"Point-blank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... threats. When we got aboard the yacht my father came to me and said, point-blank before those men, that—that—oh, I can't!" She buried her face in her hands—and it was all I could do to keep from putting my arms about her and whispering that everything was now all right. But she had started out to tell me, and was determined ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... beneath Mme. Gougasse's comptoir, had straightway poured his grievances into a feminine ear and, figuratively speaking, rested his weary heart upon a feminine bosom. And his buffetings and grievances and wearinesses? Whence came they? I asked the question point-blank. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... them. More than 5,000 strong, these horsemen rode into the valley, formed at the foot of the slope, and then, under cover of their artillery, began to breast the slope. At its crest the guns of the allies opened on them point-blank; but, despite their horrible losses, they swept on, charged through the guns and down the reverse slope towards the squares. Volley after volley now tore through with fearful effect, and the survivors swerved to the intervals. Their second and third lines fared ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... moment Valerie was posed as Delilah. Stidmann, too sharp to ask for Madame Marneffe, walked straight in past the lodge, and ran quickly up to the second floor, arguing thus: "If I ask for Madame Marneffe, she will be out. If I inquire point-blank for Steinbock, I shall be laughed at to my face.—Take the bull ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... most important of these fortresses. At this place the opposite shores of New York and Vermont are pushed out into the lake toward each other, thus forming two peninsulas, with the lake contracted to a width of half a mile, or point-blank cannon range, between them: one is Ticonderoga; the other, Mount Independence. Thus, together, they command the passage of ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... wonder and bent over Leah. Gordon took instant advantage of the Xoranian's diverted attention. He whipped the revolver from behind him and fired point-blank at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... do about it will be to make Esther miserable. They have begun to gossip already. A young man, even though he is a clergyman, can't be seen always in company with a pretty woman, without exciting remark. Only yesterday I was asked point-blank whether my niece was ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... It was a point-blank, determined question, with still a hint of suspicion in it; and her eyes, as she asked it, were the clearest, steadiest, bluest eyes he ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... at him point-blank, without reflection, and now stood looking at her lover with wide open frightened eyes, like one who in self-defence has dealt a blow without measuring his strength, and fears to have ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... to be suggested by nothing, assented with a modest air, and, shaking his head and his wig, began to talk to some one else. But M. de Gesvres had not commenced without a purpose. He went on, addressed M. de Villeroy point-blank, admiring their mutual good fortune, but when he came to speak of the father of each, "Let us go no further," said he, "for what did our fathers spring from? From tradesmen; even tradesmen they were themselves. Yours was the son of a dealer in fresh fish ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sailors suddenly roar out their "Yo-heave-ho!" The sea had ceased, as it will in moments of preoccupation or intense emotion, to haunt our ears for a time; now it breaks in again, and we feel as if it had really never ceased. Kurvenal enters, and tells them to get ready to land. Isolda tells him point-blank that she will not stir until Tristan has come to demand her pardon for a sin he has committed. Brusquely, Kurvenal says he will convey the message; Brangaena again prays to her mistress to spare her. "Wilt ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman
... found my godly directors rather deficient in wisdom. My director in Paris, a very enlightened man withal, was anxious that I should be at once ordained a sub-deacon, the first of the holy orders which constitutes an irrevocable tie. I refused point-blank. So far as regarded the first steps of the ecclesiastical state, I had obeyed him. It was he himself who pointed out to me that, the exact form of the engagement which they imply is contained in the words of the Psalm which are ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... warm glance from the lady interrupted in her pleasure. This was all his substance, pittance and enjoyment during a whole month, since on the brink of his joy always came the said husband, and he always arrived wisely between a point-blank refusal and those little sweet caresses with which women always season their refusals—little things which reanimate love and render it all the stronger. And when the sculptor, out of patience, commenced, immediately upon ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... children by her, before he will pain the heart of his adored mother by telling her the truth. The adored mother suspects her son, but no trace of the suspicion appears in her letters to him. The questions which an English parent would level at him point-blank she is entirely too delicate to address to her dear Maurice; but she puts them to the Prefect of Police, and ferrets out the marriage through legal documents, while yet no trace of this knowledge dims the affectionateness of her letters, or the serenity of her reception ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... against horse-racing and the gambling which invariably goes with it, by the Colonel's wasted life and her own ensuing loneliness, nevertheless prayed night and day that Queen Bess would be victorious, for Frank had finally refused, point-blank, to let her risk her fortune in the scheme for the development of his coal-lands, and so, if the mare lost and the eastern firm refused to purchase her at the large price which would enable him to join the syndicate, his great chance would be gone. Perhaps ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... honour, Kenelm, you ask very odd questions. But you cannot learn too early this fact, that irony is to the high-bred what Billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank: he implies it in the politest terms he can invent. Lord Hautfort denies my right of free warren over a trout-stream that runs through his lands. I don't care a rush about the trout-stream, but there is no doubt of my ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to test his sincerity. Sincerity! It seems like a profanation of the word to write it in connection with such a monster, so I asked him point-blank, "Why may I ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... from a letter which I found in a pocket-book of my uncle's, which I took possession of when the police and I searched his effects. I went to see Burchill about the will, of course. When I said that a will had been found he fenced with me. He would only reply ambiguously. Eventually he asked me, point-blank, if I would make it worth his while if he aided me in upsetting the will. I replied that if he could—which I doubted—I would. He told me to call at ten o'clock that night. I did so. He then told me what I had ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... next year, And castles taken yet i'th' air? Of battles fought at sea, and ships Sunk, two years hence, the last eclipse? A total o'er throw giv'n the KING In Cornwall, horse and foot, next spring? And has not he point-blank foretold Whatso'er the Close Committee would? Made Mars and Saturn for the cause, The Moon for fundamental laws; The Ram, the Bull, the Goat, declare Against the Book of Common Prayer; The Scorpion ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... inflexible maid-of-honour turned a blind eye. No future, however dazzling, could compensate her for the loss of her dearest possession. "I hope," said the King at last, "I may live to see you old and willing," as he walked away in high dudgeon. To the proposed match with the Duke he point-blank refused his consent, and vowed that if his sovereign will were defied, the punishment would be in ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... ate their supper in perplexed silence, and were shut in their room for deliberation and consultation. "I never sat in such a case before," said the foreman. "The plaintiff and defendant have sworn point-blank against each other; and how we are to tell which speaks the truth, I can not see. I should not like to make a mistake in the matter; it would be a sad affair to convict an innocent man of perjury." Again there was silence ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... falls wounded. Pakenham's bayoneteers Shape for the charge from column into rank; And Thomiere finds death thereat point-blank! ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... been hesitating whether to tell my father point-blank that I want no more Spanish lessons and have Henarez sent about his business. But in spite of all my brave resolutions, I feel that the horrible sensation which comes over me when I see that man has become necessary to me. I say to myself, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... came upon him as a real shock when people began to ask him point-blank whether he was engaged to Jan, and if so, what they were going to do about Tancred's children. Rightly or wrongly, he discerned in the question some veiled reflection upon Jan, some implied slur upon her conduct. He was consequently very short and huffy with these inquisitive ones, and when ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... They refused point-blank to throw their rifles down, bringing a laugh and a shout of encouragement from the German. But she screwed the muzzle of her pistol into the lieutenant's ear, and bade him enforce her orders, the gipsy women applauding with a chorus ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... been either a very bold or a very insensitive man who would have ventured to continue questioning him any further. So, though many people hazarded guesses as to where he had come from, nobody ever asked him the point-blank question: Who are you, if you please, and what do ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... trapping, and Connie told the Indian that he and 'Merican Joe had set some traps on the lake a day's journey to the south-eastward. Pierre Bonnet listened attentively, but by not so much as the flicker of an eyelash did he betray the fact that he had ever heard of the lake. Finally, the boy asked him, point-blank, if he had ever been there. Connie knew something of Indians, and, had been quick to note that Pierre held him in regard. Had this not been so, he would never have risked the direct question, for it is only by devious and round-about ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... him to travel, to quit the country for a while, and his mother urged him too: for he was growing very ill, and suffered severely. But he refused, and said point-blank he would not go. He would not obey in this instance: and his mother was too fond, and his uncle too wise to force him. Whenever Miss Fotheringay acted, he rode over to the Chatteris Theatre and saw her. One night there were so few people in the house that the Manager returned ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what artful design Mrs. Morley put that question point-blank, fixing keen eyes on Isaura while she put it. She saw the heightened colour, the quivering lip of the girl thus abruptly appealed to, and she said inly: "I was ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... accord at the goodness of the smell around them. They had resigned themselves, as even pigs do, to a kind of fast, hoping to break their fast more sweetly on the morrow morning. But now they tumbled out all headlong, pigs below and pigs above, pigs point-blank and pigs across, pigs courant and pigs rampant, but all alike prepared to eat, and all ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... scandalous! Give me the book. I'll take my corporal oath point-blank against every particular ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... pavement, and would sink into it again and reappear at some other spot the instant you left him behind. The expression of his eye was perfectly respectful, but terribly fixed, holding your own as by fascination, never once winking, never wavering from its point-blank gaze right into your face, till you were completely beyond the range of his battery of one immense rifled cannon. This was his mode of soliciting alms; and he reminded me of the old beggar who appealed so touchingly to the charitable sympathies ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... although they were all badly frightened. They held the gun at arm's length, turned their faces away and shot at random; it was clear that very few knew how to shoot, and that their Sniders could be of use only at short range. This is confirmed by the fact that all their murders are done point-blank. ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... doing. She had been tactlessly insistent in her demand to see the beautiful old garden and the famous artist-Baronet, who had so boldly flouted tradition. Helen's lame excuses had been airily dismissed, and the discourtesy of a point-blank ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... houses to the right. Among the whisperers it was related how the Emperor—who with the greatest difficulty had been prevailed on to leave Carignan the night before about eleven o'clock—when entreated to push on to Mezieres had refused point-blank to abandon the post of danger and take a step that would prove so demoralizing to the troops. Others asserted that he was no longer in the city, that he had fled, leaving behind him a dummy emperor, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... recruits, as were also Cissie Gardiner, Maggie Woodhall, and five of the lower division, including Ethel Maitland. Beatrice Wynne, after a little hesitation, added her signature, but May Firth, Doris Kennedy, and Ella Johnson refused point-blank. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the first Irish Parliament to a film company for a colossal sum and, as the money is spent and the company is incessantly jogging them to deliver the goods, they're bound to put the thing through! It's said that someone asked a Member of the Government point-blank whether there was any truth in the rumour, and was told, "The answer is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... then," said Richard, as he took back the bank-note. He had learned, perhaps, in America, to be a very inquisitive man. He added point-blank, "Pray what ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... was only her companion's silence which enabled Rachel to realize her strange fortune at this stage, and she had to put her question point-blank before she ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... will they go in that direction? Why will they not come within range? I will give everything I have on earth for one good point-blank shot!" ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... from here, and made it his business to expostulate with a lax young cynic he met with somewhere about there—son of some landowner up that way—and who has a mother afflicted with blindness. My father addressed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there was quite a disturbance. It was very foolish of my father, I must say, to intrude his conversation upon a stranger when the probabilities were so obvious that it would be useless. But whatever he thinks to be his duty, that he'll do, in season or out of season; and, of course, he makes ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... his rubbing, which was being done with a very tender hand, and as if he really loved the name he was endeavoring to bring into plainer view. Scowling a little, he turned and met me point-blank with a look which had a good deal of ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... had said, the wind, and being able to go nearer it than the Spaniard, kept his place at easy point-blank range for his two-eighteen-pounder culverins, which Yeo and his mate worked ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... our iron beak, too, was sticking in the side of the sunken Cumberland—we could only ram with the blunt prow. The Minnesota, as we passed, gave us all her broadside guns—a tremendous fusillade at point-blank range, which would have sunk any ship of the swan breed. The turtle shook off shot and shell, grape and canister, and answered with her bow gun. The shell which it threw entered the side of the frigate, and, bursting amidship, exploded a store of powder and set the ship ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... merciful sound of that same "Not do so any more" which really was prompted, I fear, much more by that charity in her which hopeth all things than by any signs of amendment in myself. Well was it for me that no time was allowed for an investigation into my morals by point-blank questions as to my future intentions. In which case it would have appeared too undeniably, that the same sad necessity which had planted me hitherto in a position of hostility to their estimable families would continue to persecute me; and that, on the very next day, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... a pause, so long that the Englishman thought he was going to be refused point-blank; then an even voice said, ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... called, and swore point-blank that he heard Ralph go out of the house soon after he went to bed, and that he heard him return at two in the morning. This testimony was given without hesitation, and made a great impression against Ralph in the ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... your ward when I saw her yesterday that she has not told you of what, I fear, will give you much pain. I asked her point-blank whether she wished the matter kept from you, and her answer was, 'He had better know—only I'm sorry for him.' In sum it is this: Bellow has either got wind of our watching him, or someone must have put him up to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... I have," answered Hank Selby. "Why, the time those Indians charged our cave, and Joe and I, and Munson and his crowd were getting ready to fire point-blank at them, there you stood, with bullets whizzing near you more than once, grinding away at the handle of your moving picture camera as hard as ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade—and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... made no reply, and his daughter smiled contentedly as she heard him stamping about in the larder. He made but a poor meal, and then, refusing point-blank to assist Annie in moving the piano, went and smoked a very reflective pipe ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... arrows. There were many other varieties of stone-throwing machinery; "the war-wolf" was long the chief of projectile machines, as the ram was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of the largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been proven to be equal to a point-blank shot from a thirty-six pounder. There were moveable towers of all sizes and of many names: "the sow" was a variety which continued in use in England and Ireland till the middle of the seventeenth century. The divisions of the cavalry were: first, the Constable's command, some twenty-five ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... done if Joseph had come in, as he expected he would, nor what he should, or could do now that he was in complete possession. If he had been able to face Joseph, he would have demanded information, point-blank, about the shadow on the blind; he even had some misty notion about enforcing it, if need be. But—he was now helpless. He could do no good; he could not tell Polke or anybody else what Walford had reported. And if he was to be left there all night—which seemed likely—he had only got himself ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... nice young monkey! Where's your manners? Is that what they larn you to say at school? What's a lady's name when you speak to her?" He had no one but himself to thank for the consequences. Dave, who, jointly with Dolly, was just then on the most intimate footing with the young lady, responded point-blank:—"Well—Gwen, then! She said so. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the Hornet and Penguin, as well as those of the Reindeer and Avon, showed that the excellence of American gunnery continued till the close of the war. Whether at point-blank range or at long-distance practice, the Americans used guns as they had never been ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Shoop. Why don't you write to Torrance and ask him point-blank if he has had a hand in getting you nominated for Senator? Torrance is a big man in his line, and he probably knows what ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... I'm above board." He paused for a moment; then he kicked a rotten spot on the log with the broad heel of his brogan till it crumbled into dust. "I've got some'n to say to you of a sort o' confidential nature, an' ef you'll let me, I may ask you a point-blank question." ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... It was the point-blank question she had dreaded. She looked straight at him, and answered: "No." She had burnt her boats; but what did it matter, if she got him? He would forgive her. And throwing her arms round his neck, she kissed him on the lips. She ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... compromised herself beyond retreating. He intended to wear this anxious face a long while. But his artificial snow had to melt, so real a sun shone full on it. The moment he looked full at Zoe, she repaid him with such a point-blank beam of glorious tenderness and gratitude as made him thrill with passion as well as triumph. He felt her whole heart was his, and from that hour his poverty would never be allowed to weigh with her. He cleared up, and left off acting, because it was superfluous; he ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... number of batteries, insomuch that no ships of an enemy can approach it without considerable hazard. Besides these, the passage up to it is secured by Fort Johnson, built on James's Island, about two miles below the town. This fort stands in a commanding situation, within point-blank shot of the channel, through which every ship, in their way to and from Charlestown, must pass. The commander of Fort Johnson is commissioned by the King, and has authority to stop every ship coming in until the master or ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... small boys more need of a friend, for the morning after the siege the storm burst upon the rebels in all its violence. Flashman laid wait, and caught Tom before second lesson, and receiving a point-blank "No" when told to fetch his hat, seized him and twisted his arm, and went through the other methods of torture in use. "He couldn't make me cry, though," as Tom said triumphantly to the rest of the rebels; "and I kicked his shins well, I know." And soon it crept out that a lot ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... down there. Remember, too, Mr. Blaine, that it was prearranged for me to walk alone through that street at just that psychological moment. It seemed to me that neither man shot at the other, but both fired point-blank at me. I dismissed the idea from my mind as absurd, the next minute, and would have thought no more about it, beyond congratulating myself on my fortunate escape, had not the ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... effort, I cried, "Even suppose that I grant your request, even suppose I agree not to tell Sylvia the truth—still the day will come when you will hear from her the point-blank question: 'Is my child blind because of this disease?' And what will you ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... refused the former point-blank, and accepted the latter only provisionally, telling Sir Henry that I did not care for fossils, and that I should give up natural history as soon as I could get a physiological post. But I held the office ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... procedure facilitates marksmanship it increases the hazards. The airmen have to trust implicitly to the fleetness of their craft and to their own nerve. Bearing in mind the vulnerability of the average aeroplane, and the general absence of protective armouring against rifle fire at almost point-blank range, it shows the important part which the human element is compelled to play in ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... asked point-blank, her tone a challenge; and yet the odd change in it from its recent aggressiveness was ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... rivals who thwart mutual inclination, the persecutions of fathers, the jealousies arising without any foundation, complaints, despair, running away with, and its consequences. Thus things are carried on in fashionable life, and veritable gallantry cannot dispense with these forms. But to come out point-blank with a proposal of marriage,—to make no love but with a marriage-contract, and begin a novel at the wrong end! Once more, father, nothing can be more tradesmanlike, and the mere thought of it makes me ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... completely swallowed up in the tall reeds. We again waded in after them and had gone only a few yards when we once more saw the angry head of the big one looming up as it came toward us. I fired point-blank at the base of the trunk and the beast stopped suddenly. Then it slowly turned and as it was about to disappear in the tall elephant grass again I fired at its backbone. The huge bulk collapsed and disappeared, buried in the reeds. Hassan yelled that it was dead, but we couldn't ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... the shore, which was now crowded with a dense mass of savages, amounting probably to five or six hundred. We had not rowed off above a couple of hundred yards when a loud roar thundered over the sea, and the big brass gun sent a withering shower of grape point-blank into the midst of the living mass, through which a wide lane was cut; while a yell, the like of which I could not have imagined, burst from the miserable survivors as they fled to the woods. Amongst the heaps of dead that lay on the sand just where they had fallen, I could ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... fetters, which she abhorred, which bound her to Greece. Then, in 1876, the atrocities committed by the Turkish inhabitants of Bulgaria took place. The Porte, when besought by the Constantinople Conference to make concessions, refused point-blank. Then Russia stepped in and declared war, and proposed themselves to make a Bulgarian State. England and Austria promptly refused to lend themselves to this scheme, and a Berlin Congress was summoned. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... flow of Mr. Tubbs's sprightly conversation and with a certain harshness of tone asked Captain Magnus if he had had good sport on the other side of the island. Captain Magnus, as usual, had seemed to feel that time consecrated to eating was wasted in conversation. At this point-blank question he started confusedly, stuttered, and finally explained that though he had taken a rifle he had carried along pistol cartridges, so had come home with ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... guesswork Mr. Thompson concedes to be unavoidable to-day with the utmost care and experience. It could not have been done with a missile liable, in the calmest atmosphere, the moment it passed the point-blank, to unaccountable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... embarrassed by each other's presence, exchanged a few commonplace words. Their great friendship had recently cooled, Jansoulet having refused point-blank all further subsidies to the Bethlehem Society, leaving the business on the Irishman's hands, who was furious at this defection, and much more furious still at this moment because he had not been ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... still watching me sullenly. "I got up and went forward along the roof of the house, so as to have an eye on either rail. You understand, this business had to be done with. I kept straight along. Every shadow I wasn't absolutely sure of I made sure of—point-blank. And I rounded the thing up at the very stem—sitting on the butt of the bowsprit, Ridgeway, washing her yellow face under the moon. I didn't make any bones about it this time. I put the bad end of that gun against the scar on her head and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... leaped back, her eyes blazing. Lund came for her, his face lit with the desire of her, arms outspread, hands open. Before Rainey could fling himself between them, the girl had snatched the little pistol that Lund had set on the table and fired point-blank. She seemed to have missed, though Lund halted, his ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... can imagine, a proposal that M. Binet would swallow at a draught. He began with a point-blank refusal ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... do. Of course, if he should ask me point-blank if I had told any one, I should answer truthfully, tell him that I had told you and explain why I did it. And some day I shall tell him whether he asks or not. But when he first comes here I want him to be—to be—well, as nearly happy as is possible under the ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... ready. It required all his self-mastery to avoid betraying himself by look or tone, but he was so natural that Myrtle was thrown wholly off her guard. He meant to make her pleased with herself at the outset, and that not by point-blank flattery, of which she had had more than enough of late, but rather by suggestion and inference, so that she should find herself feeling happy without knowing how. It would be easy to glide from that to the impression she had produced upon him, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... answering with some vague generalities, but indicating sufficiently that it was not agreeable to be more explicit. He pressed me, however, to tell him candidly and explicitly whether he had succeeded, and how far. I then told him frankly that he had failed point-blank in every case. "Ah," said he, "you are skeptical." "No, sir," said I, "skepticism implies doubt, and I have no longer any doubts on the subject. ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... Rich, one of his subalterns, and his Hindu gun-carrier. One of the file fell at the first volley, two more broke through the line, and the remaining six or seven, led by a fierce old fellow, from whose long tusks the foam dripped, turned up the line and charged point-blank on the next gunner, who fired and missed, but succeeded in keeping them between the line and the jungle. The fourth gun brought down the second pig and wounded the boar in the shoulder. Frantic with rage and pain, the old fellow tore up the ground and grass with his ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... Hartranft (both names afterward greatly distinguished), and both officers and men were made to feel the necessity of success. [Footnote: Ibid.] At the same time Crook succeeded in bringing a light howitzer of Simmonds's mixed battery down from the hill-tops, and placed it where it had a point-blank fire on the further end of the bridge. The howitzer was one we had captured in West Virginia, and had been added to the battery, which was partly made up of heavy rifled Parrott guns. When everything was ready, a heavy skirmishing fire was opened all along ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... mentioned Trofast in words that were not full of admiration, he received a simultaneous look from the whole family, and the merchant had even said point-blank to Dr. Hansen that he might one day get seriously angry if the other would not refer to Trofast ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... he insisted would be long and bloody, unless the whole military power of the Republic was put into the field to crush the rebellion before it could grow into a revolution. He was as disgusted as Washington had been in revolutionary times, with short-service enlistments, and refused point-blank to go to Ohio to enlist "three-months men," saying, in his blunt way, "You might as well try to put out fire with a squirt gun as expect to put down this rebellion with three-months troops." He was assigned to the command of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... which led to the torpedo. As the boat slid forward over the boom, he brought the torpedo full against the somber side of the huge ram, and instantly exploded it, almost at the same time that the pivot-gun of the ram, loaded with grape, was fired point-blank at ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... warning, von Horn drew his gun, wheeled, and fired point-blank, first at one of his companions, then at the other. Both men fell in their tracks, and scarcely had the pungent odor of the powder smoke reached Bulan's nostrils ere the white man had plunged ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the soldier offered to sell his horse to the landlord, but the latter curtly declined, having horses enough to "eat their heads off" during the winter, as he expressed it. His Jeremy Collier aversion to players was probably at the bottom of this point-blank rebuff, however. He was a stubborn man, czar in his own domains, a small principality bounded by four inhospitable walls. His guests—having no other place to go—were his subjects, or prisoners, and distress could not find ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... anchor, turned his prow on the seaward tack, meaning to return again immediately with the same prospect of advantage possessed at first—his plan being to crash suddenly athwart the Drake's bow, so as to have all her decks exposed point-blank to his musketry. But once more the winds interposed. It came on with a storm of snow; he was obliged to give ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... however, firmly refused to commit the double crime of sacrilege and murder, and, point-blank, declined all further share in the conspiracy. Here was an entirely unlooked-for situation, and an alternative plan was not easy to arrange. Francesco de' Pazzi seemed inclined to step into the breach, but ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... in waggons, and was anxious to get among the cattle again; but with the trunks so near, the house growing rapidly, the days of sewing waiting, I refused point-blank to leave ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... her that she was practically guilty of murder, and took away her weapon. But under the circumstances he ordered her released instead of being shot. He turned his back and walked away about five paces. Suddenly the woman snatched another revolver from behind the counter and fired point-blank. As he fell, the officer called out to his orderly, ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... improving the paper. Runcorn is strong on the side of blackguardism. We had a great fight the other day over a leader offered by Kenyon,—a true effusion of the political gutter-snipe. I refused point-blank to let it go in; Runcorn swore that, if I did not, I should go out. I offered to retire that moment. "We must write for our public," he bellowed. "True," said I, "but not necessarily for the basest among them. The standard at the best is low enough." ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... point-blank just what his life had been, and why he had never been to school, Ruth did not see how she was to learn more than the white-haired ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... to Mr Waller that perhaps the best plan would be to interview Psmith. Psmith would know exactly how matters stood. He could not ask Mike point-blank whether he had been dismissed. But there was the probability that Psmith had been informed and ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... now. He fired at point-blank range and flashed over the boat as its front end exploded. Santos, firing from the rear, hit it again as ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... I liked had not enough to keep a wife and family; he looked before he leaped. He never leaped at all; he never even proposed to me point-blank, but it came round to me through a friend. But you working-people, you never look, and you always leap, and when you have got your ten children and nothing to feed them on, then you think that the gentlefolks who would not marry because they had not enough to keep families ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... accompanied by the Princess, and his train had arrived at Brussels en route from Calais to Copenhagen. The carriage was a special one and was leaving the station at a slow, preliminary rate when a youth named Sipido jumped on the foot-board of the car and fired two shots, in rapid succession, point-blank at the traveller who was just taking a cup of tea with his wife. He was about to fire a third time, but was seized by the stationmaster, arrested and sent to prison. The man turned out to be a Belgian, expressed no regret for his attempted crime, said that he was willing to try ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... matters and a remarkable degree of uncertainty and embarrassment in the discussion of great problems. At the Borckes', and also at the homes in Morgnitz and Dabergotz, she had been declared "infected with rationalism," but at the Grasenabbs' she was pronounced point-blank an "atheist." To be sure, the elderly Mrs. Grasenabb, nee Stiefel, of Stiefelstein in South Germany, had made a weak attempt to save Effi at least for deism. But Sidonie von Grasenabb, an old maid of forty-three, had gruffly interjected the remark: "I tell you, mother, simply an atheist, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... Town Hall, and after berating the city officials listened to the speeches of welcome. As he and his wife were departing a Serbian student, named Prinzip, who was later arrested, rushed out from the crowd and fired point-blank at the couple with a revolver. Both were hit a number of times and died some hours later ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... Bill for a moment searched his face. "I ask you point-blank," he said slowly. "Did you steal this ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... Then he ordered his own battered ship to be abandoned for the Minion, telling Drake to come alongside in the Judith. In these two little vessels all that remained of the English sailed safely out, in spite of the many Spanish guns roaring away at point-blank range and of two fire-ships which ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... of different canoes, produced rifles hitherto invisible and began to shoot. The bullets ricochetted across the ripples, and Courtenay saw that the savages did not understand the sighting appliances. They were aiming point-blank at the vessel, in so far as they could be said to aim at anything, and the low trajectory caused the first straight shot to rebound from the surface of the water and strike a plate amidships. The loud clang of the metal was ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... Gaelic' is not likely to hear much of it. But, when trout refuse to rise, and time hangs heavy in a boat on a loch, it is a good plan to tell the boatman some ghostly Sassenach tales. Then, perhaps, he will cap them from his own store, but point-blank questions from an inquiring southron are of very little use. Nobody likes to be cross-examined on such matters. Unluckily the evidence, for facts not for folklore, is worthless till it has ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... monarchy, which his clients were being subjected to. The whole investigation was in keeping with the spirit evinced by the bench. The witnesses seemed to come for the special purpose of swearing point-blank against the hapless men in the dock, no matter at what cost to truth, and to take a fiendish pleasure in assisting in securing their condemnation. One of the witnesses was sure "the whole lot of them wanted to murder everyone who had any property;" another assured his interrogator in the dock ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... Nick was, and always must be, an enigma to her. In the middle of July, when the heat was so intense as to be almost intolerable, Daisy received a pressing invitation to visit an old friend, and to go yachting on the Broads. She refused it at first point-blank; but Muriel, hearing of the matter before the letter was sent, interfered, and practically insisted upon a ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... solicitor, and had Ransford in that witness-box. He would ask him on his oath if he knew that dead man—if he had had dealings with him in times past—if he had met and spoken to him on that eventful morning—he would ask him, point-blank, if it was not his hand that had thrown him to his death. But Bryce had no intention of making any revelations just then—as for himself he was going to tell just as much as he pleased and no more. And so he sat and heard—and knew from what he heard that ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... under-vesture I put on a mail-shirt of fine close-woven wire, which had turned the edge of Mahratta tulwars, repelled the thrust of a Calabrian stiletto, and showed no mark of three carbine bullets fired point-blank. Over this I wore a suit of grey broadcloth, and a pair of strong boots over woollen socks, prepared for cold and damp as well as for the heat of a sun shining perpendicularly through an Alpine atmosphere. I had nearly equalised the atmospheric pressure within ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... buildings. A hole being made in the legation wall, Captain Halliday followed by his men crept through, and at once came upon the enemy, and before he was able to use his revolver received a serious wound from a rifle at point-blank range, the bullet breaking his shoulder and entering the lung; notwithstanding, he shot three of the enemy and walked back unaided to the hospital. For this gallant action Captain Halliday was awarded the V.C. Captain ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... thus point-blank to retract, effectually destroyed whatever hopes of mediation or reconciliation had been entertained by the milder and more moderate adherents of the Church who still wished for reform. Nor was any union possible ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... and the lad they gave voice to a shout of triumph, and raising their carbines fired point-blank ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... antagonistic position with regard to himself, that his intimate friends were forced to believe that one of the two had deliberately and wantonly injured the other. The published statement of Lady Byron contradicted boldly and point-blank all the statement of her husband concerning the separation; so that, unless she was convicted as a false witness, ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... were of the same mind. They did not fancy taking any chance of having that concealed six-pounder discharged point-blank at them. Mistakes are hard to rectify after a fatal volley has been fired. The best way is to avoid running ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... with a bayonet. And a lot of them let it go at that. A lot of them saw no pressing need to don khaki and let everything else go to pot. A lot of them were so intent upon making the most of their opportunities that they never brought their innermost thoughts out on the table and asked themselves point-blank: "Should I go? Why shouldn't I?" And there were some who saw dimly—as the months slid by with air raids and submarine sinkings and all the new, terrible devices of death and destruction which transgressed the old usages ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... beautiful face of Lady Mary. I was also going to explain how the whole scene appeared. But I can see soon enough that my language would not be appropriate to the occasion. But any how we looked each other point-blank in the eye. It was a moment in which that very circling of the earth halted, and all the suns of the universe poised, ready to tumble or to rise. Then Lady Mary lowered her glance, and a pink blush suffused her neck ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... regathering his composure, and speaking with a resolute, stern quiet; "I have no other resource—you have left me none—but to come to you, and ask point-blank, is this true, or is ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... there. Neither had any news. If I left, I wanted to go to Austria. But unless a gunboat came for the consul that was not now possible. Neither of them had any idea England would be dragged in, and assured me I should be all right anywhere. I asked the Italian point-blank: "Are you going to war as Austria's ally?" He replied: "The Triple Alliance is a secret one. I do not know its terms. But I have my own ideas about them. My opinion is that we are not obliged to fight, and in that case we certainly shall not." A letter arrived from Mr. Lamb at Durazzo, ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... were so numerous I got tired of looking at them, but I did not forget that I might meet a tawny fellow or two among those narrow passes of shattered rock, and under the thick, dark pinyons. Going on in this way, I ran point-blank into a pile of bleached bones before a cave. I had stumbled on the lair of a lion and from the looks of it one like that of Old Tom. I flinched twice before I threw a stone into the dark-mouthed cave. What impressed me as soon as I found I was in no danger of being ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... of the Gustavus shook his head and his fist at the young Irishman, and discharged a double-headed oath at him, within point-blank shot. Nevertheless, Bohun continued, "If you will let me have one man, only ONE man, I may be able ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper |
