin' that ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... roads that lead to the city of Rubens. It was full midsummer, and very warm. His cart was very heavy, piled high with goods in metal and in earthenware. His owner sauntered on without noticing him otherwise than by the crack of the whip as it curled round his quivering loins. The Brabantois had paused to drink beer himself at every wayside house, but he had forbidden Patrasche to stop a moment for a draught from the canal. Going along thus, in the full sun, on a scorching highway, having eaten ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)
... had named him. It was Jim Kendric's way to fight in silence, but now he shouted as he struck, defying them, cursing them, striking as hard as God had given him strength, recking not in the least of blows received, heart and mind centered alone on the pulsing, throbbing prayer to feel a bone crack before him, to see a head snap back, to feel blood gush forth from a battered face. A man tripped him cunningly from the side and he all but fell. But he struck back with his boot and steadied himself by hurling his toppling body against ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... that brief period of horrible suspense appeared to stretch out almost to the crack of doom. I roared lustily for help, but no aid came. The bear continued its course through the thicket; in another instant ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the poor folk of the neighbourhood. The old chairmaker was sitting by the fire when we went in; and opposite to him sat "Old John," the hero of the broken windows in Nile Street. He had come up to have a crack with his blind crony. The chairmaker was seventy years of age, and he had benefited by the advantage of good fundamental instruction in his youth. He was very communicative. He said he should have been educated for the priesthood, ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... as appalled agitators saw how much worse things could be if the monsters took over the world to rule. But the driver insisted that the United States was calm. Us Americans, he assured Lockley, weren't scared. We were educated and we knew that them scientists would crack this nut somehow. Like only yesterday a broadcast said this Belgian guy had come up with calculations that said this poison beam had to be something like a radar beam or a laser beam or something like that. And the American scientists were right out there ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... "drill on" toward Denver, that me, the boys and the sheep were going to Montana. He said, "Alright, Mr. Ryus, we will drill on, as you say, but we will take possession of those sheep before you get into Denver." I told him to "crack his whip," and to go to that warm place from which no "hoss trader" returned if he wanted to, but for him not to interfere with me or the sheep. Away he went. My temper was at its best and thoroughly under control, so I told the boys to not feel the least alarm, no "yaller backed ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... The crack regiments of Europe, noted for their form, have for years been the object of jests in those new worlds where brawn and muscle, with mental acumen, have converted primeval forests into congested commercial centers. But that form, so derided by the pioneer spirit, has proved its worth during ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... renowned in the congregation for this imperturbable veracity. The Abbe Sicard speaks of Sister Simplice in a letter to the deaf-mute Massieu. However pure and sincere we may be, we all bear upon our candor the crack of the little, innocent lie. She did not. Little lie, innocent lie—does such a thing exist? To lie is the absolute form of evil. To lie a little is not possible: he who lies, lies the whole lie. To lie is the very face of the demon. Satan has two names; he is called ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... could withstand me, then?" he was thinking. "What clergyman could raise his voice against my rule? Ah! Their 'high principles' they prate of so eloquently, their crack-brained economics, their rebellions and their strikes—the dogs!—would soon bow down before that power! Men have starved for stiff-necked opposition's sake, and still may do so—but with my hand at the throat of the world, with the world's very life-breath in my grip, what then? Submission, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... government. Parliament, of course, was dissolved, and a new election took place. The Whigs lost thereby much of their power, but still were a majority in the House, and the new Tory government found that the Irish difficulties were a very hard nut to crack. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... a broken knee that wasn't got by striking the manger, nor a sand-crack that didn't ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... already scattered and were nibbling tufts of wet grass, when the two children crawled out from under the rock. Leneli's dress was quite muddy where the rain had come through the crack and poured down her neck, and she was twisting herself round, trying to see the extent of the damage, when suddenly there was a terrific roar and rumble as if the thunder had begun all over again, though the sky was blue and clear. Crash followed crash, and there was a sound ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... I said, when I saw that, "get to arms; for here they come to speak with us. Maybe we shall have to fight—and these are no easy nuts to crack!" ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... insultin' me into the bargain,' says she, thinkin' how he called her a shkeleton, an' her a load fur a waggin. 'Yer impidince bates owld Nick, so it does,' says she; so she up an' hits him a power av a crack on the head wid a bottle; an' the other felly's, a-thinkin' sure that it was a lie he was afther tellin' them, an' he laving thim to pay fur the dhrink he'd had, got on him an' belted him out av the face till it was nigh ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... know, I gave one teeny weeny peek through the crack in the door after I left him, and he was thrown down across his cot like a long, graceful tomcat or leopard or something, and he pulled a little green leather book out of his pocket and went to reading it on the spot. 'Pervigilium Veneris,' its ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... nights and a day, sir, and every one of us with the ulcers right up the arms. It was warm business, I can tell you, sir. My ulcers are all going away now, with this warm cabin, but they were throbbing all night before. When I come down such a crack I was makin' a run for the taickle, for fear we might let the gear drop, and I saw a flash in my eyes, and nothing more till I was ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Pair sleeps till the crack of doom Where the great ocean-rollers plunge and boom: The other waits and wonders what his Friend, Dead now, and deaf, and silent, were the end Revealed to his rare spirit, would find to say If you, his lovers, loved him for ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... has been a long time coming, but somehow I always seem to have something to do. There are two noises I can hear now, one the squeak of a rat, but I know he won't come in (at least, I hope not), and two, the crack of a sniper's bullet, which I know has no chance of coming in. As the papers would say, "Situation normal on the Western Front." We get absolutely no news, you know more of what is going on in France than I do. We heard that the division on our right were in action the other ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... At court were sore distressed; The queen and all her maidens Were bitten by the pest, And yet they dared not scratch them, Or chase the fleas away. If we are bit, we catch them, And crack without delay. ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... immediately dashes off in all haste, whips crack, wheels fly, and shouting, racing and singing along all the roads, the country-folk rattle away to their homes. Our two turn their wheels ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... the shore a gentle sound of splashing came to his ears, and an occasional crack as of oars in their locks. Was it possible that a boat was there between the schooner and the land? What boat, and ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... he looked round, and then crawled to a crack that appeared much wider than the rest, the boards being more than half an inch apart. Lying down over it, he was able to obtain a view of a portion of the room below. He could see a part of a long table, and looked down upon the heads of five men sitting ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... could crack glass, the spectacles of the old lady would have been splintered into many pieces as she stood by the roadside, the end of her umbrella jabbed an inch or two into the ground. After standing thus for some five minutes, she suddenly turned and ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... mountain forest on a sunny morning, with the first hoar frost yet crisping the feathery pines; and to hear the deep-mouthed hounds giving tongue where a hundred echoes wait to bay the fierce challenge back, and to hear the sharp crack of the rifle ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... he was changing so much—not essentially in his person, though his face had become broader, intolerant, domineering and cruel—but there was pouring from him so great an emanation of power that it seemed to crack and break down the poor little room. Mr. G.M. and myself had no desire to thwart him, and it never occurred to us to do so. We should as soon have thought of stopping a thunderstorm. We followed him outside on to the space of level ground before the house and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... that exact spot and hour! How came it that at that moment the Ethiopian was reading, of all places in his roll, the very words which make the kernel of the gospel of the evangelical prophet? Surely such 'coincidences' are a hard nut to crack for deniers of a Providence that shapes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... slaves on the large plantations began work at sunrise, and toiled to the crack of the whip on the great plantations until sundown. Women and children, only half grown, were compelled to do their share in the fields. In Brazil conditions generally were easier for the slave. The Portuguese planter was perhaps less anxious to "drive" the work out of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... says a sharpshooter, armed with a Whitworth gun, "I'll stop that racket. Wait until I see her smoke again." Boom, boom! the keen crack of the Whitworth rings upon the frosty morning air; the cannoneers are seen to lie down; something is going on. "Yes, yonder is a fellow being carried off on a litter." Bang! bang! goes the Whitworth, and the battery ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... look again, she perceived that the ravine was like an enormous crack open on the mountain-side, and that the stream that formed the Debateable Ford flowed down the bottom of it. The ravine itself went probably all the way up the mountain, growing shallower as it ascended higher; but here, where Christina beheld it, it was extremely deep, and savagely ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... office that Pevensey was too quiet ever to make a crack reporter. On a big story full of human interest he was no good. It was not that he failed to realize the possibilities of such stories; he had as sure an eye for the picturesque and affecting as Dicky Chatworth himself, the city editor's especial favourite; but he had an unconquerable ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... fellow-guests was Vandam, an official of one of the great life-insurance companies. "Freddie" Vandam, as the lady called him, was a man of might in the financial world; and Montague said to himself that in meeting him he would really be accomplishing something. Crack shots and polo-players and four-in-hand experts were all very well, but he had his living to earn, and he feared that the problem was ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... wet, I'm not." Happily, the children don't know what fear is. The maids, however, were very frightened, as some of the sea had got down into the nursery, and the skylights had to be screwed down. Our studding sail boom, too, broke with a loud crack when the ship broached to, and the jaws of the fore-boom ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... been anxiously peeping from the crack of the kitchen door, and felt mortally offended when the company went out by the front way. "Was it not enough that the folks were too far removed from the kitchen to permit Sary to overhear what was ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... upon the bottle. This will make a circle around the bottle that is very hot. Immediately plunge the bottle into cold water, the colder the better. Use ice-water, if you have it. If you produce heat enough, the bottle should crack all the way around very neatly. File off any sharp corners and edges with a ...
— How Two Boys Made Their Own Electrical Apparatus • Thomas M. (Thomas Matthew) St. John
... method of frying is less satisfactory, in that it is difficult even after much practice to produce a uniformly colored surface. A small quantity of fat only is needed, and where the fat, i.e., the heat, ends, a crack is formed in the outer coat, through which flavor escapes and fat enters; the appearance also is rendered unsightly. Flat fish can be fried fairly well by this method, or, indeed, almost any thin substance, as thin edges are not affected in this way. For pancakes and other articles ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... put the whole second story on the alarm, charged three hundred dollars for it, and went his way. By and by, one night, I found a burglar in the third story, about to start down a ladder with a lot of miscellaneous property. My first impulse was to crack his head with a billiard cue; but my second was to refrain from this attention, because he was between me and the cue rack. The second impulse was plainly the soundest, so I refrained, and proceeded to compromise. I redeemed ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... gate against the post! Her heart-strings like to crack: For, much she fear'd the grisly Ghost Would ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... blastin'. He'd allus thoct as he'd dee that way, you know. They pit mair pooder i' quarry than common; and the ston' it split, and roared, and crackit, wi' a noise like tha crack o' doom. And one bit on 't, big as ox, were shot i' th' air, an' fell, unlookit for like, and dang him tew the groun', and crushit him,—a-lyin' richt athwart ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... said through the star-spangled red. "I want you to crack when I twist. I'm going ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... that it was impossible to conjecture how Bessy's little half-smothered spark of soul had really been affected by the news. But Justine did not believe in this argument. Her experience among the sick had convinced her, on the contrary, that the shafts of grief or joy will find a crack in the heaviest armour of physical pain, that the tiniest gleam of hope will light up depths of mental inanition, and somehow send a ray to the surface.... It was true that Bessy had never known how to bear pain, and that her own sensations had always formed the ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... been pointed out as the most effective. "Out with him!" "Away with him!" are the natural utterances of angry citizens at a disturbed meeting. A voyager, describing a terrible storm he had witnessed, would rise to some such climax as—"Crack went the ropes and down came the mast." Astonishment may be heard expressed in the phrase—"Never was there such a sight!" All of which sentences are, it will be observed, constructed after the direct type. Again, ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... these, when the air was filled with the shouts and yells of attackers and besieged, when the crack of the muskets and the intermittent reports of the cannon almost deafened her, Lady Cholmley was assiduously attending to the wounded and the many cases of scurvy, which was rampant among the garrison. One of her maids who shared these labours crept out of the ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... gently touch this egg which is lying on the square of cloth. I do not believe you can see what has happened to this egg, but I will tell you. There is a little line, like a hair, entirely around it. Now that line has become a crack. Now you can see it, I know. It grows wider and wider! Look! The shell of the egg is separating in the middle. The whole egg slightly moves. Do you notice that? Now you can see something yellow showing itself ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... they recalled to mind the long conversations with this man who made them stop almost by force at the road corners to communicate his ideas to them, who insisted on their going into his house when they were passing by his garden, who could crack a joke better than the lieutenant of the gendarmes himself, and who possessed such contagious gayety that, in spite of the repugnance with which he inspired them, they could not keep from always ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... breast-bone, or both, without bruising him externally. The convicts at Toulon arrive at a similar result by another branch of the art: they stuff the skin of a conger eel with powdered stone; then give the obnoxious person a sly crack with it; and a rib backbone is broken with no contusion to mark the external violence used. But Mr. Cooper and his fellows do their work with the knee-joint: it is round, and leaves no bruise. They subdue the patient by walking up and down him on ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... you. Don't I know the fault is mine! Blow, and crack your cheeks! Blow wild peals, my Roberts, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... into a deep ravine filled with dense underbrush. In a few moments the dogs began to yelp again and, while Heller remained on the hillside to watch the open fields, I followed the hounds along the creek bed. Suddenly the whiplike crack of his Savage 250-300 rifle sounded five times in quick succession just above our heads, and we climbed ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... safer for the inhabitants than a stray shot after a long interval, as people remained below-ground expecting a repetition of that never-to-be-forgotten crashing explosion, followed by the sickening noise of the splinters tearing through the air, sometimes just over one's head, like the crack of a very long whip, manipulated by a master-hand. The smallest piece of one of these fragments was sufficient to kill a man, and scarcely anyone wounded with a shell ever seemed to survive, the wounds being nearly always terribly severe, and their poison occasioning ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... such lines as almost crack the stage, When Bajazet begins to rage: Nor a tall met'phor in the bombast way, Nor the dry chips of short-lunged Seneca: Nor upon all things to obtrude And force some old similitude. What is it then, which, like the Power Divine, We only can ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the sealed buildings quietly and no one saw him go. He followed the map to the nearest barracks, shuffling tiredly through the dusty streets. It was a hot, quiet afternoon, broken only by rumblings from the distance, and the occasional crack of his gun. ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... inclination, it must tend to the tailpiece, and very slightly, thus checking the certain tendency of the strings to pull it forward, which must be always closely watched, as if it fall on the belly of the violin, it is most liable to break—not only so, but to crack that same soundboard. The outer edges may be either filed to an angle of one-sixteenth of an inch ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... "Well, that crack extends four-fifths of the way up to the top; and far enough to reach the place where we noticed all those dark marks, which we believed must be windows of the many rooms or houses of the cliff ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... confederate Hedwig that there was no alarm to be apprehended from the studio, strolled along a more circuitous but pleasanter way. Her husband and his pupil were, as usual, shut up in "the workshop." The studio had been changed for some new fancy of the crack-brained pair; they had packed aside the plans and models and had set up a lathe, a forge and a miniature foundry. To the clang of hammer and the squeak of file was added the detonation now and then of some explosive which did not emit the sharp sound or pungent smoke of gunpowder ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... the cold and stormy North, With a rush and a roar I hurry forth, I toss from the trees the dead leaves down, The withered leaves all sere and brown, And sway the branches to and fro As on my way I whirling go. At crack and crevice I slip in, And make a lively sounding din. Swift I come and swift away, With you I can no longer stay, For I am wanted elsewhere now, And so good-bye, I ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... the marked-off place, drew his heavy revolver, raised it and brought it down on the mark—the bottle on the stick. There was a sharp crack, followed instantly by the tinkle of glass, and that bottle was ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... old familiar woods and dreamed of the happy long ago, until a gang of blackbirds, spluttering in a neighboring treetop woke me. And when I rose from the log and threw myself into the shape of an interrogation point, and touched the trigger, at the crack of my rifle old bullfrogg shot into the pond; the hoot-owl "scooted" into his castle in the trunk of an old hollow tree; the blackbirds cut the "asymptote of a hyperbolical curve" in the air; the squirrel fell to the ground at my feet, with a bullet through ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... resisted; the old quarrel with the Jansenists was revived, and soon Church and Crown were convulsed by an agitation that shook society to its very base. During the popular ferment the king was attacked in 1757 by a crack-brained fanatic named Damiens, who scratched him with a penknife as he was entering his coach at Versailles. The poor crazy wretch, who at most deserved detention in an asylum, was first subjected to a cruel judicial torture, then taken to the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... length and touching the shoulder-joint with the other. His stupidity extended to an utter ignorance of music, which he only prized as the means of gaining the large sums which his extravagance craved. His wife once complained of the piano, saying, "I can not possibly sing to that piano; I shall crack my voice: the piano is absurdly high." "Do not fret, my dear," interposed the husband, soothingly; "it shall be lowered before evening: I will attend to it myself." Evening came, and the house was crowded; but, to the consternation of the cantatrice, the pianoforte was as high as ever. ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... distinctness, and command of language," and that you showed great self-possession: was the latter the proverbially desperate courage of a coward? But you are a pretty fellow to be so desperately afraid and then to make the crack speech. Many such an ordeal may you have to go through! I do not know whether Sir William [Hooker] would be contented with Lord Rosse's (38/2. President of the Royal Society 1848-54.) speech on giving you ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... man first," said he. "But what excuse have I? He may be nothing but a crank, with some crack-brained idea in his head. We'll soon know; for there's certainly something wrong ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... slow and gradual conquest of the frozen bed to a tolerable warmth, a result attained only by clever strategic combinations of bedclothes and the most methodical policy. As I lay awake, I heard the sides of the house crack in the cold. "What," said I to myself with a shiver, "should I do if anything happened that required me to get up and dress again?" It seemed to me I should be capable of letting a man die in the next room for need of succor. Being of ...
— The Cold Snap - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... skating exposed itself as of anything but a graceful and "swan-like" style; where, too, Mr. Pickwick revived the sliding propensities of his boyhood with infinite zest until the ice gave way with a "sharp, smart crack", and Mr. Pickwick's hat, gloves, and handkerchief, floating on the surface, were all of Mr. ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... that crack. That was done with a spear... by my prince, the one who made me this robe, you know. He cleaned ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... understood that the author was never to get beyond that passage until he had acknowledged it absurd and egregiously foolish, anybody who knows anything about the genus irritabile will be certain, that if he lived till "the crack of doom," Don Silva would never have passed the Rubicon. It was thus that the poor fellow was tormented: and every time that he was asked to dine in the cabin, he was requested to bring his Tour, in order that the whole of it ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the ice-crack flies and flaws, Shore to shore, with thunder shock, Deeper than the evening daws, Clearer ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... practice or with public school training; and the veteran spectators were mourning the decay of cricket, and talking of past triumphs. The school had the first innings, which resulted in the discomfiture of Fielder, one of their crack champions, and with no great honour to any one except Folliot, the Dux, and Leonard Ward, who both acquitted themselves so creditably, that it was allowed that if others had done as well, Stoneborough might ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... threw himself on a sofa with a violence that made it crack again; the steward brought the Madeira and the whisky, and we drew round the table to condole with the love-stricken Kentuckian. A few minutes passed in the composition of the toddy, which was evidently destined to play the chief part in the way of a consoler; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... get on, I see, Miss Stanley, if you can get over the first bitter outside of me;—a hard outside, difficult to crack—stains delicate fingers, may be," she continued, as she replaced her drawing in its frame—"stains delicate fingers, may be, in the opening, but a good walnut you will find it, taken with a grain ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... so sweet and grave as my dear lady as she made the responses and hearkened to Adam, and he mighty impressive. For witnesses we had Master Penruddock the surgeon and Godby, and now, my lady retiring, we must crack a bottle, all four, though I know not ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... silver spindrift flying and clouds of silvery gulls—a glimmer of Heaven from the depths of the pit—a glimpse of life through a crack in the casket—and land close on the starboard bow! Sheer cliffs, with the bonny green grass atop all furrowed by the wind—and the yellow-flowered broom and the shimmering ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... like the crack of a whip, and they froze in the moment of their grappling. Sheepishly, they parted and stood side by ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... being thus let down on the last act of the farce, there was no alternative between being queerly plundered, or instantly laying a horse-whip over the hungry philosophers. To sue them reminded me of the proverb—'Sue a beggar,' &c. To crack a baculine joke over their sconces would involve an expense which the worthy philosophers were not worth. I had done an imprudent thing in joining the 'march of mind,' and all that I could do was to brush the dust from my coat and the mud from my shoes: 'he that ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... emigrants, Clairfait with his Austrians, are now in France; advancing upon Paris. They take Longwy and Verdun; try to take Thonville and Lille, but cannot; and find Dumouriez and his sansculottes, there in the passes of Argonne, the "Thermopylae of France," an unexpectedly hard nut to crack. In fact, the nut is not to be cracked at all: Dumouriez, " more successful than Leonidas," flings back the invasion; compels the invaders to evacuate France; and in November, assuming the offensive, conquers the whole Austrian ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Waddell, Second Lieutenant Cockerell, and Lieutenant Struthers, surnamed "Highbrow." Bobby we know. Waddell was a slow-moving but pertinacious student of the science of war from the kingdom of Fife. Cockerell came straight from a crack public-school corps, where he had been a cadet officer; so nothing in the heaven above or the earth beneath was hid from him. Struthers owed his superior rank to the fact that in the far back ages, before the days of the O.T.C., he ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... Kate, moved. "Glad to have me home again, my precious? But you needn't crack my ribs in your belated ardor. Where have you ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... soul had hauled me out of that crack-up before the fuel tank went up in the fire. I hope that whoever he was, he'd had enough sense to haul Catherine out of the mess first. The thought of living without Catherine was too dark to bear, and so I just let the blackness close down over me ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... theological colleges and libraries—my party will have none of it. Its men are armed by the ideas that we prefer. I don't blame the rich or the political tyrants—the mob has to be educated, the unhappy proletarians, who have so long submitted to the crack of the whip that they wouldn't know what to do with their freedom if they had it. All mobs believe alike in filth and fire, whether antique slaves free for their day's Saturnalia, or the Paris crowds ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... lip Alas! we see Both wine and lovers spilt may be. Against the Post, the horses run The Reins are lost the Coachman's flung Pig flies aloft, Miss tumbles down Broke is her neck, and crack'd his crown! ...
— Life and Adventures of Mr. Pig and Miss Crane - A Nursery Tale • Unknown
... required it. He was never on the lookout for trouble, but was always ready to meet it half way, and his courageous character together with his vigorous physique had made him prominent in the sports of the boys of his own age. He was a crack baseball player and one of the chief factors of the high school football eleven. No one in Clintonia was ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... trying situation for mother to face. It is about as hard a nut as she will ever have to crack. In the old days, there would be no hesitation in saying that the first thing it called for was a ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... voice of Mrs. Brier, at the early morning light, "up with you, I tell you. Do you hear? For every minute you keep me, you'll get an extra crack!" and, true to her word, there was presently a grieved cry from the child, upon whose slender shoulders at least a dozen blows ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... two months in bed, in cursing, and in worrying the people about him. It was not an existence, really, to pass one's life on one's back, with a pin all tied up and as stiff as a sausage. Ah, he certainly knew the ceiling by heart; there was a crack, at the corner of the alcove, that he could have drawn with his eyes shut. Then, when he was made comfortable in the easy-chair, it was another grievance. Would he be fixed there for ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... believes, as he put it, in seed. Socrates saw that the teacher's real work, his only work, is to implant the idea, like a seed; an idea, like a seed, will look after itself. A king builds a temple or a palace. The seed of a banyan drifts into a crack, and grows without asking anyone's leave; there is life in it. In the end the building comes down, but for what the banyan holds up. The leaven in the meal is the most powerful thing there. There is very little of it, but that does not matter; it is alive (Matt. 13:33). Life is a very little thing ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... ambitious concession ever planned. The greatest ever attempted in its line, it would cost—both us and the public. But people will pay for value. They'd go for a buck-and-a-half or even two; the lines of those filing past the windows, at 50 cents a crack, would also bring in ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins
... however, had observed the hostile movement, and had thrown himself out of the saddle. He struck the hard sand of the hill on all fours and stretched out flat, his face to the ground. He heard the bullet sing futilely past him; heard the sharp crack of the rifle, and peered down to see the man again running his horse across ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff; And a crook is in his back, And the melancholy crack In ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... national calamity. Even the irrepressible man with the apron, who always turns up to sell nuts and sweetmeats in a crowd, plied his trade in silence, and found few indeed (to the credit of the nation be it spoken) who had the heart to crack a nut at such a time as this. The police were on the spot, in large numbers, and in mute sympathy with the people, touching to see. Julius, on being stopped at the door, mentioned his name—and received an ovation. His brother! oh, heavens, his brother! The people closed round him, ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... train whistled outside and glided from the station. He heard a woman's cheerful voice cry out a conventional "good-bye, good-bye," and through the window he saw the flutter of a dainty handkerchief. A truck was wheeled past the waiting-room. There was the crack of a whip and some cars rattled away over the road. Then there ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... almost wrecked the dishes. "You have eat, an' now you lissen. You have never hear' before of Concombre Bateese. An' zat ees me. See! Wit' these two hands I have choke' ze polar bear to deat'. I am strongest man w'at ees in all nort' countree. I pack four hundre' pound ovair portage. I crack ze caribou bones wit' my teeth, lak a dog. I run sixt' or hundre' miles wit'out stop for rest. I pull down trees w'at oder man cut wit' axe. I am not 'fraid of not'ing. You lissen? You hear ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... houses with great dragon-adorned roofs. Further towards the centre of the Fu is Prince Su's own palace and his retainers' quarters; to the south of this is an ornamental garden full of trees, a vast and mournful enclosure, standing in which the crack of outpost rifles can only be distantly heard. Moving across to the southern side—that is, the side near the French Legation and the protected Legation Street—the Christian refugees are found gathered ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... a quick vibratory motion. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes in very hot weather, but not so frequently as swallows. It has been observed that martins usually build to a north-east or north-west aspect, that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests; but instances are also remembered where they bred for many years in vast abundance in a hot stifled inn-yard against a wall facing to ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... constructed of blue Staffordshire or other hard bricks. The ramp should terminate in a stone block to resist the impact of the falling water, and the stones which may be brought with it, which would crack stoneware ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... or acting as mere ciphers whose existence is a purely hopeless, airy, trivial one. Again, stout individuals never take a back seat, but always a front one, and, wheresoever it be, they sit firmly, and with confidence, and decline to budge even though the seat crack and bend with their weight. For comeliness of exterior they care not a rap, and therefore a dress coat sits less easily on their figures than is the case with figures of leaner individuals. Yet invariably fat men amass the greater ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... day in the open air of a mild climate and who sleep at night in huts and cabins where crack and crevice and skylight admit abundant ventilation, will be subject to pulmonary weakness. Now take the same people and transplant them to the large cities of a colder climate, subject them to pursuits which do not call for a high degree of bodily energy, crowd them into ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... Thursday evening, and Sarah Ann had just brought the lamp into her mistress's parlour. Miss Michin turned up the light slowly, remarking, as she did so, "I don't want this glass to crack. I might do nothing else but buy lamp-glasses if I left the turning-up of them to Sarah Ann. This one has been boiled, which, Mrs. Dodd says, is a good thing to make them stand heat." Then she broke off suddenly, and stared at her apprentice, exclaiming, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... all sorts of herbs, without other scruple than of the badness of the smell: where all things are open the finest houses, furnished in the richest manner, without doors, windows, trunks, or chests to lock, a thief being there punished double what they are in other places: where they crack lice with their teeth like monkeys, and abhor to see them killed with one's nails: where in all their lives they neither cut their hair nor pare their nails; and, in another place, pare those of the right hand only, letting the ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... youngest Rover, as he turned again to the lesson he had been studying. "He tries to keep up a brave front, but that crack he got on the head some weeks ago was a worse one than most folks imagine. I'm thinking he ought to be home and under the doctor's care instead of trying to rack his brains making up lessons he missed while we ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... last failed to bring down what I aimed at. Nor did I fail now; as the bird rose it flew straight away from me, and it was still uttering its alarm cry when I pressed the trigger and down it fell, stone-dead, shot clean through the body. At the whip-like crack of the rifle the two dogs dashed forward into the thick clumps of low milk-bush into which the bird had fallen, and presently reappeared, Thunder dragging the bird along the ground by one of its legs, while Juno romped round him uttering low, sharp yells of delight, varied ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Sabbath-school, find out what kind of a pastor he is, and in a word see what sort of work he's doing where he is now, we would get his measure a great deal better than we should get it by having him come here, and give us one of his crack sermons-even if he would do it, I honor him ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... it's anything remarkable. Plowden says my brother Balder kills all the birds off every season. Balder's by way of being a crack-shot, you know. There are some pheasants, though. We saw them flying when ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... great winged things not unlike the screw-wheel of a propeller, tipped up above the waves. Now and then one would give the water a good round slap, the noise of which smote sharply upon the ear, like the crack of a pistol in an alley. It was a novel sight to watch them in their play, or labor, rather; for they were feeding upon the caplin, pretty little fishes that swarm along these shores at this particular season. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... reciting the text; the sermon will be preached by the god of battles to the roar of cannons and the crack of rifles, and I hope you'll profit by ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... world—automatons: when you have seen one of them you've seen them all. So the lack of originality and initiative is upon us, and platitude and monotony are the distinctions of to-day. Truth can free us from this bondage: let our children be taught to be themselves, to ring clear, without crack or muffle. Make loyalty a need to them, and in their gravest failures, if only they acknowledge them, account it for merit that they have not covered ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... by a 2-in. plank, and when the concrete had been tamped in place the forms were removed, and the bracket was left on the bottom to set. It may be noted here that a goodly number of the brackets showed a crack at the joint marked x caused by tamping at the point y. In construction the bracket castings were set at proper intervals on the spandrel walls, which had been completed up to the level of the line X Y. The coping course was then built up around the bracket ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... mare, which had taken it into her head to be weak in the legs; another time, the 'old gray' had entangled his hoof in the cords of the team. One night, he dreamed that he had just put an entirely new thong to his old whip, but that, notwithstanding, it obstinately refused to crack. This remarkable vision impressed him so deeply, that, on awaking, he seized the whip, which he was accustomed to place every night by his side; and in order thoroughly to assure himself that he was not stricken powerless, and deprived ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... people—I will say a million of people, all waiting breathlessly to hear his proclamation. The pillars were not more still than we. Ha, ha, ha! I fancied I heard the axles of the mighty Roman machine begin to crack. Ha, ha, ha! O prince, by the soul of Solomon, your King of the World drew his gown about him and walked away, and out by the farthest gate, nor opened his mouth to say a word; and—the Roman ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Mr. Quarterpage. "Sudden? Unexpected? Aye, as a crack of thunder on a fine winter's day. Nobody had the ghost of a notion that anything was wrong. John Maitland was much respected in the town; much thought of by everybody; well known to everybody. I can assure ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... in this position for at least two minutes, which seemed to me a quarter of an hour, so eager was I to see the creature fall. Suddenly I heard a sharp snap or crack. The bull heard it too, for it raised its huge head with a start. The cap of Peterkin's rifle had snapped, and I saw by his motions that he was endeavouring, with as little motion as possible, to replace it with another. But the bull caught sight of him, ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... ceremonial, which is intended to prevent the stone from breaking on exposure to the fire when first used. During one stage of these rites the strictest silence is enjoined, as, according to the native account, a single word spoken at such a time would crack the tablet. ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... Away! Who is so patient of this impious world, That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue? Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense, That heaven's horrid thunders cannot wake? To see the earth crack'd with the weight of sin, Hell gaping under us, and o'er our heads Black, ravenous ruin, with her sail-stretch'd wings, Ready to sink us down, and cover us. Who can behold such prodigies as these, And have his lips seal'd up? Not I: my soul Was never ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... is to crack or break the nuts in what is called the 'kibbling-mill.' The roasting has made them quite crisp, and with a few turns of the whizzing apparatus, they are divested of their husk, which is driven into a bin by a ceaseless blast ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... me git up at crack of dawn to milk. All at once come a shock what shake de earth. De big fish jump clean out de bay and turtles and alligators run out dere ponds. Dey plumb ruint Galveston! Us runned in de house and all de dishes and things done jump ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... stones are very acceptable to the parrot, who turns them over, chuckling all the while to show his satisfaction, and picking all the soft parts from the deep indentations in the stone." He used to crack the stone before giving it to the bird, when his delight knew no bounds. They are fond of hot condiments, cayenne pepper or the capsicum pod. If a bird be ailing, a capsicum will ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... came five of the children huddled together for warmth in one bed, and the parents and balance of the family in the other. I slept on the floor near the door in my sleeping-bag, with my nose glued to the crack to get a breath of God's cold air, in spite of the need for warmth—for not a blanket did the house possess. When I asked, a little hurt, where were the blankets which we had sent last year, the mother somewhat indignantly pointed to various trousers and coats ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... discovered the artistic possibilities of "My Uncle Toby" and "Corporal Trim," and had realized the full potentialities of humour contained in the contrast between the two brothers Shandy. The very work of sharpening and deepening the outlines of this humorous antithesis, while it made the crack-brained philosopher more and more of a burlesque unreality, continually added new touches of life and nature to the lineaments of the simple-minded soldier; and it was by this curious and half-accidental process that there came to be added to the gallery of English ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... me, anyway? Oh, yes! Old Vose bragging to me that every stockholder in the Vose line was behind him, and that the annual meeting was about to come off, and then I would see what a condemned poor show I stood to get even the toe of my boot into the crack of the company door. He's a Maine corporation. I've known of cases where that fact helped a lot. There are plenty of ifs and buts in this thing, ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... dear doctor, your pleasure was my pleasure; but make my pleasure yours, and you remain to crack many a bottle ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the streets, no porters carry burdens, there are no wheelbarrows, there is no more work done of any kind or sort. Even the taverns and the eating-shops are shut—no one is thinking of work. To-morrow—Monday—poverty will lift again his cruel arm, and drive the world to work with crack of whip. The needle-woman will appear again with her bundle of work; the porters, the packers, the carmen, the clerks, the merchants themselves will all come back—the vast army of those who earn their daily bread ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... steam, while the wheels began to turn a little with a visible effort, and Rivet left the station and ran along by the track to get another look at Rosa, and as the carriage passed him, he began to crack his whip and to jump, while he sang at the top ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... it then. Perhaps they were too vagrant to be held. And yet these paragraphs that might be mournful records of failure, fill me with no more than a tender recollection for the boy who wrote them. The worn phrases now beg their way with broken steps. Like shrill and piping minstrels they whine and crack a melody that I still ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... that plan, and I suppose I've had to pay for it. I've just about concluded, in fact, that I would have been a hard nut for any man to crack. I've never been conspicuous for my efforts at self-obliteration. I've a temper that's as brittle as a squirrel bone. I'm too febrile and flightly, too chameleon-mooded and critical. The modern wife should be always a conservative. She should hold back ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... horse himself and tightened the girths. They walked together towards the great gate of solid wood which fitted into the high wall so closely that none could peep through so much as a crack. At the door the colonel lingered, leaning against his great horse and stroking its shoulder thoughtfully with a ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... morning he worked in continuous and furious fashion, breathing with difficulty through the interstices in the upper flag-tones, assailed with anguish, and twenty times believing that he was going to die. At last a crack was heard, and a huge stone ricocheting on the lower arches rolled to the ground,—and suddenly a cataract, an entire river, fell from the skies onto the plain. The aqueduct, being cut through in the centre, was emptying itself. It was ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... another one of the men said. "We wuz promised a station, but we haint goin' ter have no changin' of names. The railroad folks tried that down ter Skunk Hollow, settin' up a jim-crack station, all red shingles and fancy roof, and callin' it Ozone Valley. But they can't come any ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... her. Wheelwright ran to the rescue of his help-meet, and pulling her through the door, endeavored to shut it on the instant, to keep out the foe; in doing which the proboscis of Mistress Pettit, which was truly of the Strasburgh order, was unhappily and literally caught in the door crack, and beyond all question somewhat injured thereby. In the language of the trumpeter's wife in Tristram Shandy, it was truly "a noble nose," and the pinch it endured, though transient, it must be confessed, was rather severe and biting. Its fair possessor therefore ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... they sat at dinner, a terrible shriek, and one crack followed by another, loud as the report of cannon, assailed their ears. They hastened to the laboratory; two of the greatest stills had burst, and one part of the laboratory and the house were in flames. We are told that, after another ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... worse spectacle than this—worse by far than fire and smoke, or even the rabble's unappeasable and maniac rage. The gutters of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, ran with scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, overflowed the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into which the people dropped down dead by dozens. They lay in heaps all ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... angry with Master Harry. For Master Harry is a fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honor." And Boots signifies to me that, if the fine boy's father had contradicted him in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he should have "fetched him a crack," and taken ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Maharanee's minister, av coorse,' sez the man. 'Oho!' sez I to mysilf, 'I'm a quane in me own right, wid a minister to pay me expenses. I'll be an emperor if I lie still long enough; but this is no village I've found.' I lay quiet, but I gummed me right eye to a crack av the shutters, an' I saw that the whole street was crammed wid palanquins an' horses, an' a sprinklin' av naked priests all yellow powder an' tigers' tails. But I may tell you, Orth'ris, an' you, Learoyd, that av all the palanquins ours was the most imperial an' magnificent Now a palanquin ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... beyond certain episodes and caresses which could only follow each other in reality, but were united at the same moment in the dream, the sensation clear and precise of a being, of a fluid form disappearing, with the sharp sound of a percussion cap, or the crack of a whip close by, on waking. This being was felt near him so distinctly, that the sheet, disarranged by the wind of the flight, was still in motion, and he looked at the ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... taken to the station-house, or calaboose, where we gave bail, Captain Smoker going on my bond. While they were signing our bonds, my opponent made some remark that I did not like, and I hit him a good crack in the neck and brought him down on his knees, but they parted us; and the next day, when we appeared in court, the Judge said he had a notion to fine us $100 apiece for not sending for him, as he wanted to see it himself; "but ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... and I had ordered away, impatiently, the servant who came in with the lamps: I couldn't bear any definite sign that the day was over! And I was standing there on the rug, staring at the door, and noticing a bad crack in its panel, when I heard the sound of wheels on the gravel. A word at last, no doubt—a line to explain.... I didn't seem to care much for her reasons, and I stood where I was and continued to stare at the door. And suddenly it opened and ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... projecting part of the scroll, there are other injuries likely to occur to this part of the instrument and caused in a variety of ways, some occasionally seeming mysterious in their origin. Thus from a weakness or flaw in the grain of the wood, or it may be from a blow having first started a crack and successive ones gradually increasing the fracture, the scroll itself will come away bodily, separating at the weakest part just behind the second turn. This is a delicate matter for manipulation. ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... In a sea fight in the reign of Charles the Second, there was a very bloody engagement between the English and Dutch fleets, in the heat of which a Scotch sea-man was very severely bit by a louse on his neck, which he caught; and stooping down to crack it between his nails, many of the sailors near him had their heads taken off by a chain-shot from the enemy, which dashed their blood and brains about him; on which he had compassion upon the poor ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... an anchor through the incident, and received some small damage to the keel, but no other injury was done—even this, I believe, upon second thought, was unintentional—done in playfulness only! "A shark can take a joke," it is said, and crack one too, but for broad, rippling humour the ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... pile up the fuel in the box stove which alone makes life possible for them in such weather. The roof groans and bends beneath the blast. Under the rattling door a thin carpet of snow has edged its way in, while through the crack above it a steady rain of moisture falls as the snow encounters the rising heat of the ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... a fact that Lebedeff, though he was so anxious to keep everyone else from disturbing the patient, was continually in and out of the prince's room himself. He invariably began by opening the door a crack and peering in to see if the prince was there, or if he had escaped; then he would creep softly up to the arm-chair, sometimes making Muishkin jump by his sudden appearance. He always asked if the patient wanted anything, and when the latter replied that he only wanted to be left in peace, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... hole; and on the rough floor of the latter I stepped on the spade which had done the work. It nearly turned my ankle as I jumped on to it, but I hardly felt the pain. Torch and lantern showed clearly that the crevice in the wall was not a natural crack, but a man-made opening. It was as if a slab of rock fitted roughly into grooves had first been lifted, and had then fallen heavily ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... found on which to lay its foundations. And excellent, in truth, as is evident from the result, was the advice of Fra Giocondo, for the reason that the pier has stood firm from that time to our own, as it still does, without ever showing a crack; and there is hope that, by the observation of the suggestions given by that good monk, ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... far I did come laden with my sin; Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in Till I came hither: What a place is this! Must here be the beginning of my bliss? Must here the burden fall from off my back? Must here the strings that bound it to me crack? Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be The Man that there was ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... awfully grumble in the distant clouds, seem to meditate indignation, and from the first essays of a far more frightful peal; or suddenly bursting over your heads, rend the vault above and shake the ground below with a hideous and horrid crack!" In the evening the weather began to clear up, which induced me to walk out, when taking two peons as a guard, I proceeded south of the town, on a beautiful plain: the pleasantness of the weather, and the stillness of the evening, tempted me to prolong my walk, ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... he. 'Well,' sez I, 'I'm moighty sore an' sad bruised,' sez I. 'Is that so?' sez he. 'Sthep in here.' So I sthepped in, an' before I could wink there dhropped a crack on the back av me head that sent me off as unknowledgable as a corrpse. I knew no more for a while, sor, whether half an hour or an hour, an' thin I got up in a room av the place, marked 'To Let.' 'Twas a house full av offices, by the same token, like this. There was a sore bad lump on me head—see ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... indication of a town appears, in the shape of some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack- crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite pour ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... I crack that window," the desperate Peck decided, and continued on down the street, crossed to the other side and came back. It was now dark and over the art shop B. Cohn's name burned in small red, white and blue ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should reappear in this fair land and commence their vocation, they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... thoughtfully; he glanced from his window at the form of the receding stranger, and mechanically resumed the task of cutting those leaves, which, had the volumes reached the shelves of the library uncut, would have so remained to the crack of doom. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... certain tale of the time of his youth, in a black night, on the Spanish territory, in the gorges of Andarlaza. Seized by two carbineers at the turn in a dark path, he had disengaged himself by drawing his knife to stab a chest with it: half a second, a resisting flesh, then, crack! the blade entering brusquely, a jet of warm blood on his hand, the man fallen, and he, fleeing in ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... I from the building's top Hear the rattling thunder drop, While the devil upon the roof (If the devil be thunder-proof) Should with poker fiery red Crack the stones and melt the lead; Drive them down on every skull, While the den of thieves is full; Quite destroy that harpies' nest, How might then ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... where be wished to land. All advised him to take the longer way, but he was resolute, and turned his horse's head from us. The gallant steed bounded forward—the golden light was beaming from the sky—and we paused to watch his progress. A fearful crashing was heard—then a sharp crack, and sleigh, horse, and rider vanished from our sight. 'Twas horrible to see them thus enclosed in ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... secrets of the principal families of England. On one occasion my father was in treaty for a piece of land at the back of Gad's Hill, and it was proposed that there should be an interview with the owner, a farmer, a very acute man of business, and a very hard nut to crack. It was arranged that the interview with him should be at Gad's Hill, and the solicitor came down for the purpose. My father and Ouvry were sitting over their wine when the old man was announced. 'We had better go in to him,' said my father. ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... he were best to apply to the lady Desdemona to mediate for him with her lord; that she was of a frank, obliging disposition, and would readily undertake a good office of this sort, and set Cassio right again in the general's favour; and then this crack in their love would be made stronger than ever. A good advice of Iago, if it had not been given for wicked purposes, which ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... athlete. "Why, I was first reserve for England against Wales, and I've skippered the 'Varsity all this year. But that's nothing! I didn't think there was a soul in England who didn't know Godfrey Staunton, the crack three-quarter, Cambridge, Blackheath, and five Internationals. Good Lord! Mr. Holmes, ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... has been made, by placing a stuffed bear near the house, probably in imitation of the Zoological Gardens; but the idea is rather a failure, and would appear more suitable over the door of a perfumer's shop, to intimate the presence of bear's grease. A little gim-crack model of a wooden house is also visible, by way of an ornament, stuck on the summit of a wooden pillar, but the effect is disproportioned to all surrounding objects, even more than the designs on Chinese paper; where men of six feet high are represented entering mansions half ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... stem furnishes a milky juice, which becomes hard and black when dry, and is used as a varnish. It also secretes a gum, like gum arabic. The nut or fruit contains a black, acrid, caustic oil, injurious to the lips and tongue of those who attempt to crack the nut with their teeth; it becomes innocuous and wholesome when roasted, but this process must be carefully conducted, the acridity of the fumes producing severe inflammation of the face if ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts, and hurricanes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... idea of being less thought of than the chaplain. She was beginning to be stately, stiff, and offended, when unfortunately the castor of the sofa caught itself in her lace train, and carried away there is no saying how much of her garniture. Gathers were heard to go, stitches to crack, plaits to fly open, flounces were seen to fall, and breadths to expose themselves; a long ruin of rent lace disfigured the carpet, and still clung to the vile wheel on which the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... that town. The wild scenes of dissipation and recklessness disgusted him; he looked with loathing upon the saloons where gambling went on from morning till night, broken only by an occasional fierce quarrel, followed in most cases by the sharp crack of a revolver, or by desperate encounters with bowie knives. Bad as things were, however, they were improving somewhat, for a Vigilance Committee had just been started, comprising all the prominent citizens ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... see how the Whitsun King was galloping along among the rest, his long chaplet of flowers streaming in the wind behind him. One by one he overtook those who were galloping in front of him, and as often as he left one of them behind he gave him a crack with his whip, crying derisively, "Wire ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Ida quaked, as also the city of the Trojans and the ships of the Achaeans. Hades, king of the realms below, was struck with fear; he sprang panic-stricken from his throne and cried aloud in terror lest Neptune, lord of the earthquake, should crack the ground over his head, and lay bare his mouldy mansions to the sight of mortals and immortals—mansions so ghastly grim that even the gods shudder to think of them. Such was the uproar as the gods came together in battle. Apollo with his arrows took his stand ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... hardship. Once I had to pass the stream where it flowed between banks about three feet high. To get the easier down, I swung myself by a wild-cocoanut—(so called, it bears bunches of scarlet nutlets)—which grew upon the brink. As I so swung, I received a crack on the head that knocked me all abroad. Impossible to guess what tree had taken a shy at me. So many towered above, one over the other, and the missile, whatever it was, dropped in the stream and was gone ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... first—but I would see you spit fire before the holy man drives you away. So I looked in through a crack, and saw you asleep. Then I feared not, and bided your waking for ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... her knife in long, thin, curly strips. After that she finished the pies off in the pantry and tucked all three into the oven. Squatting on her feet in front of the door, she studied the dial intently for a moment and hesitatingly pushed the draft just a crack open. If it hadn't been for that momentary indecision, you might have thought that she had been baking pies all her life. Then she ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... the silence continued, with not so much as the crack of a twig to interrupt it. What's that? It's a cock crowing! There it is again! There's another! The laager's there right ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... poor victim seems to have consisted solely in his intimacy with Leigh Hunt, Mr. Hazlitt, and some other enemies of despotism and superstition. My friend Hunt has a very hard skull to crack, and will take a deal of killing. I do not know much ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... order to keep the uvula at work? This is a fine Fear—a great cowardice, and must be felt to be appreciated. The very improbability of billiards in a dak-bungalow proved the reality of the thing. No man—drunk or sober—could imagine a game at billiards, or invent the spitting crack of a "screw-cannon." ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... wild with delight, and insisted upon carrying Tom on their shoulders around the pond. A great crowd followed, and nobody noticed how this made the ice bend and crack. ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... crevices narrow, crevices medium, some shallow, some dropping till a falling stone clanked resounding into the far hollow depths. Scarcely could we travel a hundred yards but we were compelled to leap some deep, dark crack. Often they were so wide a running jump was necessary, and at times the smooth rock sloped on both sides toward the crevice rather steeply. Once the Major came sliding down a bare slope till at a point where he caught sight of the edge of ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... bosom friend; our pursuits and tastes were the same. Why then could not he ask us up to his cosy study to give us coffee and a cigarette? "Sarebbe proprio indecente" ("It would really be too rude"), was the reply, although both he and we would have liked it extremely. So for want of time to crack this hard nutshell we never got ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... grew sober and discussed possibilities. "If that's true, it's the worst crack on the head I ever had," said Mcllvaine. "Seventeen hundred dollars is my pile in there." He took a seat on ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... cries Young, at eighty—'Where The world in which a man was born? 'Alas! Where is the world of eight years past? 'T was there— I look for it—'t is gone, a globe of glass! Crack'd, shiver'd, vanish'd, scarcely gazed on, ere A silent change dissolves the glittering mass. Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings, And dandies, all are gone ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... resting his elbow on his knee to steady his rifle, James took as careful an aim as the dancing motion of the boat permitted, and fired. A dull sound came back, like an echo, to the crack of the piece, and a paddle in the leading boat fell into the water. A yell arose from the Indians, but no answering shout ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... friend and neighbour, Coward, not only played a good knife and fork, but did ample justice to the Old October. An unusual flush about the gills shewed, indeed, that his blood was beginning to circulate pretty rapidly, and by the time he had taken another glass or two he began to talk big, and crack his jokes with the best of us. As some of the party, in endeavouring to keep up their spirits, were already "half seas over," Mr. Serjeant-major Pinkey now very properly interposed; and as every one had taken what was at least quite sufficient, the things ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... hands. But she didn't. If I were giving orders she would obey me to the letter. She 'pitched me Lilly.' I gave a dismal wail of dismay as I saw my dear baby come hurtling through the air, but when she landed on her blessed head, and I heard the crack of breaking china, I just abandoned myself to grief and howled desperately. Aunt Rebecca went about her business as if nothing had happened, and by and by I stole off with my ruined dolly and cried to ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... Lartius, Herminius darted back; And, as they passed, beneath their feet They felt the timbers crack. But when they turned their faces, And on the farther shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, They would ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... banisters, only falling against them, and making them crack from top to bottom once, before he reached the drawing-room landing. He ascended the second flight of stairs without casualties of any kind, until he got to the top step, close by his father's bed-room door. Here, by a dire fatality, the stifled ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... crawl off on his hands and knees. He had seen something doubtless, and hence his singular conduct. In a few minutes his prostrate form was lost in the darkness, and for some time we saw or heard no more of him. At length we were startled by the whip-like crack of the guide's rifle, and fancying it might be Indians, each sprang up in some alarm and seized his gun. We were soon reassured, however, by seeing the upright form of the trapper as he walked deliberately back towards the camp-fire, and the blaze revealed to us a large whitish ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... resembled a crumbling of rocks, without, however, any perceptible sinking of the surface. The glacier actually trembled, nevertheless; for a block of granite three feet in diameter, perched on a pedestal two feet high, suddenly fell down. At the same instant a crack opened between my feet and ran rapidly across the glacier in a straight line."* (* Extract from a letter of Louis Agassiz to M. Arago dated from the Hotel des Neuchatelois, Glacier of the Aar, August 7, 1842.) On this occasion Agassiz saw three crevasses formed in ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... arrived there to find that the Skinners had preceded them on the same errand, and they recognized through the windows, in the leader of the band, a noted brigand on whose head a price was laid. He was searching every crack and cranny of the room, while Crosby, stripped to shirt and trousers, stood before the empty fireplace and begged for that night to be left ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... less exclusive regions, however, which I shared with other boys of that bygone day. Regions of freedom and delight, where I heard the ominous crack of Deerslayer's rifle, and was friends with Chingachgook and his noble son—the last, alas! of the Mohicans: where Robin Hood and Friar Tuck made merry, and exchanged buffets with Lion-hearted Richard under the green-wood ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... proudly to observe the paralysing effect of his performance upon the others of his family, who sat round him on their podgy haunches in a respectfully wide circle, and marvelled fearfully at his robust prowess. They had all yapped before, but this deep, resonant bark—fully one in three had no crack in it—this was an achievement indeed. After a while the grey bitch pup came and tentatively chewed Finn's backbone, with a vague idea that the sound came ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... means, I take it, that men do best what they are trained for! Lord Warwick and his men are trained for fighting. Few of the fish about London Bridge are bred in that sea. Cry, 'London to the rescue!'—put on hauberk and helm, and you will have crowns enough to crack around you. What follows?—Master Stokton hath said it: pillage and rape for the city, gibbet and cord for mayor and aldermen. Do I say this, loving the House of Lancaster? No; as Heaven shall judge me, I think that the policy King Edward ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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