"Jerk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you are, Senor Taltavull," said the other quietly. He deliberately drew back the shutter, exposed the yellowy-green film to the full sun-glare, and flung it from him with a sideways jerk. ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... a leaf or other support below and to the surface of the water. As soon as it comes near the surface it turns with the extremity of the abdomen upwards, and exposes a portion of the body to the air for an instant, then with a jerk it snatches, as it were, a bubble of air, which is not only attached to the hairs which cover the abdomen, but is held on by the two hinder legs, which are crossed at an acute angle near their extremity; this crossing of the legs taking place at the instant the bubble is seized. The little ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... beats were almost abreast now, and hurriedly Miss Prue turned her head. At once she gave the reins an angry jerk; in the other light carriage sat Rupert Joyce, the young man who for weeks had been unsuccessfully trying to find favor in her eyes because he had already found it in the eyes of her ward and ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... short of a miracle, as Sir Patrick acknowledged. He had followed Allen at first as the grieve had thought, but his mind was full of the parting he had just gone through and of the misty future before him, and when his thoughts came back with a jerk to the actualities of the present, he heard the rush of a winter river and found that he was close by the side of the Tweed. It was some time before he could exactly find his bearings, but he did so at last, and, after some reconnoitring, found ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... run for Dover. I was hardly off on that tack when I found her"—with a backward jerk ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... going to the nearest window and flinging it open with a jerk. "Stifling! There, that ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... looking at two horses rolling in the snow near a farmhouse, I suddenly felt a great jerk and we were pitched out headlong! Our horse wanted to have some fun! So he fell on his side and was about to roll over and enjoy himself, taking the sleigh with him; but we did not see the joke. We succeeded in putting him on his legs. The driver gave the ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... worked, and with a certain smugness, on a basis that might be turned against them. Chad had at any rate pulled his visitor up; he had even pulled up his admirable mother; he had absolutely, by a turn of the wrist and a jerk of the far-flung noose, pulled up, in a bunch, Woollett browsing in its pride. There was no doubt Woollett HAD insisted on his coarseness; and what he at present stood there for in the sleeping street was, by his manner of striking the other ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... round violently, then he felt himself dragged in great jerks along the rocky floor, which, happily for him, was smooth. A fourth jerk, and once more he was in the waters of the pool, ay, and being ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... A small, notched peg is next driven into the ground and the top of the pole caught in it, and thus held in a bent position. When the animal is caught, its struggles release the pole, and the latter, flying up with a jerk, [Page 145] lifts the trap and its occupant high in the air, out of the reach of marauders, and beyond the power of escape by self-amputation. Even in the capture of large game the spring pole often serves to good purpose. The struggles ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... I wound the thread around him a few times, and he broke it with a single jerk. Then I wound the thread around and around, and by and by ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... upon the piazza, swept her eyes over the scene and beheld the couple on the lawn, she gave a jerk to the glove she was drawing on her hand that tore in it a slit three inches long. She then turned her eyes upon her phaeton, declined the offer of Mr. Petter to see her home, and, after a leave-taking which was a little more effusive than was usual ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... the wagon. "I've been ranching on this river nearly forty years, and I've always made it a rule, where cattle cannot be safely handled, to beef them then and there. I've sat up many a night barbecuing the ribs of a ladino. If you have plenty of salt, Tiburcio, you can make a brine and jerk those hind quarters. It will make fine chewing for the boys on night herd when once we start for ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... pause in all these sounds; the shrill whistle, betokening all was ready; the converting of all the employes into animated sign-posts, that waved their arms wildly; the grunt and wheeze from the engine, as if from a giant in pain; the sharp jerk, and then the steady pull at the carriage in which I was sitting; the "pant, pant! puff, puff!" of the iron horse, as he buckled to his work with a will; and then, finally, the preliminary oscillation of the ponderous train, the trembling and rumbling of creaking wheels along ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... evening, and do himself no very great harm, if he will leave it alone during the day. Danbury had too many friends for that, however, and it really looked as if the poor chap was going to the bad, when a very curious thing happened which pulled him up with such a sudden jerk that he never put his hand upon the neck ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and in another moment fresh tentacles had whipped about his waist and neck, and after a brief, convulsive struggle, in which the boat was nearly capsized, Hill was lugged overboard. The boat righted with a violent jerk that all but sent Mr. Fison over the other side, and hid the struggle in the ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... with a jerk. Separating himself from the complainant and looking fixedly at him, he spoke in a low voice, hissing with wrath. "Look here, uncle! It is a lucky thing for you that you have expressed yourself ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... himself up and felt for his spectacles; they had tumbled off in his flight, and without them his face presented a curiously naked appearance. The alarum in his pocket had stopped suddenly with the jerk of his descent. ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... condemned archers stood and seizing the first by the shoulders he thrust him over the wall. A cry burst from the man's lips and a deep groan from those of his comrades below as he fell with a jerk which sent him half-way up to the parapet again, and then after dancing like a child's toy swung slowly backward and forward with ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a good plan to let the bass have the bait from two to ten seconds, according to the way he takes it; then strike at once, giving him line freely, but keeping the thumb on the reel as a drag. Click reels are an abomination. I never jerk the rod, but hook with a twist of the wrist, remembering the golden rule that from the moment a bass takes the bait until he is landed the line must be kept tight, as one second of slack line will lose him. The point of the rod I keep bent by the pull of the fish, which is made to ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... little. It was an abrasion such as would be made if the ring she usually wore there had been drawn off with a jerk. That was the impression I received from its appearance. I do not state that it ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... hold of the edge of the paper that is near the edge of the table. Move your hand a little toward the glass so that the paper is somewhat bent. Then, keeping your hand near the level of the table, suddenly jerk the paper out from under the glass. If you give a quick enough jerk and keep your hand near the level of the table, not a drop of water will spill and the glass will stay ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... gardener, "take this gentleman's portmanteau to the lower room," and, as the gardener bestirred himself slowly and with an effort, Oscar seized the portmanteau and swung it, with a jerk, on to the shoulders of the poor fellow, whose legs ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... could successfully angle upon its bosom or along its shores. For millions of Tahoe trout, rainbow, Eastern brook, Loch Levin, Mackinac and German brown have been put into this and nearby lakes in the last few years. While some jerk-line fishing is indulged in, this lake, unlike Lake Tahoe, affords constant recreation ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... the special coaches was barely moving on its jiggly way to the main line, carrying the tag end of the revellers, when he set forth in his car for a mid-day visit to Red Roof. Already the huge camp of Slavs and Italians was beginning to jerk up the borrowed rails and ties; the work trains were rumbling and snorting in the meadows above Blitherwood, tottering about on the uncertain road-bed. He gave a few concise and imperative orders to obsequious superintendents and foremen, who subsequently repeated ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... face that alone," he remonstrated, with a thumb-jerk toward the hall. "I won't see you touched by ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... spinning Miss Thusa, and tell me a story," said the child, venturing to put her little foot on the treadle, and giving the crank a sudden jerk. ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... In spite of every effort to fix his attention on the conversation of his companions, I noticed that every now and then he would turn his head slowly round, give a glance over his shoulder, and then withdraw it with a sudden jerk, as if something painful had met his eye. This was repeated at intervals of about a minute, and he appeared hardly to have got over one shock, before I saw him slowly ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... it was to see some of the men take their seats who had never before ridden on ox-back. It is impossible to guide an ox as one would guide a horse, for in the attempt to do so you would instantly jerk the stick out of his nose, which at once deprives you of every control over the beast; but by pulling both sides of the bridle at the same time, and toward the side you wish him to take, he is easily managed.[1] ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... that after a while he could not tell whether it were going up or down, though it seemed to be doing both, as though poised on a gigantic spring. At length faint glimmers of light began to flash past as it shot by the mouths of working levels, and finally it stopped with a jerk that threw its ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... mustn't knaw, down below, more than you'm tawld," said the old man with a significant wink and a jerk of his head, "but Jerrem he let me into it this ebenin' when he rinned up to see me for a bit. Seems one o' they sodger-chaps is carr'in' on with Eve, and Jerrem's settin' her on to rig un up so that her'll get un not to see what 'tain't maned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... seat, Mr. Grey approached him, remarking abruptly, and with a jerk of the head toward Cecilia, ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... his arms, and he pointed his remarks with forceful gestures. His voice, never pleasant, rose to a shrill treble in moments of excitement. After the familiar manner of Western speakers of that day, he was wont to bend his knees and then rise to his full height with a jerk, to enforce some point.[714] Yet with all his ungraceful mannerisms, Lincoln held his hearers, impressing most men with a sense of the honesty of ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... of the revolvers had returned to its holster, the free hand was upon the bolt,—"and I'll drop you, every cursed one of you, in your tracks. I'll drop you if I swing the next second." With a jerk, the door opened wide, and like a flash the hand returned to the holster. "Come in, you idiot," he challenged into the darkness without, "come in and take your ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... that squares accounts," said Warrington, speaking to Craig. "If you hear of me in America, in Europe, anywhere, keep away from the places I'm likely to go. Tell him," with an indifferent jerk of his head toward the insensible Mallow, "tell him that I give him that fifty pounds with the greatest good ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... wholly possible that a globe-trotting widow would have friends in many parts of the world, and I could see nothing disturbing in the fact that inquiries had been made for her. I said as much. Antoine's answer was another shrug and a jerk of his head toward Flynn, as though even the employment of an alien tongue might not conceal our conversation from the big Irishman. Antoine was manifestly impatient at my refusal to be aroused by his hints of discord among ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... down. Laurie watched Mr. Vincent step up into the cabinet, jerk the curtains this way and that, and at last sit easily back, in such a way that his face could be seen in a kind of twilight, and the rest of his ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... track and using such speed as they dared to escape from a situation that had become perilous. But the light caboose, packed like a sardine-box with men, was dancing a hornpipe on the rail-joints. McCloud felt the peril, and the lurching of the car could be seen in the jerk of the engine tender to which it was coupled. Apprehensive, he crawled back on the coal to watch the caboose himself, and stayed long enough to see that the rapidly drifting snow threatened to derail ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... will be rather attracted by that same scarlet and orange foot, which is being drawn in and thrust out to a length of nearly four inches, striking with its point against any opposing object, and sending the whole shell backwards with a jerk. The point, you see, is sharp and tongue-like; only flattened, not horizontally, like a tongue, but perpendicularly, so as to form, as it was intended, a perfect sand-plough, by which the animal ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... his reverie with a start, and straightened himself up with a jerk. "What makes you think ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... With a jerk she brought her straying fingers away from her hair, and her wandering eyes away from the sunshine, and her runaway thoughts back to the typewritten page. For three minutes the snap of the little disks crackled through ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... off on the line a few inches at a time, but always keeping it taut and always holding herself braced for a sudden jerk. At last the end came into her hand. She had to lie out on the rim-rock and call down to him. He called back in a tone of quiet assurance. The line slackened. He had cast it loose. The lantern glowed out in the blackness and showed him standing on ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... With a little jerk Betty hung up the receiver, and sat staring out of the window with the tears streaming down her cheeks. She brushed them away impatiently and felt ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... and explained this to him; but it was easy to see that he did not care a bit about that, and he once more took up his favourite attitude and his pipe. I left him in peace for five minutes, during which time he was able to imagine himself triumphant, and then with a sudden jerk of my elbow I broke the pane of glass. Stupefaction was depicted on the major's face, and he became livid. He got straight up, but the two young men rose at the same time, whilst the baron burst out laughing ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... something on the table, a lump of metal, cold and heavy. She seized and dashed it brutally into that hateful face, saw his head jerk back and heard him grunt with pain, and struck again, ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... bargain which Bones had made. Bones, with a real locomotive to play with—he had given the aged engine-driver a week's holiday—saw nothing but the wonderful possibilities of pulling levers and making a mass of rusting machinery jerk asthmatically forward at the ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... his head! It was enough; his humiliation was complete. Drawing his sword from its scabbard, he placed the point on the ground; then, bending the blade into the form of a bow, he gave the hilt a sudden, peculiar thrusting jerk, and the blade snapped in twain. Then, tossing the hilt from him, he exclaimed, in a tone of concentrated bitterness, "I surrender!" and burst into tears ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... education. After a short time our scholar was transferred to the parish-school of the town, kept by a Mr. White, where he was placed under the charge of a rather severe helper, who, instead of the tawse, administered discipline by means of his knuckles, hard as horn, which he applied with a peculiar jerk to the crania of his pupils. At this school Willie Fairbairn lost the greater part of the singing accomplishments which he had acquired under "Bowed Johnnie," but he learnt in lieu of them to read ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... bare country, ain't it?" observed the drummer, with a jerk of his head toward the window. "Looks bleak enough to me. Know anything about this neck of the woods, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... pulled off his boots; and jest as Brother Gyardner got into the middle o' the creek, here come Sam wadin' up behind 'em, and grabbed Amos by the shoulder and hollered out, 'You got the wrong man, parson! Here, Amos, take hold o' me.' And he give Amos a jerk that nearly made Brother Gyardner lose his footin', and him and Amos waded up to the shore and left Brother Gyardner standin' there in the middle o' the creek lookin' like ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... descend rocky mountains at full speed and neither trip nor fall, but you must be cautious with the horses of the Moslems, and treat them with kindness, for the horses of the Moslems are proud, and they like not being slaves. When they are young and first mounted, jerk not their mouths with your bit, for be sure if you do they will kill you; sooner or later, you will perish beneath their feet. Good are our horses; and good our riders, yea, very good are the Moslems at mounting the horse; who are like them? I once saw a Frank rider compete with a Moslem on ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... been there about five minutes when our neighbor's line began to jerk twice, thrice, and then he pulled out a chub as thick as my thigh; rather less, perhaps, but nearly as big! My heart beat, the perspiration stood on my forehead and Melie said to me: 'Well, you sot, did you ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... tell me that, Father," he said, almost humbly. "There isn't a feller back there in the camp," he added with a jerk of his head, "that would have hesitated like me when you handed him your dope. Thanks. Say, that darn ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... conditioning the reader by using such phrases as "the great flying saucer scare," "rich, full-blown screwiness," "fearsome freaks," and so forth. By the time the reader gets to the meat of the article he feels like a rich, full-blown jerk for ever even ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... mean that jerking—Frankie began to jerk about half an hour ago when we were sitting down a bit; but he's seemed queer since breakfast. And he didn't seem to be ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... That's what I ask myself, nigh onto a hundred times a day, child. But there's things that takes the finest kind o' wit to see through, and you can't make a bead-purse out of a sow's-ear, neither jerk Time by the forelock, when there a'n't a hair, as you can see, to hang on to. I dunno as you'll rightly take my meanin'; but never mind, all the same, I'm flummuxed, and it's the longest and hardest ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... word, the mealman turned, pulled his clothes about him with a jerk, and, pale and bewildered, started away at a run down ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her anxiously. "Don't mind him, my dear," she said, with a jerk of her head in the direction of Mr. Piper, "he's nobody. Wouldn't you like to go out on the beach a ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... and, if it had been given in good temper, would not have struck Winnie as anything but a pleasant joke. But he knew, from Gypsy's face, it was no joke; and, feeling his dignity insulted, down he went flat upon the floor with a scream and a jerk that sent two fresh buttons flying ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... right, ending the movement in a plunge that took up the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fifty pounds. The load quivered, and from under the runners ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... bottom of one of those long, sickening falls there was a jerk—and we continued on down to the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... crack of a single rifle was heard, and Somers observed a slight jerk in the brim of the captain's ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... it for the needle. The end of the thread must be held by the thumb and forefinger. The next stitches are made by taking up the thread with the needle and drawing it through the loop. The throwing of the thread round the needle by a jerk of the wrist is called ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... with a "Yo! heave ho!" and a jerk, until the "belay" sung out by the mate signifies that the work is done. Then, there is the scrambling on the deck when the wind changes quarter, and the yards want squaring as the wind blows more aft. Such are among the ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... breakfast, we started a game of chess. The tide continued to fall, and we felt the sloop begin to list. We played on until the chess men began to fall over. The list increased, and we went on deck. Bow-line and stern-line were drawn taut. As we looked the boat listed still farther with an abrupt jerk. The ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... verge and room enough' to show off all her perfections. Her most peculiar merit consisted, perhaps, in her power of stopping herself suddenly, while going on at the rate of a hunt one way, and without any pause or apparent difficulty going just as fast the other way. This was done by a jerk which must, one would be inclined to think, have dislocated all her bones and entirely upset her internal arrangements. But no; it was done without injury, or any disagreeable result either to her brain or elsewhere. We all know how a steamer is manoeuvred when she has to change her course, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... to jerk away, and Bud gave her a jerk to let her know who was boss. "Say, where'd you git that kid?" he ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... With an impatient jerk after the manner of Capitola, Clara signified that she did not wish to converse. Wool dropped obediently behind, mounted his horse and followed at a respectful distance until Clara turned her horse's head and took the bridle-path toward Tip Top. This move filled poor ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... getting abused all the way into the bargain. There Miller stands in the stern—and a devilish easy thing it is to stand there and walk into us—I can see him chuckle as he comes to you and me, Brown—'Now, 2, well forward;' '3, don't jerk;' 'Now 2, throw your weight on the oar; come, now, you can get another pound on.' I hang on like grim Death,—then ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Manton," he said, by way of introduction. "An' my friend's called Sim Longley. Say," he went on, with a backward jerk of the head, "mebbe your friend'll ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... broad and as red as a pulpit cushion." On being shown into Flora's little parlour, she stood staring at her with her arms stuck in her sides, and her wide mouth distended from ear to ear, with a grin so truly uncouth and comic, that Mrs. Lyndsay could scarcely restrain her laughter; with a downward jerk of her broad shapeless person, meant for a curtsy, she burst out in a rude ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... should not be buckled tight about your waist, but should hang well down on the hip. This is for two reasons. In the first place, it does not drag so heavily at your anatomy, and falls naturally into position when you are mounted. In the second place, you can jerk your gun out more easily from a loose-hanging holster. Let your knife-sheath be so deep as almost to cover the handle, and the knife of the very best steel procurable. I like a thin blade. If you are a student of animal anatomy, you can skin and quarter a deer ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... young woman of spirit and ready presence of mind. With a swift jerk she dragged the slippery blade from the man's hands. She pulled it towards her beyond the man's reach. Then with a sudden vigorous thrust she drove the blade into the face of the nearest sailor. It took him full in the mouth and knocked him backwards. He picked himself up and spat out ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... Dick gave it a gentle pull—-not too hard, for fear the jerk might catch good old Dave of his guard and yank ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... had been dozing in his chair. He rose at the cry, looking hard, with a mechanical jerk of the neck, at two or three successive faces, and calling, "Somebody—somebody" to take his outstretched hand trembling in a paroxysm of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... muttered. "We are kind o' starved that way I'll admit. More dollars than girls to the square mile. And to think of all of us nice, healthy, young—bet yu' I know who she is!" he triumphantly cried. He had sat up and levelled a finger at me with the throw-down jerk ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... remembered the immense stores of Dutch lager beer which they had so providentially and so patriotically held in anticipation of the hour of need. Dutch beer, both light and dark, so that inveterate drinkers of Munich and Pilsener were enabled to face Armageddon almost without a jerk. They had other things ready too—Danish pate de fois gras, Swiss liver sausages, Belgian pastries and the rest. It was in that dark hour, I suppose, that the Vienna steak set its face towards the steppes. But this was in 1914, and a good deal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... parasol out of your hands and puts it up with a jerk; you take it, heaving a very loud sigh, upon which your mother seizes it again and pops ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... slowly advancing tentacle, coming closer and closer toward his nose, with an expression of such intense horror on his countenance that it became quite shocking. Farther and farther the creature reached forward, until on a sudden, with a sort of jerk, the movement assumed a downward direction, and the tentacle was slowly lowered until the tip rested on the stem of the pipe. For a moment the creature remained motionless. I was quieting my nerves with the reflection ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... and, kicking back his chair, rose from the table. He moved a pace away as though to go to the side-table where the whisky and soda stood. I thought he meant having a drink. His back was turned to me. The next moment I heard shots. He seemed to stumble, swung round with a sort of jerk, and fell face downward ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... energy in reserve to scramble on and upward into the seat. Once there, he kicked the animal in the flanks with both heels, clutching with his knees and reaching for the bridle rein in the same motion. The horse plunged obediently, but came to a stop with a jerk that almost unseated the rider; the sapling swayed; the good but forgotten ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... round face was congested with murderous rage before he had finished, but Steve seemed hardly to have heard him at all. He had finally straightened out that sickeningly slack figure upon his own bunk. He was listening now to his heart, and at a jerk of his head Fat Joe joined him at the bedside. The latter's thick fingers were as delicate, as competent, as a skilled physician's might have been. He, too, listened and peeled back the unconscious man's eyelids. He shook ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... who suddenly threw up his arms and then began to beat the surface wildly, but only for a second or two, before with a couple of sharp jerks he was dragged under water, while another cry from the savage nearest to the shore gave warning that his was to be a similar fate, one jerk, however, sufficing to drag him under, just as his companions reached the shelter ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... personal tragedy or world-agony, will prevail over the old order which dominated the nations of Europe, and the old philosophy of political and social governance will be challenged and perhaps overthrown. If the new ideas are thwarted by reactionary rulers endeavoring to jerk the world back to its old-fashioned discipline under their authority, there will be anarchy reaching to the heights of terror in more countries than those where anarchy now prevails. If by fear or by wisdom the new ideas are allowed to gain their ground gradually, a revolution will be accomplished ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the branches, with a good deal of the upper part of his body under water, and when at length he emerged there was a big, gleaming fish in one hand. Ida saw him jerk its head back, with his fingers in its gills, and then, standing upright, he hurled it ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... held up her hand and with a jerk she was pulled to the top of the wall, but by no means did she "hush up." She writhed and twisted and screamed, but there was a difference now—a note of pain and terror ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... the car moved on with a jerk, the girl sinking back into her corner with a suggestion of breathlessness, as though her effort to seem composed had been almost ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... what happened. There I was found, sure enough; and there I made my first escape from destruction. Seeing the basket, which it seems was one in which he had brought his own dinner, the day before, and forgotten to carry away with him, he gave it a jerk to cast away the leavings, before he handed it to the child who had come to take it home, in order that it might be filled again, when out I rolled on the cold stone. There I lay, as near the grave as a tomb-stone, when I was just a ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... rather deaf, and very much frightened for fear he should talk Greek; on the other side he was relieved by Sir John Merton,—very civil, very pompous, and talking, at strictured intervals, about county matters, in a measured intonation, savouring of the House-of-Commons jerk at ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... horses were fitted out with packsaddles, to the latter part of which was fastened a pair of hobbles made of hickory withes,—a bell and collar ornamented their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the salt were filled with bread, jerk, boiled ham, and cheese furnished a provision for the drivers. At night, after feeding, the horses, whether put in pasture or turned out into the woods, were hobbled and the bells were opened. The barter for salt and iron was made first ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... drowning a cascade of applause, and a bundle of old clothes, twitching nerves, liquid perspiration and grease paint hopped off the stage into the centre of the group. An electric bell trilled, the limelights shut off, with a jerk that made the eyes ache, a back-cloth soared aloft and another glided down into its place, the comedian took two, three, four calls, then vanished into a horde of dim figures scuttling about in ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... reach them. Drew and I gazed in silent wonder, our bodies jammed tightly into the cab-window, and our heads craned upward. We did not come back to earth until our ancient, earth-creeping conveyance brought up with a jerk, and we found ourselves in front of a gate marked "Ecole d'Aviation Militaire ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... nerve is divided, the most obvious result is "drop-foot"; the patient is unable to dorsiflex the foot and cannot lift his toes off the ground, so that in walking he is obliged to jerk the foot forwards and laterally. The loss of sensibility depends upon whether the nerve is divided above or below the origin of the large cutaneous branch which comes off just before it passes round the neck of the fibula. In course of time the foot becomes inverted ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... up, till horse and rider hung for a moment in the balance—a horse on two legs, standing erect with a white boy clinging to its back. They swayed for a moment; for two; for three. Then over they came. With a violent jerk of its head, the ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... thing was without the "we" and the "our." What a perfect phrase.... The hymn rolled on and she recognised that it was the tune she knew—the hard square tune she and Eve had called it—and Harriett used to mark time to it in jerks, a jerk to each syllable, with a twisted glove-finger tip just under the book ledge with her left hand, towards Miriam. But sung as these Germans sang it, it did not jerk at all. It did not sound like a "proclamation" or an order. It was... somehow... everyday. ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... the next Lesson, thus learnt, Presently upon your making him stop give him a good brisk jerk near his Flank, which will make him soon understand you. When he does it, cherish him; and see he does it comely, for to yerk out his hinder Legs, till his Forelegs be above Ground, is not graceful; or one Leg yerk't farther out than ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... which he glowed—of some high provocation. He was flushed, but he bore it as the ensign of his house; he was so admirably, vividly dressed, for the morning hour and for his journey, that he shone as with the armour of a knight; and the whole effect of him, from head to foot, with every jerk of his unconcern and every flash of his ease, was to call attention to his being utterly unshaken and knowing perfectly what he was about. It was at this happy pitch that he replied to the ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... his shoulder brought Freddie with a jerk troubled dreams. Derek was standing beside him. A tousled Derek, ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... happiness any boy may find By sailing boats upon the lake, if he is so inclined; The wind it drives them out to sea, he pulls them back, and then They jerk and struggle to be free—away they go again! They wibble-wobble as they sail, and sometimes they upset,— Of course he reaches out for them,—of ...
— Children of Our Town • Carolyn Wells
... acknowledgments, he saw the two persons in full retreat; the profane old scoundrel in the bottle-green limping and stumbling, yet bowling along at a wonderful rate, with many a jerk and reel, and the slender lady in black gliding away by his side into the inner ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... As the spokesman, I presented the case briefly and respectfully, and all would have gone well had not the hot blood of Adler risen at the wrong moment, when the captain was cautiously exploring the scent of the rejected food. With a sudden upward jerk he caused that official's nose to disappear momentarily in the dish, while he exploded in voluble German. The result was an instant rupture of diplomatic relations. Adler was put in the lock-up, but set fiee again immediately. He spent the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... effort to gather up his wandering faculties and then he realized with a jerk that the face looking into his was that of the slaver. Making a supreme effort he sat up. ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... check and rear in the air again, and caught up just as the mare made a second bolt. As Dolly dashed around a bend, she stopped suddenly, stiff-legged. Lute saw her lover torn out of the saddle, his thigh-grip broken by the sudden jerk. Though he had lost his seat, he had not been thrown, and as the mare dashed on Lute saw him clinging to the side of the horse, a hand in the mane and a leg across the saddle. With a quick cavort he regained his seat and proceeded to fight ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... sought after. We talk with the foreman and make nuisances of ourselves generally, and presently old man Ayers, who runs the paper, waddles in with another item to be set. The compositors set down their sticks with a jerk and say, "Oh, my land!" and the foreman goes and puts the item on the case with that air of patient resignation which is a little more irritating than a swift kick; and then Chet Frazier, if he's hanging around, which he usually ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... rain-splashed pane. The world was empty now that Phil had gone. He drew down the shabby green blind with a jerk and prepared to ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... by a sidelong motion. I kept one some years ago, and had ample opportunity of studying his mode of defence. When a dog or any other foe comes to close quarters, the porcupine wheels round and rapidly charges back. They also have a side-way jerk ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... think so if you like," said Josh, and Will sent his stone flying with a tremendous jerk right away into the trees beyond ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... to the bureau and pulled open the top drawer with a jerk. Within lay Helen's paper. Polly picked it up. "April fool!" she read aloud. She looked into the drawer, then at Helen, her face brightening into a sudden smile with ...
— The Goody-Naughty Book • Sarah Cory Rippey
... snarl. He sucked up his breath in furious protest, threatening murder. But the stranger's hand was not withdrawn. On the contrary it advanced upon him with the utmost deliberation till Cinders was compelled to jerk backwards to ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... to take you in hand and make you a little ray of sunshine about the home. I know your type backwards. I've been in America and studied it on its native asphalt. You superfatted millionaire kids are all the same. If Dad doesn't jerk you into the office before you're out of knickerbockers, you just run to seed. You get to think you're the only thing on earth, and you go on thinking it till one day somebody comes along and shows you you're not, and then you get what's ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... In the event of a cross compound beginning to jerk badly and cylinder head pops in low-pressure cylinder popping, where would you look ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... kind had passed us, nor any human being, nor had we overtaken any. Dulcie, nestling close to me in the warm, comfortable brougham, was more than half asleep. I too felt drowsy, and I fear that more than once my chin had dropped forward with a jerk. Suddenly the car swerved abruptly to the right. So tightly were the brakes applied at the same instant that we were both thrown forward almost on to the floor. The car lurched, rose up on one side, then as I instinctively threw my arms about Dulcie to protect her if possible from what ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... however, that he who appeared to have hardly sufficient strength to support himself could not help me. This poor looking, feeble old man, however, took hold of me with one arm, and lifted me with a single jerk upon the horse so quick and so alertly that it ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... had the turquoises, and with a jerk of her left hand she freed it and threw them after the rest. The necklace caught the handrail as it fell, and Markin made a vain spring to save it. He turned and stared at Laura, who stood fighting the greatest puissance of feeling she had known, looking at the pearls. As he stared, she kissed ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... will you?" And the knight went to work at his papers, as though fearing that any delay in what he was doing might be very prejudicial to the nation at large. "Ah, Eames,—well,—yes," he said again, as he pushed away from him, almost with a jerk, the papers on which he had been writing. "They tell me that you know the business of ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... had not seen them, and still crouched down, expecting to hear the riders turn and come back. Hence it was like a surprise when I heard a faint rustling which indicated that Joeboy was getting up; and, warned by a jerk of the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... advocated, Miss Priscilla gestured the putting forth of an abjuring hand, with the recommendation to him, so to put aside temptation that instant; and she signified in a very ugly jerk of her features, the vilely filthy stuff Morality thought it, however pleasing it might be to a palate corrupted by indulgence of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not the odd thing that you should speak it to the only man in the shire that ever had the right to use it? Do you see this?" and rising he stepped to a recess in the wall, only half curtained, so that its contents overflowed into the chamber, and by a jerk of the hand revealed a strange accumulation of dusty documents in paper and in parchment. He looked at them with an aspect of disgust, and stirred them with a contemptuous toe as if he meddled with the ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... my head aside, put my hand in through the opening, felt about, and taking a firm hold on one arm of the skeleton, I loosened it from the body with a quick jerk. The movement loosened the head as well, and it rolled out through the opening right to my very feet. I took up the skull to lay it in the coffin again—and then I saw a greenish phosphorescent glimmer in its ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... he had pulled the barge about two hundred yards he stopped; the rope slackened and then the current pulled against us. The rope became taut again and the men shrieked from the barge. When you tug a boat, you must not jerk at the rope but pull it gently, so I urged Kari to pull it smoothly. In the course of an hour, he had actually drawn the boat in, and at the end of our journey he had learned to ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... victory and safety. The Manitou has reached him, and, with a fiend-like laugh on his horrid face, bends exultingly forward to seize his helpless victims. One hand he lays upon the tender arm of the forest-flower, the other is in the hair of the lover. But, as he bends forward, a sudden jerk of the Iroquois, occasioned by returning life, draws him unwittingly over the line which marks the boundaries of his kingdom and sway. In a moment—in a breath—ere the eye could have winked, or the spirit thought—multitudes of bright beings start up from each nook, and dell, and dingle—from ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... a state of siege horse-flesh is all right—the French eat frogs, you know, and horses have frogs in their feet. What I like about the thing in Paris, though, is that they call it horse-flesh, and don't try to jerk it on a fellow for beef. Jerked beef is bad enough, but only think of jerked horse, by ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... hands for half a day. Our gang laid out on the mizen topsail yard, and after more than half an hour's hard work, furled the sail, though it bellied out over our heads, and again, by a slant of the wind, blew in under the yard, with a fearful jerk, and almost threw us off ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... together intermittently in subdued tones, that barely reached aft in the form of a low mumble; and the only sounds heard were the occasional soft rustle and flap of the canvas aloft, with an accompanying patter of reef-points, the jar of the rudder upon its pintles, the jerk of the wheel chains, and the soft, scarcely audible seething of the ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... to blame for it, if he is blind, is he?" chattered the boy, a bit incoherently. "If you're blind you're blind, and you can't help yourself." And with a jerk he freed himself from Mazie's grasp and hurried down ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... and Talbot, in Titchener's laboratory at Cornell University, found that the estimation of relative weights was aided by music.[99] Lombard found, when investigating the normal variations in the knee-jerk, that involuntary reflex processes are always reinforced by music; a military band playing a lively march caused the knee-jerk to increase at the loud passages and to diminish at the soft passages, while remaining ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... beside him, was quiet and sober; and when Tip raised his arm with such a sudden jerk that he knocked his arithmetic to the floor, Bob leaned over and quietly picked it up and laid it back in its place; which was a wonderful thing for Bob Turner ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... ours, tend to weaken themselves, and thus it was that the men began to exhibit the effects of severe and unremitting toil. Our daily journeys were short, and the head we made against the stream but trifling. The men lost the proper and muscular jerk with which they once made the waters foam and the oars bend. Their whole bodies swung with an awkward and laboured motion. Their arms appeared to be nerveless; their faces became haggard, their persons emaciated, their spirits wholly sunk; nature was so completely overcome, that from ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... both occasions, I offered him a rupee to produce a third, which he agreed to; and this time I saw the snake's head, struggling rather oddly in his nether garments. He ran into the horse's stall, rushed forward with a shriek to distract attention, and then I saw him jerk out a snake of some four feet long, and drag it backwards by the tip of the tail as if desperately afraid of it. Knowing his snakes must be an exhaustible quantity, I proffered a second rupee for another, taking care to keep between him ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... than a fathom of water here, sir," sang out Johnson from the bows. As he spoke there was a sudden soft jar and jerk, then the schooner was still. They were aground. "Push her off to the lee there! Let go your sheets!" roared the boatswain from the wheel. "Push her off to the lee." He spun the wheel around as he spoke. A ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... the rich, gentle voice of the Altrurian. I lifted my head with a jerk from the pillow, and saw him standing against the closed door, with my shoes in his hand. "Oh, I am sorry I ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... angry jerk forward and the cart went terribly fast and Doorke clutched Horieneke with one hand and with the other warded off the hanging ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... was not altogether absurd. And yet—love didn't come like that, in a flash. You might just as well expect a house to spring into being in a moment, or a ship, or an automobile, or a table, or a—He sat up with a jerk. In another instant, he ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... mind snapped sharply to attention. His startled jerk threw the ship widely from her course. A voice was speaking—Chet's voice! It was shouting in ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... of laughter came from Quisante's group; he had made some joke and they all applauded him. Tillman stood for a moment longer before him, then gave a queer jerk of his head, and turned sharp round on his heel. He came back towards where she stood. She took a step forward and thus crossed his path, Marchmont and the Dean standing on ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... what had happened, he demanded that the murderer be given up to him. His demand was readily granted, whereupon the white man advanced on the cowering wretch, who had confidently expected the protection of his people, and with the quick fling and jerk of a raw-hide rope bound his arms to his side. Then casting a noose about his neck and tying the end of it to his saddle-bow, he set off for the Hudson. All that night he rode, the Indian walking and running at the horse's heels, and next day ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... worked, Grace recovered some of her self-possession. She did not dare to cry out, and tried to think of some other method of arousing the others on the boat. Her eyes fell upon a bell pull hanging from the wall and, on the sly, she gave it a violent jerk. ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... fish at all. The official photographer, who had gone solely to take snapshots, also took the maximum of fish out of the river. Indeed, he was so much of an amateur that the first fish he caught placed him in such a predicament that he did not play it, but landed it with so vigorous a jerk that it flew over his head and caught high in a fir. An Indian guide had to climb ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... through the air; and the loop glided swiftly over the great head and tightened suddenly around the hairy neck, just at the moment the bear came to the decision to charge Thure and sprang toward him, with the result that the sudden unexpectedness of the jerk of Bud's rope yanked him off his feet and hurled ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... hang them, manning the rope by which the condemned were swayed to the yardarm. The admiral, careful to produce impression, ordered that all the ships should hold divine service immediately upon the execution. Accordingly, when the bell struck eight, the fatal gun was fired, the bodies swung with a jerk aloft, the church flags were hoisted throughout the fleet, and all went to prayers. Ere yet the ceremony was over, the Spanish gunboats came out from Cadiz and opened fire; but St. Vincent would not mar the solemnity of the occasion by shortening ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... her cheer a jerk Ez though she wished him furder, An' on her apples kep' to work, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the brakes went on with a jerk, and a tall crane loomed up vaguely in front. All four men sprang to the ground, and while the chauffeur busied himself with the big lamps Curtis and Devar ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... soir, bonne nuit,' just as though Rogers had never gone away at all. Michaud, the carpenter, shouted his welcome as he strolled towards the Post Office farther down to post a letter, and then the motor stopped with a jerk outside the courtyard where the fountain sang and gurgled in its big stone basin. Minks saw the plane tree. He glanced up at the ridged backbone of the building. What a portentous looking erection it was. It seemed to have no windows. He wondered where the famous Den was. The roof overlapped ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... from the midst of which shoot up two long feathers, one green and one red, while behind hangs down a greasy, floury mass gathered at the end into a club-like handle, which has some fitness for its place, in suggesting that it should be used to jerk the heap of hair, grease, and feathers from the head of the unfortunate who sustains it. Just think of it! that sweet creature must have given up at least two hours of every day to this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... small ones who fled hand in hand until one stumbled and the burning lash caught them both as the other strove to pull the fallen to its feet. Raf gagged. He triggered the controls and soared up and away, fighting the heaving in his middle, shaking off with one savage jerk the insistent pawing hand of the alien who wanted to ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... doves over there," he said reproachfully, a jerk of his bulbous thumb indicating Madame de Vaurigard and her young protege. "Madge, can't you do nothin' fer our friend the Indian? Can't you even help ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington |
