"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gains his elastic blow by the free movement of the wrist. To gain a similarly elastic blow mechanically in his first action, Cristofori cut a notch in the butt of his hammer from which the escapement lever, "linguetta mobile" as he called it—"hopper," as we call it—being centered at the base, moved forward, when the key was put down, to the extent of its radius, and after the delivery of the blow returned to its resting place by the pressure ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... about food made a warm, sickish taste rise in his mouth. He brought out the hardtack which Boyd had so indignantly rejected the night before, and holding the chunk balanced on his saddle horn, rapped it smartly with the butt of a revolver. It broke raggedly across, and then he was able to crack it ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... We were undoubtedly put into a great consternation on this account, lest they should run into our grove, and consequently bring us into the like danger. Hereupon we resolved to kill the first that came, to prevent discovery, and that too with our swords, and the butt end of our muskets, for fear the report of ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... thus should stand, The butt of every tearful eye; To raise the Culprit's trembling hand, To heave the Culprit's ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... numerous. They haunt river sides, and the shores of lakes and ponds. None of these are easily got at, on account of the wood-dogs; but the rams of the horned kind are reputed to sometimes turn upon the pursuing pack, and butt them to death. In the extremity of their terror whole flocks of wild sheep have been driven over precipices and ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... was wholly free from solemnity, and when he heard or saw what was ludicrous was not afraid to laugh at it. Sir Robert Peel was an excellent hand at what our fathers called banter and we call chaff. A prig or a pedant was his favourite butt, and the performance was rendered all the more effective by his elaborate assumption of the grand seigneur's manner. The victim was dimly conscious that he was being laughed at, but comically uncertain about the best means of reprisal. ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... which met his eyes. Every one of the Dutchmen had got his musket to an order, following a sort of fugleman of their own; while Mike had invented a "motion" that would have puzzled any one but himself to account for. The butt of the piece was projected towards the captain, quite out of line, while the barrel rested on his own shoulder. Still, as his arms were extended to the utmost, the county Leitrim-man fancied he was performing ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... standard, a long spear's length in front of our line. But by this I had leapt to my feet; and it was time, for he was almost on me. Spear had I none; so I dragged out the standard shaft from the ground where I had struck it, and levelled that sharp butt end full at his chest. Overhead was his axe again, and I had no shield to stop the blow; but I must ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... household ought to offer, and did present in miniature, the elements of a complete society. Among the inmates there was, as in the world at large, one poor discouraged creature—a butt on whom mocking pleasantries were rained. This patient sufferer was the old vermicelli maker, Goriot. Six years before, he had come to live at the Maison Vauquer, having, so he said, retired from business. He dressed handsomely, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... fact, we found terrible proofs of the enemy's presence. After taking possession of the towns and villages, they had arrested the inhabitants, maltreated them with saber-strokes and the butt ends of their guns, stripping them of their clothing, and compelling those to follow them whom they thought capable of serving as guides on their march; and if they were not guided as they expected they killed with the sword or shot their unfortunate prisoners. ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... a Sweater, and whose people butt into the Society Column with Sickening Regularity, started to Tackle Low; he had Bushy Hair and a Thick Neck, and his strong Specialty was to swing on ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... splendidly dressed, of a haughty countenance, displaying the greatest contempt for all the arguments addressed to him, his impatience being marked by "Has!" accompanied by stamping on the ground the while and striking it with the butt of his spear. This chief was in confinement at Lubuagan, but, to save his face, Governor Hale had ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... increase the wrath of the man of law. He looked at Miss Vernon with such an air of spite and resentment, as laid me under a strong temptation to knock him off his horse with the butt-end of my whip, which I only suppressed ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Church, for all of them rest on the like untenable grounds. I did not wonder at finding the country abounding in unbelief. Now that the fires of the Inquisition have ceased to burn, the priesthood are made the butt and laughing-stock of those who are educated. Still, the national mind does not run toward the pure Gospel, which is here unknown and prohibited, but to infidelity and socialism. A sincere Protestant can have no ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... look at him and he added reassuringly: "Oh, don't mistake me. I don't want to butt into your set—not for social purposes, anyhow; but if ever it should come handy to know any of 'em in a business way, would you fix it up for me—AFTER ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... the butt of his revolver, ready to draw, if necessary, to enforce his command. Buck saw the movement, and shouted to him: "Keep your hand away from that gun, Sheriff. You know I am quick on the draw." He significantly fingered ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... mouth and eyes had become deeper and sharper. Some perpetual indignation seemed smouldering in the knitted brow and protruding upper lip. He sat there silent and motionless for some half hour, his chin resting on his hands, and they again upon the butt of his axe, apparently in deep thought, and listening with a silent sneer to the clinking of glasses ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... vacant place they covet before their eyes. Then, I can never count change even when my mind is tranquil, and she knows that, and swoops threateningly upon me in booking offices and stationers' shops. When I am dodging cabs at crossings she will appear from behind an omnibus or carriage and butt into me furiously. She holds her umbrella in her folded arms just as the Punch puppet does his staff, and with as deadly effect. Sometimes she discards her customary navy blue and puts on a glittering bonnet with bead trimmings, and ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... through them without disgrace. Before, and after them, I walked about—supervised, as I have mentioned, by the man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have blown less in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end of a long bare dining-room, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... time the fair Editha had exercised her undoubted charms over Marmaduke's violent nature, but latterly she had become a mere butt for his outbursts of rage. But now to her astonishment, and in response to her petulant reproach, his fury seemed to fall away from him. He threw his head back and broke out into uncontrolled, half-sarcastic, ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... deck, up and around on the ship. "Doggone!" he breathed. "I am the ranking—I'm the only naval officer present." Then he shook his head and bent to his patient. He might have the rank, but the last thing he was going to do was to butt in on any ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... match and looked around him, seeing an old rusty tin candlestick with the butt of a candle in it on a shelf under ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... Anne Scott, who seemed to be from her cradle the butt for mischance to shoot arrows at. Her childhood was marked by perilous escapes from the most extraordinary accidents. Among others, I remember an iron-railed door leading into the area in the centre of George's Square being closed by the wind, while her fingers ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Wayfarer's Tickle—the same who sat at cards with the mail-boat doctor and beat his dog with the butt of a whip—having got news of my father's death, came presently to our harbour, with that in mind which jumped ill with our plans. We had dispiriting weather: a raw wind bowled in from the northeast, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... poker be heated" were the fearful words which greeted Mr. Verdant Green on his initiation into a spoof Lodge of Freemasonry at Oxford. This was one of the many "rags" of which he was the butt during his days at ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... patently strong—strong enough to excuse any disheartenment. Scarcely a window pierced its narrow butt-end, four stories high, under which the steps wound. It ended just where they met the towpath, and from its angle sprang a brick wall dead-blank, at least twelve feet high, which ran for eighty or ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and at Rome and probably elsewhere, the old man was one of the principal grotesque characters. These things, as Rousseau pointed out, have a great effect upon morals. Once the old man became a recognised traditional stage-butt, his social authority had come to an end. In the de Senectute it is obvious that Cicero is running counter to the stream in seeking to restore to favour a character about whom the public is indifferent and for whom all he can do is ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... all!" she exclaimed bitterly. "I can understand Jimmy, because he likes me to drive him all the time, but you others, who aren't regular clients at all, why you should butt in and try to spoil my chances, I can't think. Mr. Wingate is just my conception of the ideal fare—generous, affable, and with trans-Atlantic notions about tips. I shall send you my card, all the same, ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... she was quiet—the quiet that is deliberative, threatening. Then she slowly closed her fingers about the whip butt. Fixing her gaze in passionate anger upon him, she advanced a ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... said Mills promptly, lowering the butt of his gun to the ground and resting both hands on the muzzle. The stranger started slightly, but did not cease ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... his first trophy as a hunter. While bending down some branches over head, without looking up, an opossum fell upon his hat, knocking it over his eyes, and springing on the neck of Pete, thence leaped to the ground. But before it disappeared Joe had dismounted, and giving it a blow with the butt of his musket it rolled over on its side, with its eyes closed and tongue hanging out, indicating that the stroke ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... village instead of a king. Around this smoke-shrouded table the most important affairs of state were discussed. Around it the rudest practical jokes were perpetrated. Gundling, a beer-bibbing author, whom the king made at once his historian and his butt, was the principal sufferer from these frolics, which displayed abundantly that absence of wit and presence of brutality which is the characteristic of the practical joke. As if in scorn of rank and official dignity, Frederick gave this sot and fool the title of baron and created him chancellor ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... which he was apoinnted by your worshipp at Mydsomer to do, for the churche yarde lyeth to commons and all other thynkes in the churche is ondonne.... I praye you dele w[i]t[h] hym so yt he maye be a presydent for them that shall have the offyce; for they wyll but jess att itt, and saye it is butt a mony matter: therefore lett them paye well for the penaltie whiche was sett on theire heads." Continuing, the writer states that his reason for writing is "that you be not abewseid in youre office by there muche intreatyng for themselffes, ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... in the castle the thundering blows which the Tyrolese struck with the butt-ends of their rides against the door of the room where Ulrich von Hohenberg ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... I must avow that I had also a certain degree of pride which prevented me from making advances when unfairly treated. I had always lived in an atmosphere of confidence, love, and goodwill,—perhaps I had been a little spoilt by the kindness of my friends, and now it seemed hard to be a butt for ill-natured sarcasms. These shafts, however, were seldom, if ever, let loose in the presence of my husband, who would not have tolerated it; the want of welcome being as much as he could bear. Still, there was no doubt that matters had slightly mended since our first visit, and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... succeeded also in reaching the fence unhurt, but in the act of crossing, were vigorously assailed by several Indians, who throwing down their guns, rushed upon them with their tomahawks. The young man defended his sister gallantly, firing upon the enemy as they approached, and then wielding the butt of his rifle with a fury that drew the whole attention upon himself, and gave his sister an opportunity of effecting her escape. He quickly fell, however, under the tomahawk of his enemies, and was found at daylight, scalped ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... elbow to elbow the Germans charged, their bayonets a sea of flashing steel, their thunderous shouts drowning the roar of guns, and rank on rank they reeled back from British steel and swinging rifle-butt, and German shouts died and were ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... it is strange to see what Daedalian complications, and wheels within wheels, we have contrived to work into the superstructure. A modern ward heeler in New York could have taken up the whole frame of government in Seventeenth Century New England by the butt end, and cracked it like a whip—provided of course the Pilgrim fathers had allowed him ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... there! Give room! The Regent comes from Mass. Guards, butt them on the toes—way there! give room! Prick ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... his daughters, but rather to his sons, and often to the eldest son alone, as in the old feudal days. Social conventions are not unlike those of other southern countries. For the majority of women marriage is the one aim in life, and an unmarried woman is shown little consideration and is the butt of much ridicule. In the northern part of Italy, women are gaining a certain amount of liberty in these latter days, and young girls of the better class may, without causing much comment, go upon the street unattended. ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... in behind the sheltering jiggermast, and even as he ducked his left hand dipped into his side coat-pocket, so that when he had gained shelter it was coming out with a fresh clip of cartridges. The empty clip fell to the deck, the loader clip slipped up the hollow butt, and he was good ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... wot makes me so squeamish these days," he drawled, with a slow smile. "He sartin desarved it in the throat. That Pole 'n' me's goin' to butt agin each other some more. I never was wuth shucks when it comes to justice . . . an' I allus suffer fer it after. Look at Bilsy, an' Dutch ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... there's no denyin' That it ain't so easy tryin' To grin and grip your rifle by the butt, When the 'ole world rips asunder, And you sees yer pal go under, As a bunch of shrapnel sprays 'im on the nut; I admit it's 'ard contrivin' When you 'ears the shells arrivin', To discover you're a bloomin' bit o' spunk; But, my lad, you've got to do it, And your God will ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... never gave any particular heed to it. I used to see the automatic lying in the drawer of the wardrobe in Mr. Parrish's room in a wash-leather case. I noticed this steel appliance, sir, because the case wouldn't shut over the pistol with it on and the butt used to stick out." ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... try to butt in on Happy Jack's specialty," Weary remonstrated, folding the message and slipping it inside the yellow envelope. "If this is the same jasper that cooked there a month ago, we're going to eat ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... the officer's advice, and gave me One with the butt end of a pistol, which nearly clove my skull in twain, and certainly made me peaceable and quietness, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the butt of an alleged cigar, into which he had stuck a sharpened match as a visible means of support, a boy who was probably not so old as he looked sat upon the curbstone at the corner, and claimed the world for his cuspidor. He was an ill-favored runt of a boy, with a sedate manner and a face somewhat ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... plough. Lot 222. Iron turnwrist [pronounced turn-riced] plough. Lot 242. 9-time scarifier. Lot 251. Clod crusher. Lot 252. Hay tedder." From another catalogue more ramalogues, these abrupt and active little words might be called, butt at one. As "Lot 4. Flint spud, two drain scoops, bull lead and five dibbles. Lot 10. Dung rake and dung devil. Lot 11. Four juts and a zinc skip." Farm labourers are men of little speech, and it is often needful that voices ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... the quiet of unlimited expectation, a particularly elaborate act was being prepared. A massive wooden stand, with shelves and seats at various heights, was brought in. Signor Tomaso, coiling the lash of his whip and holding the heavy handle, with its loaded butt, as a sceptre, took his place on a somewhat raised seat at the centre of the frame. Hansen, with his pitchfork in one hand and a whip like Tomaso's in the other, drew nearer; and the audience, with a thrill, realized that something more than ordinarily dangerous was on the cards. The tiger came ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... a start as his eyes lifted above the saddle, and his hand dropped to the butt of the revolver which he carried so clumsily in his belt. Hun Shanklin was standing there facing him, not above a dozen feet away, grinning dubiously, but with what he doubtless meant ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... for release from an atmosphere grown suddenly boresome. The elder by four seconds went to the door and, affecting intense maturity, spat out from it. The younger, dipping his head in the water-butt near the leader, took a small comb from his pocket and, using the disturbed water-butt as a mirror, began parting into ideal smoothness his ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... marked the winter with the triumphant Nor'westers of Athabasca Lake. Often, when wild drinking songs were ringing in the Nor'westers' dining hall, the Hudson's Bay men would be brought in to furnish a butt for their merciless victors. One night, when the hall was full of Indians, one of the Northwest bullies began to brawl out a song in celebration of the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... footsteps, and I knew Levi in a moment, as the gas lamp shone on him. I didn't want to play spy, but I did want to know what that chap was up to. So, while their backs was towards me, I crawled behind the water-butt without making any noise, and I could catch a few words now and then, as they were not ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... and dull resentment, eyed his companion askance, with furtive suspicion. Their association was now one of some seven years' standing; and it seemed a grievous thing that, after posing so long as the patient butt of his rude humour, P.S. should have so suddenly turned and proved himself the better man—and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... I got to Stuck River crossing I came to a turn in the trail where it crossed the top of a big fir that had been turned up by the roots and had fallen nearly parallel with the trail. The big roots held the butt of the tree up from the ground. I think the tree was four feet in diameter a hundred feet from the butt, and the whole body, from root to top, was eighty-four steps long, or about two hundred and ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... spot by some running stream, where there is plenty of red willow, has been fixed upon for a camping-place, and a fire has been lighted, the squaws cut a quantity of the willow, and, making a rude framework of the larger branches, of which the butt-ends are fixed firmly into the ground, and the small ends bound together to look like a small dome, they weave the smaller branches and twigs in and out until the whole affair looks like a great leafy basket turned upside down. The entrance is very low, and when once inside, ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... are very important. The American tuna rod is an excellent piece of workmanship. It is made in two pieces, the tip and the butt. The tip, according to the rules of the Tuna Club, must not be less than 6ft. long, and fits into the butt just above the reel. It is made of split cane, but with no steel centre, and is very strong and stiff, bending a little ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... camp-fire, and an unpleasantly modulated voice asks us to say our prayers, adding that we are on the point of going to Glory with our boots on. I think perhaps there may be some truth in this, as the mouth of a horse-pistol almost grazes my forehead, while immediately behind the butt of that death-dealing weapon I perceive a large man with black whiskers. Other large men begin to assemble, also with horse-pistols. Dr. Hingston hastily explains, while I go back to the carriage to say my prayers, where there is more room. The men were miners ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... night, behold the young Beaver toiling with might and main. His parents have felled a tree, and it is his business to help them cut up the best portions and carry them home. He gnaws off a small branch, seizes the butt end between his teeth, swings it over his shoulder, and makes for the water, keeping his head twisted around to the right or left so that the end of the branch may trail on the ground behind him. Sometimes ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... the chaste keeping of the heroes of the dragonnades.[115] Happily, her mother had come to see her start, had followed her in spite of everything, and they did not dare to beat her away with their butt-ends. She stayed in the room, kept watch—neither of them, indeed, lying down—and shielded her child ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... thus delineating the character of Nathan Slaughter, the latter found himself surrounded by the young men of the Station, the butt of a thousand jests, and the victim of the insolence of the captain of horse-thieves. It is not to be supposed that Roaring Ralph was really the bully and madman that his extravagant freaks and expressions seemed to proclaim ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... blow—with a heavy head sea, that prevented our sailing even when we got aslant. On the afternoon of the day we quitted Stornaway, I got a notion how it was going to be; the sun went angrily down behind a bank of solid grey cloud, and by the time we were up with the Butt of Lewis, the whole sky was in tatters, and the mercury nowhere, with a ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... revolver through the crack butt first. '; Take this, you Yankee, and remember that you will surely be hung if you don't get ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Miss Ross. I can see you are thoroughly capable and independent; but, believe me, India is not like England, and a white woman needs a good many things done for her here if she's to be at all comfortable. I don't want to butt in and be a nuisance; but just remember I'm there ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... menes to make a bourse! but must walke in the raine, when ytt raineth, more lyker pedlers then marchants; and in thys countrie, and all other, there is no kynde of pepell that have occasion to meete, butt they have a plase meete for that pourpose." Indeed, Clough got quite excited over the thought that London, of all cities in the world, possessed no decent accommodation for merchants transacting their everyday business, and declared his readiness to build "so fere a bourse in London as the grett ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... difficulty of questioning a dying man, whose countenance expressed his gloomy fanaticism, and he turned away his head with a frown. Two soldiers, friends of those whom Marche-a-Terre had so brutally killed with the butt of his whip, stepped back a pace or two, took aim at the Chouan, whose fixed eyes did not blink at the muzzles of their guns, fired at short range, and brought him down. When they approached the dead body to strip it, the dying man found strength to ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... cut the sticks for the shafts the Cave-men made gifts to the wood-gods, and asked for the straightest and toughest branches that grew on the trees. Then they cut the branches carefully and carried them home to the cave. There they peeled them from butt to tip and smoothed them with stone scrapers. Sometimes they rubbed them with fat and laid them away to dry. It was hard work to make a crooked stick straight. But the Cave-men tried many ways and at last they learned ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... house, a dirty blanket let down outside the window. The tree made a black pattern on it. Clear glass beads hung in a row from the black branch, each black twig was tipped with a glass bead. When Jenny opened the window there was a queer cold smell like the smell of the black water in the butt. ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... a second. The butt of the pistol that would equalize the affair was almost within his grasp, and Muller stood in the light, but he saw an ominous glint in the pale blue eyes and the farmer's fingers tighten on the haft. There ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... that sort of thing. Since we can't hold you a prisoner now, we release you. It's likely that you don't know your way to your own camp, but your red comrade here will guide you. My friend didn't break his skull, when he struck him with the butt of his rifle, though it was a shrewd blow. He's ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... advised that a club, of which he was an honorary member, would entertain him—that it would be a farmer's night. Alfred well knew there would be great fun at the expense of the farmer. He would be the butt of all the jokes the busy brains of a dozen or more keen wits could devise. Therefore, he studied for days that he might in a humorous way parry the jibes. Nothing humorous in connection with the farm could be evolved from his brain. He was too ambitious, ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... tired you were, and though I hated to 'butt in' on your performance, I just felt I had to, to save ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... came to pass that when he tackled one hulking and bashful sort of a chap who stuttered, Kyle was in most excellent mood to have a little fun with a butt. Even Echford Flagg ceased operations to listen, for the humor seemed to be sharp-edged enough ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... an angry laugh and a sharp, downward blow of the butt of his whip upon the peasant's head. Charlot's hand grew nerveless and released the bridle as he sank stunned to the ground. Bellecour touched his horse with the spur and rode over the prostrate fellow with no more concern than had he been a dog's carcase. "Blaise, see to ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... went out on the point of the ledge to whistle the dolphins' summons. Tino-rau's sleek head bobbed above water as he answered the girl with a bubbling squeak. Karara knelt and the dolphin came to butt ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... keeping abreast of the boats as well as they were able, crying out taunts and imprecations; and one, more zealous in his passion, went to the top of a hill and struck the earth three times with the butt of his gun,—the registration of a mighty oath against the whites, ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... he makes off as if for Berwick and the sea. Once or twice he leaps clean into the air, a flying bar of silver. Then he sulks at the bottom, a mere dead weight, attempting devices only to be conjectured. A common plan now is to tighten the line, and tap the butt end of the rod. This humane expedient produces effects not unlike neuralgia, it may be supposed, for the fish is off in a new fury. But rush after rush grows tamer, till he is drawn within reach of the gaff, and so on to the grassy bed, where a tap on the head ends his sorrows, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... flags of England, France, and Turkey; and the lion and the eagle conjointly supported devices which bore the names "Alma, Balaclava, and Inkermann." At the dejeuner sherry was served which had reached the venerable age of one hundred and nine years, was valued at L600 the butt, and had belonged to the great Napoleon. The same evening, the Queen and the Prince, with their guests, went in State to the Italian Opera, where Fidelio was performed. "We literally drove through a sea of human ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... the scythe and knew it must be old Father Time. The hour-glass puzzled me no little though. The man has cotton batting wings. One of them is a little wabbly, but what can you expect from Caledonia? They're always trying to butt the bull off the bridge. They're jealous of our town. Oh, they stooped to all the mean, underhanded tricks you ever heard of to get the canning factory to go to their place instead of here. But we know a thing ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... pistol ready by my side. I slept peacefully and without a dream; the sun was high in heaven when, with a yawn and a stretching of my limbs, I awoke. I heard, as I opened my eyes, a little rustling as of somebody moving; my hand flew to the butt of my pistol. But when I turned round I saw Barbara only. She was sitting a little way behind me, looking out over the sea. Feeling my gaze she ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... himself back again before the house, and an ink-black cloud touched the moon's edge. After the airless evening a wind had sprang up in the east; it thrashed among the lilac-stems as he came through them and across the turf, silent-footed as an Indian. In his right hand he had a bread-knife, held butt to thumb, dagger-wise. Where he had come by the rust-bitten thing no one knows, least of all himself. In the broken light his eyes shone with a curious luminosity of ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... to go?" Quin finished it for her. "Now, look here, Miss Isobel; you can fire me, but you know you can't fire the furnace! Who is going to stay here at night? Who is going to carry Madam up and down stairs? Of course I don't want to butt in, but if ever a house needed a man it's this one. Why don't you have me stay on until things get to running ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... and stepped delicately to the verge of the mud, her hand firmly closed on the butt, her mouth and left ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... Cupples replied sadly. "In fact, far from well. I can tell you almost exactly what he said—it wasn't much. He said, 'See here, Cupples, you don't want to butt in. My wife can look after herself. I've found that out, along with other things.' He was perfectly quiet—you know he was said never to lose control of himself—though there was a light in his eyes ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... this afternoon. Charley and I made our lucky up the wash-us chimney, and Bolter got into the empty water-butt, head downwards; but his legs were so precious long that they stuck out at the top, and so ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... thought of applying such adjectives to Judas Maccabeus as to Jesus; and even St. Luke, who makes Jesus polite and gracious, does not make him meek. The picture of him as an English curate of the farcical comedy type, too meek to fight a policeman, and everybody's butt, may be useful in the nursery to soften children; but that such a figure could ever have become a centre of the world's attention is too absurd for discussion; grown men and women may speak kindly of a harmless creature who utters amiable sentiments and is a helpless nincompoop ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... at the gate. Sunfish scrambled with his feet for secure footing, found it and waded up to the front door. The water was a foot deep on the porch. Thurston beat an imperative tattoo upon the door with the butt of his quirt, and shouted. And Mona's voice, shorn of its customary assurance, answered faintly from ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... 'striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone.' His arguments, indeed, never seem to have owed much to such logic as implies systematic and continuous thought. He scarcely waits till his pistol misses fire to knock you down with the butt-end. The merit of his best sayings is not that they compress an argument into a phrase, but that they are vivid expressions of an intuitive judgment. In other words, they are always humorous rather than witty. He holds his own belief with ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... mean time, had escorted the children to the larch-copse bordering on the lane which leads to the village. Now he crept stealthily back to the yard, and established himself behind the water-butt. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... was only too glad when Jennie Bruce spoke to her. She was just a little afraid of Jennie's sharp tongue; and yet she had never been the butt of any of the harum-scarum's jokes. Perhaps Jennie had spared Nancy because the latter was so much alone. The ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... emptied at a gulp and called for more. There was a strange silence in the house—a silence in decided contrast to the screams I had heard, and I wondered if the wretches had shot the woman. I started to knock on the door with the butt of my pistol, but Jane Ryder ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... passing members touching the question of the expectant Jorrocks and the missing purse. Beyond, however, eliciting many sallies of wit from the younger spirits, for it was part of the major's policy to lay himself open to be a butt, his laudable perseverance was entirely thrown away. At last he gave it up in disgust, and raising his stick hailed a passing 'bus, into which he sprang, taking a searching glance round to see that no one was following him. ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... scrambled out on the jam and was clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of boat-hook. It slid forward slowly as an alligator moves, three or four others followed it, and the green water spouted through the gaps they had made. Then the villagers howled and shouted and scrambled ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... time for reflection, for it was a hot day, and though he drove slowly, the horses were sweating at every pore. Pel Frost, then, must have overheard his wife's storm of reproaches, perhaps even her threats of violence. It had come to this, that he was the village laughing-stock, a butt of ridicule at the store ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... otherwise, of others. There are people in whom the adversely critical spirit is so highly developed that they find it hard to praise any one or to hear any one praised—their criticism leaps to the surface in one way or another, in the sneer, in the "butt," in the joke, in the gibe, in the openly expressed attack. This way of being superior may be direct and open, more often it is disguised. Many a woman (and man) who denounces the sinner receives from her contemplation ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... heap of refuse; four or five gaunt ferocious-looking dogs came bounding up to greet their comrade Festhold; and a great old long-bearded goat stood on the top of the mixen, looking much disposed to butt at any newcomer. The Sorel family had brought cleanliness from Flanders, and Hausfrau Johanna was scrupulously dainty in all her appointments. Christina scarcely knew how she conveyed herself and her ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with an instinct that sleep could not deny, his left hand kept clasped around the butt of ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... clerk" is far too stiff and formal for that soul of good-heartedness striving in vain to hide behind a bluff exterior—"Eddie," I say, blew a last cloud of smoke from his lungs to the ceiling, tossed aside the butt of his cigarette, and motioned to me to take the ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... often to miss opportunities of effective intervention. The sensitiveness of his nature appeared in his falling in love at first sight with a Highland girl whom Burke and he casually met during a tour. His loss of her made a painful impression on him.[406] The butt of an unkind fate, he seemed destined also to be the leader of lost causes; and the proud and penniless emigres found in him their ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the pickles to me this morning, and I took one mouthful, and like to had the lockjaw. But Ma didn't do it on purpose, I guess. She never had the mumps and didn't know how discouraging a pickle is. Darn if I didn't feel as though I had been struck in the butt of the ear with a brick. But about Pa. He has been fuller'n a goose ever since New Year's day. I think its wrong for women to tempt feeble minded persons with liquor on New Year's. Now me and my chum, we can take a drink and then let it alone. We have got brain, and know when we ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... not aware of the presence of the men until they were directly behind him. Then he turned, only to be met with a blow on the head with the butt of a pistol, and he sank to the ground with ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... de nat'al stuffin' outen you,' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee, but de Tar-Baby, she ain't sayin' nuthin'. She des hilt on, en den Brer Rabbit lose de use er his feet in de same way. Brer Fox, he lay low. Den Brer Rabbit squall out dat ef de Tar-Baby don't tu'n 'im loose he butt 'er cranksided. En den he butted, en his head got stuck. Den Brer Fox, he sa'ntered fort', lookin' dez ez innercent ez wunner yo' ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... latter's work calls for the process, despite the pretensions of modern criticism that it must not be criticised. Although to buffet an anonym is to beat the air, still the very effort does good. A well-known and popular novelist of the present day was a favourite butt for certain journalists who, with ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... or his comfort to its supreme purpose. Fame was merely foolishness when caught in the trap of martial law. I saw a man of European reputation flourish his card before railway officials, to be thrust back by the butt end of a rifle, No money could buy a seat in a railway carriage already crowded to suffocation. No threat to write a letter to the Times would avail an old-fashioned Englishman when his train was shunted for hours on to a side line to make way for troop trains, passing, ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... quite true, but it does not go far to account for their failure. Punch has done this steadily ever since its establishment, without serious injury. No good cause has ever received much backing from it till it became the cause of the majority, or indeed has escaped being made the butt of its ridicule; and we confess we doubt whether "the friends of progress," using the term in what we may call its technical sense, were ever a sufficiently large body, or had ever sufficient love of fun, to make their disfavor of any great consequence. Most people in the United ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... the fete to be given by the Regent in honour of the French King, Sheridan sent a forged card of invitation to Romeo Coates, the half-witted dandy, who used at this time to walk about in absurd ribbons and buckles, and was the butt of all the streetsters. The poor fellow arrived at the entrance of Carlton House, proud as a peacock, and he was greeted with a tremendous cheer from the bystanding mob, but when he came to the lackeys he was told that his card was a hoax and sent about his business. The ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... by four pillars, like a bedstead. Below lay the body of a priest, embalmed and gilt. I intended to have brought this home, but before I arrived there, I found one of my marines, a graceless dog without religion or any other good quality, very busy hammering the mummy to pieces with the butt end of his musket. I was very angry, and ordered him to desist. In excuse, he replied that it was an abominable molten image, and it was his duty, as a good Christian, to destroy it—the only evidence of Christianity ever witnessed on ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... themselves again concern animals. Experience as interpreted by the English law has shown that dogs, rams, and bulls are in general of a tame and mild nature, and that, if any one of them does by chance exhibit a tendency to bite, butt, or gore, it is an exceptional phenomenon. Hence it is not the law that a man keeps dogs, rams, bulls, and other like tame animals at his peril as to the personal damages which they may inflict, unless he knows or has notice that the particular animal kept by him has the abnormal tendency ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... must have electrified the club almost as much as the first appearance of The Traveler, and let them still deeper into the character and talents of the man they had been accustomed to consider as their butt. Retaliation, in a word, closed his accounts with the club, and ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the boatswain. "Carew took 'is gun away, and 'it 'im over the eye with the butt of it. Laid 'im out, same as you. They let the lass take 'im into 'is room and stay there to nurse 'im. I seen ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... coat he brought a gleaming weapon with a long barrel and an unusually large butt—an air pistol of great power and reliability. In the old South African times Bullard had been a notable shot with rifle and revolver, and practice during the last few days had shown him that his hand and ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... till the last biscuit is eaten, and the scuttle-butt shall be dry, with no better fortune. It is not my business to teach your Honor; but there is not a man in the ship, who ever expects to be a farthing the better for her capture. Men are of many minds concerning ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... brutal and unreasoning violence, they were hauled and pushed down the steep, winding path to where the camels were waiting below. The Frenchman waved his unwounded hand as he walked. "Vive le Khalifa! Vive le Madhi!" he shouted, until a blow from behind with the butt-end of a Remington beat him ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... the cover of darkness I would see what had become of him. So I ran lightly along in the shelter of the lee bulwark, dodging past the galley, the scuttle-butt, and the cabin in turn. At the quarter-deck I hesitated, knowing well that a sound thrashing was the least I could expect if Mr. Falk discovered me trespassing on his own territory, yet lured by a curiosity that was the stronger for the vague ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... see where the wounded man had dragged himself up the trail, finally staggering to his feet, and with a caution which he had not exercised a few hours before Howland continued slowly between the thick forest walls, one hand clutching the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket. Where the trail twisted abruptly into the north he found the charred remains of a camp-fire in a small open, and just beyond it a number of birch toggles, which had undoubtedly been used in place ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... like a porcupine, and din'd just like a pig, sir, And an over-running butt of sack she swallow'd at a swig, sir! Her brawny maids of honour ate and drank confounded hard, sir, And droves of oxen daily bled within her palace-yard, sir! ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... LISZTVEREIN, of which he was soon the leading spirit, alone escaped; the opera, bereft of Nikisch, and the Gewandhaus, under its gentle and aged conductor, were treated by him with biting sarcasm. But his chief butt was the Conservatorium, and its ancient methods. He asserted that not a jot of the curriculum had been altered for fifty years; and its speedy downfall was the sole result to be expected and hoped for. The fact that, at this ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... For a moment the foresight wavered across the indistinct form, and then his numbed hands grew steady, and, trusting that nothing would check the frost-clogged action, he pressed the trigger. He felt the jar of the butt, a little smoke blew in his eyes, and he could make out nothing on the crest of the ridge. It, however, seemed impossible that he had missed and next moment he heard a heavy floundering in the snow among the rocks above. ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... month by threats to drag me out of my home and hang me, or otherwise measure me up for a crop of angelic pin-feathers that I've been unable to write anything worth reading. But as soon as I can swallow my heart and quit shivering I will grab the English language by the butt-end and make it crack like a new bull-whip about the ears of hypocrites and humbugs. Meanwhile I desire to state that there is nothing the matter with the ICONOCLAST's contributors. They are a bouquet of pansy blossoms of whom any publisher might well ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... < chapter xliii 10 HARK > ! Hist! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco? It was the middle-watch; a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet. From hand to hand, the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... upon a time had been a frisky little lamb, Diddie's special pet; but now he was a vicious old sheep, who amused the children very much by running after them whenever he could catch them out-of-doors. Sometimes, though, he would butt them over and hurt them, and Major Waldron had several times had him turned into the pasture; but Diddie would always cry and beg for him to be brought back, and so Old Billy was nearly ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are, And Love's torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar— ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... crossed it. Blackbeard, bending over the dead man, straightened up, with a woolly, furry wad in his hand. Shredding this, he found imbedded in the center the bullet which had perforated the body. Its nose was spread to the size of a half dollar, its butt-end, steel-jacketed, was undamaged. He compared it with ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Pussy was burnt, As I too have learnt; But, as you will read, She jumped into the water-butt before you could count, ONE, TWO, ...
— The Nine Lives of A Cat - A Tale of Wonder • Charles Bennett
... vindictive look shot from Terry's eyes as his hand involuntarily played with the butt of the pistol he had in ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... compressed vegetable bubbled together; there rose a cheerful clinking of mess-tins; outrageous demands for 'a little more stuffin' with that there liver-wing;' and gust on gust of chaff as pointed as a bayonet and as delicate as a gun- butt. ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... rising from the low chair by the fire to seek protection near the skirts of her mistress, and coming into contact as she crossed the doorway with an ancient Stranger, she instinctively made a charge or butt at him with the only offensive instrument within her reach. This instrument happening to be the baby, great commotion and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer rather tended to increase; for, that good dog, more thoughtful than its master, had, it seemed, been watching ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... would not do much for her sake. I almost think that I would do it entirely for her sake, if there were no other reason. But to shame myself by taking that which belongs to another, as though it were my own property! To live a coward in mine own esteem! Though I may be the laughing-stock and the butt of all those around me, I would still be a man to myself. I ought to have felt that it was sufficient when she told me that some of her thoughts must still be given to you. She is yours, Mr Gordon; but I doubt much whether you ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... accomplishment; but a sad feeling prevailed, that she had been overtasked by her father, who wished to train her like a boy, and that she was paying the penalty for undue application, in nearsightedness, awkward manners, extravagant tendencies of thought, and a pedantic style of talk, that made her a butt for the ridicule of frivolous companions. Some seasons later, I call to mind seeing, at the "Commencements" and "Exhibitions" of Harvard University, a girl, plain in appearance, but of dashing air, who was invariably the centre of a ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... articles as were voted too shabby for the family wear. All work which was dirty or disagreeable, fell to Agnes as a matter of course. The widow's two daughters, Joan and Dorothy, respectively made her the vent for ill-temper, and the butt for sarcasm; and if, in some rare moment of munificence, either of them bestowed on her a specked apple, or a faded ribbon, the most abject gratitude was expected in return. She was practically a bond slave; for except by running away, there was no chance of ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... some of the ridges and on crossing a large flat creek I observed two new trees or shrubs (they are both) from one I obtained some seeds like beans, and rather a nice tree; the other, when large, at a distance looks like a shea-oak, having a very dark butt and long, drooping, dark-green, narrow leaves, and did not appear to have any seeds at present. Started at 7.17 till twenty-two minutes to 10, nine miles, on a bearing of from 100 to 105 degrees; at 8.18 sighted a large ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... societies, however small they may be, provided that they do but amount to half-a-dozen, you will invariably meet with a bully. And it is also generally the case that you will find one of that society who is more or less the butt. You will discover this even in occasional meetings, such as a dinner-party, the major part of which ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... unusual or improper, why does he not deny the soft impeachment so much credited both in this country and in his own? It is really refreshing to contemplate, that Roebuck, after being the paid agent of the Canadian House of Assembly, should have become such a purist as to drag poor Mr. Isaac Butt before the notice of the Commons, and scream for the censure on him on a mere suspicion that he had touched the yellow and handsome gold coins of one of the innumerable Indian princes and rajahs who come to England ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... saw a man appear, tall, slim, dressed in black, hat in hand, who came in like a ram ready to butt his opponent, showing a receding forehead, a small pointed head, and a colorless face of the hue of a glass of dirty water. You would have taken him for an usher. The stranger wore an old coat, much worn at the seams; but he had ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac
... don't," Miss Scarlett went on. "I'm not used to it. To be left alone—oh, of course Billy Cox has been trying to butt in, but what good is he? My Hercules, my Roman Antony, who won my trusting heart last summer, at a time when I had just got it back from what I had thought a final and total loss—I find him away, and when he gets back, because, forsooth, he happens to be newly engaged, he's so wrapped ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... ordinary one with drawers and shelves on one side, and an open space on the other for the hanging up of clothes. Very few clothes hung there at present; but it was in this portion of the closet that he stopped and began to try the wall of Brotherson's room, with the butt end of the ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... James, glaring at my host. "I advise you to keep your hands off anyway, for if I catch you a-hurting of him again—" There was a terrible threat in the eyes and in the upraised butt of the whip, but suddenly the manner changed, for James was looking at the bottle on the table and it had a strangely quieting influence on his temper. The blaze died away from his eyes; his voice became soft to meekness; the whip fell limply. "I might think you'd done it a-purpose, Professor, ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... fear from the Sedition Act, appeared with startling suddenness in October, 1798, when Representative Matthew Lyon, of Vermont, an eccentric character who had become the butt of all Federalists, was indicted for publishing a letter in which he maintained that under President Adams "every consideration of the public welfare was swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavor in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, Obedience: for so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king and officers of sorts; Where some, like magistrates, correct at home, Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad, Others, like soldiers, ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... kindled, a great supper begun, and the poultry was set loose to roam at will. Somewhere the Gypsy children had picked up a kid and a little calf. Both of these were freed, and at once began to butt each other, to the vast ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... which was about to meet, when there were some final difficulties between the King and his Liberal Ministers over the exact wording of the oath of allegiance. The excitable Neapolitan populace forthwith became unmanageable. The Swiss Guards, who had long been the butt of the people, put down the revolt without mercy. Once more King Ferdinand was master. He hastened to dismiss his Cabinet and dissolved the Parliament before it could come to order. Orders were sent to General Pepe, who had marched to the front in northern Italy ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... were played. I know that now quite well. I do not pretend to be proficient in the modus operandi of the hankey- pankey man, but I know that he has a method, all the same,—one susceptible, too, of facile explanation. Go back to your friend, and tell him that I am not again likely to be made the butt of his old method,—nor of his new one ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... into laughter. The sum would have been a severe demand on the military chest of the army. The handsome stranger advanced to him, and, seizing his musket, said, loftily, "Fellow, if you won't give the money, this must." He struck the butt-end of the musket thrice upon the floor. At the third blow a burst of gold poured out, and sequins ran in every direction. The soldiery and the officers of the court were in utter astonishment. All wondered, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... doing, ye are meer names only, And even your best perfection, accidental; What ever malady thou art, or Spirit, As some hold all diseases that afflict us, As love already makes me sensible Of half her sufferings, ease her of her part, And let me stand the butt of thy fell malice, And I will swear ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... had been waiting. Nobly he maintained his reputation as a thief by quietly going behind the bar and lifting from a box four cigars which he stowed away in his pockets. But even that, apparently did not satisfy him, for when he espied the butt of a cigar, flung into the sawdust on the floor by a man who had just come in, he picked it up before squatting down again ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... he could have heart to put on even the semblance of mirth. At last I ventured a home thrust. I determined to commence a series of covert insinuations, or innuendos, about the oblong box, just to let him perceive, gradually, that I was not altogether the butt, or victim, of his little bit of pleasant mystification. My first observation was by way of opening a masked battery. I said something about the "peculiar shape of that box"; and, as I spoke the words I smiled knowingly, winked, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... in a little circle now of which somehow I found myself the centre, and they were attacking us on all sides. Stephen got a knock on the head from the butt end of a gun, and tumbled against me, nearly upsetting me. As I recovered myself I looked ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... disinterested judge has just declared that he finds nothing amiss in him; but the rabble cry out, all the more, "crucify him." While ardently loved by a devoted few in that tumultuous crowd, he is, to all the rest, an object of severest scorn, the butt of ribald jest. Wearing his crown of thorns, he is made to bear, till he faints under his burden, the very instrument of his torture. His Roman executioners, giving to him the punishment accorded to thieves and robbers, have imposed upon ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... Joy, perhaps because she flushed so prettily as her slight anger rose. But whatever the reason she was always the butt for their good natured teasing. And no matter how much she resented it, she turned it off with a joke. Yet it could be seen that she always turned to Shirley Williams, ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... was diving to the right, breaking his fall with the butt of his auto-carbine, rolling rapidly toward the cover of a rock, and as he did so, the thinking part of his mind recognized what was wrong. The tank-tracks had ended against the vine-grown side of the ravine, what he had smelled ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... across the fields, and I lit in a swarm of them—it had rained them just where I jumped. I set my back to the fence, but one of the fellows in the road leaned over and smashed my head in, rather—with the butt of a gun, I believe. I came out from the fence and they made a little circle around me. No one said anything. I saw they had ropes and saplings, and I didn't want that, exactly, so I went into them. I got a good many hoods off before it was over, and I can swear to quite ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington |
