"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Morning Sitting gave only possible fillip to interminable Debate on Land Purchase Bill. BRER FOX still away, so comparative peace reigns in Irish Camp. TIM HEALY no one to butt his head against; COLONEL NOLAN too busy deploying his army of five men; showing them how to retreat in good order when Division-bell rings, and how, when it is decided to vote, they shall pass out through one door, march in at the other, cross the floor, and look as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... man brought the butt of the gun down with full force on Elaine's head. Only her hat and hair saved her, ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... the burning torch, pulled out the wick and stamped it into a patch of burnt ground, threw the torch back from the fire line, and started clubbing the fire out of the grass with the butt ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... hand, but one affected with bees in his nightcap,—who had ideas of his own about farming, and was obstinate with them; "pays you due respect, but's got a notion as how his way of thinking's better 'n his seniors. It's the style now with all young folks. Makes a butt of old Mas' Gammon; laughs at the old man. It ain't respectful t' age, I say. Gammon don't understand nothing about new feeds for sheep, and dam nonsense about growing such things as melons, fiddle-faddle, for 'em. Robert's a beginner. What he knows, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the goat should not stay in the house another day, but she had not the heart to insist on its banishment, the children were so fond of it. I do not know why they were fond of it, for it never showed them the least affection, but was always taking the most unfair advantages of them, and it would butt them over whenever it got the chance. It would try to butt them into the well when they leaned down to pull up the bucket from the curb; and if it came out of the house, and saw a boy cracking nuts at the low flat stone the children had in the back-yard ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... would fain be "distinguished" by Madame Schontz, but as for marrying her, that folly seemed debatable to a bachelor of thirty-eight whom the revolution of July had made a judge. Seeing his hesitation, Madame Schontz made the Heir the butt of her wit, her jests, and her disdain, and turned to Couture. Within a week, the latter, whom she put upon the scent of her fortune, had offered his hand, and heart, and future,—three things ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... subscribed by charitable people to succour the starving Irish met occasionally ships sailing out of the Irish ports laden with food reaped by the starving Irish. On the quays of Galway the unhappy people wailed as they saw their harvests borne away from them, and were admonished by the butt-ends of British muskets, the British Government meantime passing Relief measures which provided employment for hordes of English officials and Irish understrappers, and pauper-relief for those who surrendered their manhood and their property—the cost of this ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... day late in October, 1786, the Merchant of St. Elphege sat at the pine dinner-table in his kitchen, opposite his wife, resting his wooden soup spoon on its butt on the table. The windows, both front and rear, were wide open, for one of those rare fragrant golden days of late autumn still permitted it. He was listening, with some of the stolid Indian manner, to his wife reading Germain's letter. He vouchsafed ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... church the king of Meliapour gave him the duties of all merchandize imported, which was the tenths[170]." Going still deeper, they came to a hollow place between two stones, in which lay the bones of a human body with the butt and head of a spear, which were supposed to be the remains of the saint, as those of the king and disciple were also found, but not so white. They placed the bones of the saint in a China chest, and the other bones in another chest, and hid both under the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... no sound of any sort, nor a breath of wind to guide us. The little stubby trees that stand here and there, like bushes with a wooden leg to them, were drizzled with a mess of wet, and hung their points with dropping. Wherever the butt-end of a hedgerow came up from the hollow ground, like the withers of a horse, holes of splash were pocked and pimpled in the yellow sand of coneys, or under the dwarf tree's ovens. But soon it was too dark to see that, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... car on four wheels can lose any decent motorcycle on a switchback track, and Jackson, the owner of this one, says it's good enough for sixty on a fair stretch of road. Anyhow, we held the thug dead easy, but didn't press him any, as I had no call to butt ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... steeple with its rent side looked down on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to move. Here and there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly. These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face; but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical endurance which the old battalion, since the great ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... notwithstanding which he succeeded in releasing himself from the grasp of his adversary. The sentinel, however, returned to the charge, and following him up closely, felled him to the earth with a blow from the butt-end of his musket. Still, however, the thief struggled violently, and prostrate as he was, endeavoured to bring down his opponent by seizing his legs: the soldier was now compelled, in self-defence, to transfix his prisoner to the ground, by running his bayonet ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... stalking through the terrible dances, a heroic figure at last. He shuddered every time he found himself on one leg; he got sternly into everybody's way; he was the butt of the little noodle of an instructor. All the social tortures he endured grimly, in the hope that at last the cork would come out. Then, though there were all kinds of girls in the class, merry, sentimental, practical, coquettish, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... 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 ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... look again at the priest, I was amazed to find him close to me, too close for a man with such eyes in his head, for a man who moved so swiftly and softly, and, in spite of me, a nervous movement of my hand left me with my fingers on the butt of my pistol. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... for our salt tute cared not how much we laughed at his failures, which all his shots were. He brought up his gun as if it were a harpoon, and always gave it a jerk, to help it shoot farther, when he pulled the trigger. The butt was seldom at his shoulder; and as he insisted upon putting immense loads in his gun, the results were sometimes disastrous to him and ridiculous to us. He often sprang back after a shot, as if he had been kicked by a horse, or wrung his hands, ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... the flour was obtained, and the raisins; the beef-fat, or "slush," from Old Coffee; and the requisite supply of water from the scuttle-butt. I then went among the various cooks, to compare their receipts for making "duffs:" and having well weighed them all, and gathered from each a choice item to make an original receipt of my own, with due deliberation and solemnity I proceeded to ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... court ball. No—I was convinced that I had not been intoxicated, but on this occasion I resolved to exercise special caution, and to be strictly temperate, in the event of the disguised perpetrator of pranks again attempting to make the German stranger the butt of his impudence. This time he should meet his match; I would keep my head clear and my feet steady enough to venture a dance with him. The constantly suspicious attitude of my mind, to be sure, interfered with my pleasure very considerably. I was in a too observant ...
— The Gray Nun • Nataly Von Eschstruth
... on the narrow strand, the Pathfinder leaning on his rifle, the butt of which rested on the gravelly beach, while both his hands clasped the barrel at the height of his own shoulders. As Jasper threw out this severe and unmerited imputation, the deep red of his comrade's face maintained its hue unchanged, though the young man perceived that the fingers ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... using his sword, he drew a long pistol from his girdle and levelled it. Brown leaped upon him, caught the pistol as it exploded just in time to turn the muzzle aside, wrenched the weapon from his foe's grasp, and brought the butt of it down with such a whack on his head that it laid ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... all distinguished Protestants who will work for the common good of Ireland. That is not at all surprising when we remember that the Irish Party have, in the past, numbered among their leaders at least three distinguished Protestants—Grattan, Butt, and Parnell—and at the present day always return a steady percentage of Protestant representatives to ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... and feeling the hook in his horrid jaw, tugged most fiercely to release himself, but in vain. Twelve sailors hauled him in, when, with distended jaws, he seemed to look out for the legs of the men, whereupon they rammed the butt-end of a harpoon down his throat, which put a stop to all further proceedings on his part. He was said to be quite young, perhaps the child of doting parents. The juvenile monster had, however, already cut three rows ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... room! The Regent comes from Mass. Guards, butt them on the toes—way there! give room! Prick me that ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... to do with abstract opinions," said he, thinning away the butt-end of his cigarette. "And nothing to do with treason, or anything of that kind. He has got hold of a horrible story—told me all about it when he was foully drunk—that in itself would have made me break with him, for I loathe drunken men—and ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... substance called nicotine. This is a powerful poison, even in very small doses, with only feeble narcotic, or pain-deadening, powers; but fortunately, the larger part of it is destroyed in the process of burning. Enough, however, is carried over in the smoke, or absorbed through the butt of the cigar or cigarette, or the mouth-piece of the pipe, to injure the nervous system, especially in youth. As will be seen in the chapter upon the "Care of the Heart," it especially attacks the nerves supplying the heart, and is thus most ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... and the rest of us war either gashed by thar knives or had got ugly cracks. However, six of them war lying in the boat when we hauled it alongside; two war stone-dead, the other four had been stunned with the butt ends of the muskets, or cut down by the darkies' sabres. We took 'em down to the next place and handed 'em over to the sheriff; and as thar happened to be a lot of boats waiting thar for the wind, you may guess it warn't many hours afore they ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... men truly virtuous care to be rewarded for it, their virtue is but a poor investment of their moral capital. Was Job so happy then on that ash-heap of his, the mark of the world's scorn, and the butt for the spiritual archery of the theologian, alone in his forlorn nakedness, like some old dreary stump which the lightning has scathed, rotting away in the wind and the rain? Happy! if happiness be indeed what we men are sent into this world ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... 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 ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... are speeding gayly over the bright waters, never very calm along this shore. Presently we come to a spot clearly marked by some odd-colored, tumbled-down cliffs and the remains of a great iron butt, where, more than a hundred years ago, the Grosvenor, a splendid clipper ship, was wrecked. The men nearly all perished or were made away with, but a few women were got on shore and carried off as prizes to the kraals of the Kafir "inkosis" ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... variable of British grasses, why will you always grow where you are not wanted? Through you the mare all but left her hind legs in that last gripe. Through you a red-coat ahead of me, avoiding one of your hassocks, jumped with his horse's nose full butt ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... highest degree unbecoming; but I am sure that my fellow officers will bear me out in saying that I have shown fully as much patience as is becoming. I, therefore, have to tell you that I will no longer be your butt, and that I shall treat any further remark of the nature of those you have just made as a deliberate insult, and shall ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... It's all some joke, and I'm the butt of it. She was in that house by the same authority she rode ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... shown himself to be an excellent soldier. He had evidently exactly calculated the danger zone, and found that by getting close to the traverse he could sit up erect and make ready his supper without being cramped. I watched him solemnly pounding the coffee with the butt end of his revolver, and then boiling the water and frying his bacon, just as if he had been in the lee of the roundup wagon somewhere out on ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... his reflections till the driver pulled up for him to get down at his own gate. As he got down the said driver glanced up curiously at the row of windows on the first floor, and as soon as Mr. Dempster's back was turned, pointed to them with the butt-end of his whip, and nodded queerly to the gentleman who sat ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... and enjoyed himself, but his expression was the same as it had been on dry land, stupid, with a look of astonishment on it as though someone had, unnoticed, stolen up behind him and hit him on the head with the butt-end of an axe. Yegorushka undressed, too, but did not let himself down by the bank, but took a run and a flying leap from the height of about ten feet. Describing an arc in the air, he fell into the ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the dog lifted his head with a sharp snarl: whereupon, in a flash, the man struck him on the snout with the butt ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... first it'll likely upset things fer me—you goin' ther' to hold him up as it were." His smile was more pronounced. "Now I guess I'll show you where his lay-out is if you'll sure give me your promise to let me hunt around fer ha'f-an-hour around his corrals—'fore you butt in. Then I'll get right back to you an' you can go up, an'—shoot him to hell, if you notion ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... and hay and a lot of potatoe pealings and 2 peaces of lettis and drank haff a pale of water and tiped over 3 whole pales full. one is tame and follows me round. that is the old one. the young one is wild and if i dont look out wil butt me when i aint looking and where i aint xpecting it. once she nocked me over and i hit her with a stick hard. so now when i get in the pen she gets in the corner. she knows she cant fool with ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... The he lifted his revolver from his breast pocket and dropped it into his side pocket, with his hand on the butt. Then with his left hand he quietly opened the door, pushed it back, and as quietly stepped into ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... the last day of November, we met with an English ship, and because it was too late that night, it was agreed that they were to give us two or three tons of wine next morning, being, as they said, all the provision of drink they had, save only a butt or two which they must reserve for their own use: But, after all, we heard no more of them till they were set on ground on the coast of Ireland, where it appeared they might have spared us much more than they pretended, as they could very well have relieved our necessities, and had sufficient for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... the 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
... boat, and saw that he was right. A plank in the middle had been splintered. It looked as if somebody had driven some heavy instrument into it. As a matter of fact, Albert had effected the job with the butt-end of an oar. ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... But Barnes must give me a summons of wakening at seven to-morrow morning, for my servant's a sleepy-headed fellow; and I daresay my clerk Driver has had Clarence's fate, and is drowned by this time in a butt of your ale; for Mrs. Allan promised to make him comfortable, and she'll soon discover what he expects from that engagement. Good-night, Colonel; good-night, Dominie Sampson; good-night, Dinmont the Downright; good-night, ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... lampooned. What Cibber suffered from the "Dunciad" Shadwell suffered from "MacFlecknoe." Incited by Dryden's example, the poets showered their missiles at him, and so perseveringly as to render him a traditional butt of satire for two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... big sunny kitchen five men lounged about in addition to the white-coated chef and his beardless stripling of an assistant. And each of the five had a holster strapped openly over his coat with the butt of an automatic protruding in ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... cried Lise, in angry bravado. "Do you think I'm going to let you butt into this? I guess you've got enough to do to look out for your ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... impossible to conceive of a lot more pitiful or a fate more obdurate than his so far had been. There was little hereditary morality in his nature, and none had been inculcated by training; he had nothing of what is called vital piety, nor even sincere superstition. A butt and an outcast at a French school under the old regime, he had imbibed a bitter hatred for the land indelibly associated with such haughty privileges for the rich and such contemptuous disdain for the poor. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... There is no question yet of Impressionism, and yet Monet and Renoir are already painting, Monet has exhibited at the Salon des Refuses, but criticism sees and attacks nobody but Manet. This great individuality who overwhelmed the Academy with its weak allegories, was the butt of great insults and the object of great admiration. Banished from the Salons, he collected fifty pictures in a room in the Avenue de l'Alma and invited the public thither. In 1868 appeared the portrait of Emile Zola, ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... anybody he robs; catch old Mumbo Jumbo currying favour with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dean and Chapter, should he meet them in a stage-coach; it would be with him, Bricconi Abbasso, as he knocked their teeth out with the butt of his trombone; and the old regular-built ruffian would be all the safer for it, as Bill would say, as ten to one the Archbishop and Chapter, after such a spice of his quality, would be afraid to swear against him, and ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... half-box of raisins, one hundred pounds of bread, twelve two-pound cans of oysters, clams, and assorted meats, a keg containing four pounds of butter, twelve gallons of water in a forty-gallon 'scuttle-butt', four one-gallon demijohns full of water, three bottles of brandy (the property of passengers), some pipes, matches, and a hundred pounds of tobacco. No medicines. Of course the whole party had to go on short rations ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... you will breathe a beggar and an outcast. Your golden dreams are over, your cunning plans are circumvented, your ambitious hopes are crushed for ever, you are blighted in the very spring of your life. Oh, may you never die! May you wander for ever, the butt of the world's malice; and may the slow moving finger of scorn point where'er you ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... kept pretty busy for the next minute or so. He rushed, leaping and yelling, roaring and dodging, from side to side and corner to corner, and then made a frantic bolt for the outer staircase, but he had only got half-way up when his head fell with a splash into a water-butt below, while his body slid down to the bottom of the steps, where it lay in a limp ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... doctors ain't got any license to monkey with," began Bill, chewing out blue smoke from his lungs with each word, "and they're both fevers. After they butt into your system they stick crossways, like a swallered toothpick; there ain't any patent medicine that ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... Puffing stolidly on 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 ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... short as was the time that the Sardinians had held possession, they had already tumbled everything into confusion in their search for plunder. Tables and couches had been upset, closets and chiffoniers burst open with the butt-ends of the swords or with the discharge of a pistol into the lock. Looking-glasses had been smashed, valuable vases lay in fragments on the floor, bottles of wine whose necks had been hastily knocked off stood on the table. In the courtyard were ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... brave, gushed forth the blood. Quickly the good knight sprang back again and snatched the spear that she had driven through his shield. Stout Siegfried's hand now sent it back again. He thought: "I will not pierce the comely maid." So he reversed the point and cast it at her armor with the butt, that it rang out loudly from his mighty hand. The sparks flew from the armor rings, as though driven by the wind. Siegmund's son had made the throw with might. With all her strength she could not stand before the blow. In faith King Gunther ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... developed as to justify such being made. To this practice, at least, I am safe in attributing the rarity, if not the positive absence, with the Indian, of that unhappy condition of bow-leggedness, of not too slight prevalence with us, and which renders its victim often a butt for not very charitable or ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... in the light of a martyr is evident from the words of Pitt himself. In one of his speeches, having accused his rival of filling his speech with everything that was personal, inflammatory, and invidious, he remarked:—"I am not surprised if he should pretend to be the butt of ministerial persecution; and if, by striving to excite the public compassion, he should seek to reinstate himself in that popularity which he once enjoyed, but which he so unhappily has forfeited. For it is the best and most ordinary resource ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... making a tomb for his body of his enemies on the field of battle, than to be hated of his own and poniarded by the hands of his nearest and dearest, or to die of poison or of drowning in a wine-butt." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... they were in a quiet street, and then quickened his pace until he was close behind the man. Then he drew one of his pistols, and, springing forward, struck him a heavy blow on the head with its butt. He fell forward on his face without a cry; and Harry, satisfied that he had stunned him, ran on and overtook the others, and, turning down the first street they came to, was assured that they ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... not, as you darned well please," said Hayle doggedly, biting at the butt of his cigar as he spoke. "It don't matter a curse to me; you don't mean to tell me you think I'm fool enough to stand ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... the man nearest to him with a spear butt. The soldiers were silent instantly. Then the chief turned back to ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... any one no more," said this man, with a satisfied chuckle, as he leaned on his gun, the butt of which he dropped to the ground. "I got him ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... to fetch Jane. He spent an hour looking for her, wandering in utter misery through the house and through the courtyard and stables and the kitchen garden. He looked for Jane in the hothouse and the cucumber frames, and under the rhubarb, and on the scullery roof, and in the water butt. It was just possible that on a day of complete calamity Jane should have slithered off the scullery roof into the water-butt. The least he could do was to find ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... in not making him an inn-keeper in a German 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 ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... forward with a sudden fury in his eyes. Swinging the heavy-thonged whip, again and again he brought it down on the writhing brute. Then he twisted the thong around his hand and belaboured its hollow ribs with the butt. It screamed for a while, but soon it ceased to scream; it only moaned a little. With glistening fangs and ears up-pricked the other dogs looked at their fallen comrade. They longed to leap on it, to rend its gaunt limbs apart, to tear ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... gaze to the imperturbable Collins with the brown, sun-baked face and the eyes blue and untroubled as an Arizona sky. Out of a holster attached to the sagging belt that circled the corduroy trousers above his hips gleamed the butt of a revolver. But in the last analysis the weapon of the occasion was purely a moral one. The situation was one not covered in the company's rule book, and in the absence of explicit orders the trainman felt himself unequal to that ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... 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 ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... hands that had to have gloves made specially to fit them, and feet that couldn't hide themselves even in a number ten boot. She was as good-natured as she was uncouth, and never happier than when she was being made a butt of. These were to be the nucleus around which this society was to be formed; and as they threw themselves down on the bed of pine-leaves which carpeted the old stump of a tree upon which Jenny Barton was seated, they were the most characteristic group that could have been chosen out of ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... not sufficient to account for their rank as belles, since there were several other girls in their circle quite as well, or better off. Nor had their wit or talent any share in giving them their position; on the contrary, people used to laugh at the betises of the Robinsons, and make them the butt of real or imaginary good stories. And, in point of birth, they were not related to the Van Hornes, the Bensons, the Vanderlyns, or any of the old Dutch settlers; nor like White Ludlow, and others of their set, sprung from the British families of long standing in the city. On the very morning ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... if possible, a humorist, a sentimentalist, and a good-tempered butt; the only kind of men who should be rigidly excluded are the busy mocker, the despiser, the superior person. It does not matter how much people disagree, if they will only admit in their minds that every one has a right to a point of view, and that their own does not necessarily rule out all others. ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... port shutters driving fragments into the casemates. The Lackawanna then kept away, making a circuit to ram again. She had her stem cut and crushed from three feet above the water-line to five below, causing some leakage, and the Monongahela had her iron prow carried away and the butt ends of the planking started on both bows; but the only damage caused to the Tennessee, protected by her sponsons, was a leak at the rate of about six inches an hour. The flag-ship now approached to ram, ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... up like lightning, and, swinging the butt of his rifle round—for the weapon was hanging over his right shoulder—struck the figure he could but dimly see beside him, and heard at once a dull thud as the wooden stock rapped the man's head violently. Then, with a dive, he gained ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Scotsman with a lust for blood. We had rifle practice on the marvellous ranges. We had sham battles in which the men engaged so intensely that on one (p. 017) occasion, when the enemy met, one over-eager soldier belaboured his opponent with the butt end of his rifle as though he were a real German, and the poor victim, who had not been taught to say "Kamarad", suffered grievous wounds and had to be taken away in an ambulance. Though many gales and tempests had blown round those ancient mountains, nothing had ever equalled ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... yourself Emperor of Britain already," a fellow shouted. I knocked him over with the butt of my spear, and explained to these Roman-born Romans that, if there were any further trouble, we should go on with one man short. And, by the Light of the Sun, I meant it too! My raw Gauls at Clausentum had ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... fingers in the pudding may spoil it—lest a multitude of counsellors as to the proportions of ingredients and the process of mixing may be productive of the reverse of safety. But somehow a man with a specialty is always forthcoming, and that specialty is pudding-making. Most likely he has been the butt of the room—a quiet, quaint, retiring, awkward fellow who seemed as if he never could do anything right. But he has lit upon his vocation at last—he is a born pudding-maker. He rises with the occasion, and the sheepish "gaby" becomes the knowing practical man; his is now the ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... there was a sort of lull. The great water-butt that the sailors had been lowering down the hatchway had reached the hold below, and been rolled into its place, and this produced a temporary ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... and terror. Thus unnoticed and safe myself, I lifted my head slyly up, and with horror I beheld that the wolf had ate his way into the horse's body; it was not long before he had fairly forced himself into it, when I took my advantage, and fell upon him with the butt-end of my whip. This unexpected attack in his rear frightened him so much, that he leaped forward with all his might; the horse's carcass dropped on the ground; but in his place the wolf was in harness, and I on my part whipping him continually, we both arrived in full career ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... none appeared of recent date. The reindeer were here very numerous. Mr. Ross saw above fifty of them in the course of his walk, and several others were met with near the tents. A large one was shot by one of the men, who struck the animal; as he lay on the ground, a blow on the head with the butt end of his piece, and, leaving him for dead, ran towards the tents for a knife to bleed and skin him; when the deer very composedly got on his legs, swam across a lake, and finally escaped. A small fawn was the only one killed. Three ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... 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 had been lubricating oil and petrol, and the leaves on some ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... the bar with the butt of his gun: "Silence in the court!" he roared. "An' what's more, you're fined one round of drinks for contempt of court." Taking a match from his pocket he laid it carefully upon the bar, and continued: "The plaintiff will take the stand in his ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... the butt of sack And salary that Pye has, Would it not cheer thy visage black, Thou ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various
... the Superfluous Mansion. It was not the first time that she had thus stood afar and looked upon it, like our common parents at the gates of Eden; and the young man had already had occasion to remark the lively slimness of her carriage, and had already been the butt of a chance arrow from her eye. He hailed her coming, then, with pleasant feelings, and moved a little nearer to the window to enjoy the sight. What was his surprise, however, when, as if with a sensible effort, she drew near, mounted ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... who founded the English system of government in Ireland, and secured to themselves immense tracts of its most fertile soil. What then must be the effect of the eloquent and impassioned denunciations of such writers as Mr. Butt, Mr. A.M. Sullivan, and Mr. John Mitchell, not to speak of the 'national press'? Yet the most fiery patriot utters nothing stronger on the English rule in Ireland than what the Irish may read in the works ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... on the hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had been burned. From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt-end of a green cheque-book, which had resisted the action of the fire; the other half of the stick was found behind the door; and as this clinched his suspicions, the officer declared himself delighted. A visit to the bank, where several thousand pounds ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... possessed of considerable pluck, immediately faced about and attacked the major, who gave him a taste of the buttons, as he advanced. But the bear, nothing daunted, returned to the charge, which Elliott met with a blow from the butt-end of his gun, that was instantly struck from his hand by his formidable antagonist, who immediately closed with him. It now became a regular stand-up fight between Major Elliott and Ursus Major. For a long time it was doubtful which would ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... Custom-House, on the corner, one of the number, who knew of the assault on the apprentice-boy, said, "Here is the soldier who did it," when they gathered round the sentinel. The barber's boy now came up and said, "This is the soldier who knocked me down with the butt-end of his musket." Some now said, "Kill him! knock him down!" The sentinel moved back up the steps of the Custom-House, and loaded his gun. Missiles were thrown at him, when he presented his musket, warned the party to keep off, and called for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... of missiles pitched over the partitions on either side with extraordinary accuracy. A book from Langrish hit me on the ear, and a wet sponge from Trimble moistened my cheek. And when I sought shelter under the sheets, the butt-end of a fishing-rod in the ribs drew me from my hiding-place, and a clever cast with a hooked pin by Langrish relieved me of my outer covering altogether. The footsteps of the monitor on duty deprived me of the privilege of making ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... contact and secured. It ensures even running when used in belting. Any irregularity in thickness of a belt affects the speed of the driven pulley. As dynamos are generally driven by belts, and it is important to drive them at an even speed to prevent variations in the electro-motive force, butt joints should be used on belting for them, unless a very perfect lap joint is made, which does not affect either the thickness or ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... undisciplined flash of temper, Carl brutally clubbed his assailant into insensibility with the revolver butt and dragged him heavily to the tonneau of his car, throbbing unheeded in the darkness. Having assured himself of his guest's continued docility by the sinister adjustment of a handkerchief, an indifferent rag or so from the repair kit and a dirty rope, he covered ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... 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 eye still retained a good deal of their cunning. Moreover, it was an easy ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... reason came back into his eyes. Sheba was standing before him, his rifle in her hand. She had struck him with the butt ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... affair, Jennechka. I daren't butt into your soul. I only asked because you're the ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... fellow trotted to church alone behind the usher, acutely conscious of the very grotesque figure he was presenting. I must have been dressed very much as Henry Fairchild was when he went to visit his little friend Master Noble. On returning from church, I threw my velvet cap into the water-butt, where, for all I know, it probably is still, and nothing would induce me to put on the velvet tunic or the floppy collars a second time. I bombarded my family with letters until I found myself equipped with a high hat and Eton jackets ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... of the little company of Irish Home Rulers that had appeared in Parliament in the early '70's was Isaac Butt. His repeated attempts to have the subject considered were as often rejected with derision. In his own party he was opposed by an element which desired to resort to aggressive measures to compel the English to heed Ireland's demand for local self-government. ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... the best work, who "never wrote a line of poetry with the least shadow of public thought," who believes that after his death he will be among the English poets, and that if he only has time now, he will make himself remembered—that such a one should be merely the butt and laughing-stock of his readers! It is an unendurable position. Not that Keats attaches undue importance to popular applause. "Praise or blame," he says, "has but a momentary effect upon the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.... In Endymion ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... position held by most of these men. Some who do not smoke hold cold pipes between their teeth, that they may not mar the harmony of the picture. One member of the circle is singled out nightly as an object for mirth, and the choice is made by lot. Each and every one can in turn become the butt of merry satire. To have been present at a meeting of this oddest of all court gatherings would furnish me with the most notable memory I could ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... men in your hands, and can bring the same to your obedience where you will; what means and waies ought you not to indeavour by dallyings and kind actions to gain the same on your side! you certainly know, that the main Butt which is aim'd at by all mankind, is to pass through this short life of ours with pleasure and quietness: But alas! what life, what rest, what pleasure can he possess in this World, who hath hapned upon a scolding, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... said Mr. Schwab dramatically, "that I've got you where I want you, thank you. You have killed Peabody dead as a cigar butt! Now I can tell them how his friends tried to bribe me. Why do you think I came in your car? For what money YOU got? Do you think you can stack up your roll against the New York Journal's, or against Tammany's?" ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the dock the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for the corporation there near Butt bridge. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Spike. "Say, boss, he must have got a lot of plunks to be able to butt in here. An' I know how he got dem, too. Dat's right. I comes from little ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... portrait of that 'labouring working mind[9].' It might make him reflect that if the mighty reasoner could rise up and meet him face to face, he would be sure, on which ever side the right might be, even if at first his pistol missed fire to knock him down with the butt-end of it[10]. I have attempted therefore not to criticise but to illustrate Johnson's statements. I have compared them with the opinions of the more eminent men among his contemporaries, and with his ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... to the Republican idea, for, from his point of view, it meant enfranchisement and universal happiness. One day—at the age of fifteen—in the Rue Transnonain, in front of a grocer's shop, he had seen soldiers' bayonets reddened with blood and exhibiting human hairs pasted to the butt-ends of their guns. Since that time, the Government had filled him with feelings of rage as the very incarnation of injustice. He frequently confused the assassins with the gendarmes; and in his eyes a police-spy was just as bad as a parricide. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... (sometimes called Clarence) had only one constitution. It must have been a very bad one, because he was killed by a butt of Malmsey. If he had had more constitutions or better ones he would have lived to be very old. This is ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... There was no sight of any spree in prospect. A glimpse of the kitchen showed only the preparations for an ordinary meal, and Hartigan wondered whether or not there had been a mistake. Could it be that he was the butt ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... in the paved court where the pump is, and the dust-bin, and the water-butt, a young man, with his hat very much on one side, his mouth open under his fair bristly mustache, and his eyes as nearly round as human eyes can be. He wore a suit of a bright mustard colour, a blue ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... ye, where didst thou purchase that rich Canary we drank to-day? Tell me, that I may adore the Spigot, and sacrifice to the Butt: the Juice was divine, into which I must dip my Rosary, and then bless all things that I would have ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... them into an appointed corner, and you butt the other,' said Ferdinand,'it will not ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... passing through the door went out on the porch. I sat down and was slipping off my socks, to put on dry ones, when I heard a rustling in the room behind me. The next moment Col. Tucker had his gun leveled on me, but it flashed in the pan. He then whirled up the butt of it to fell me to ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... 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, ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... rather splendid in the attitude of a man who can take a whole nation as his butt and bend every circumstance to his purpose of ridicule and attack. Our satirists to-day are contented to pillory individuals or possibly a sect or clique. Marvell's enjoyment in his own exuberance and ingenuity is so apparent and infectious that it matters ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas |
