"Rap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of his obsequious hypocrisy, which served an inquiring mind with quite as good a field for logical speculation as any problem in Euclid. And he went on with his questions,—questions, which if not puzzling, were at least irritating enough to have secured him a rap on the knuckles from his tutor's cane, had he been a grocer's lad instead of the eldest son ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... attraction for me,—and this although I was somewhat severely held to the proper observance of worship. I remember well that at the age of six years, if I faltered in the public reading of the Psalter, a gentle rap on the side of my head from my father's knuckles ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... man so cursed by fate!" he cried, as he finished reading Mrs. Bonnifay's note; "or, rather, by the stupidity of a blundering idiot! I don't believe Dick Peveril cares a rap for the girl; if he did, he would not desert her on any such flimsy pretext. The idea of his having business with a mine! He never did have any business, and never will. How I hate ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... won a vole." A dreadful interval of spleen! How shall we pass the time between? "Here, Betty, let me take my drops; And feel my pulse, I know it stops; This head of mine, lord, how it swims! And such a pain in all my limbs!" "Dear madam, try to take a nap"— But now they hear a footman's rap: "Go, run, and light the ladies up: It must be one before we sup." The table, cards, and counters, set, And all the gamester ladies met, Her spleen and fits recover'd quite, Our madam can sit up all night; "Whoever comes, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... had parted from Pakenham, and before we had recovered sense, came a great rap at the door. "Will you see anybody, ma'am?" I was going to say, "No, nobody," but I bid Smith ask the name, when behind him, as I spoke, enter Mrs. Lushington. "I have forced my way up—forgive me, it is for Pakenham; I hope I am not too late; I've ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... waistcoat-pocket, and button your under and upper coat completely, and never attempt to get at it until the door is opened, and then let it be nothing under a five-shilling piece. Never ask any one to speak to the conductor for you, but hit or poke him with your umbrella or stick, or rap his hand as it rests on the door. He puts it there on purpose. Always stop the wrong omnibus, and ask if the Paddington goes to Walworth, and the Kennington to Whitechapel: you are not obliged to read all the rigmarole they paint on the outside. Finally, consider an omnibus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... you take I don't care a rap. You're not the only woman here. You imagine that you are ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... Not on my canary, poor dear little thing! The hours and hours that creature has strained its throat to say 'Sing and be merry,' when I had not a rap in my pocket! It would have made a stone feel ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... more cost than the value of the waste words they overlie, that one comes at last to groan and change color at the very sight of a package, and to dread the postman's knock as if it were that of the other visitor whose naked knuckles rap ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... warning, generally on a hot afternoon, among the elder pupils. A girl giggles till the giggle gets beyond control. Then she throws up her head and cries, "Honk, honk, honk," like a wild goose, and tears mix with the laughter. If the mistress be wise, she will rap out something severe at this point to check matters. If she be tender-hearted, and send for a drink of water, the chances are largely in favour of another girl laughing at the afflicted one and herself collapsing. Thus the trouble spreads, and may end in half ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... leading to Lake Pontchartrain, materials to a considerable amount have been collected, and all the necessary preparations made for the commencement of the works. At Old Point Comfort, at the mouth of the James River, and at the Rip-Rap, on the opposite shore in the Chesapeake Bay, materials to a vast amount have been collected; and at the Old Point some progress has been made in the construction of the fortification, which is on a very extensive scale. The work at Fort ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... the day or night that William has not sanctified with somebody's marriage vows. Once, about two o'clock in the morning, there was a furious rap at the door of the parsonage. William stuck his head out of the window overhead and beheld a red-faced young farmer standing in the moonlight, holding the hand of his sweetheart, who was looking up at him with the expression that a white rose ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... The earrings gave us a good handle to pull each other's ears with. We found a little drum lying in one of the rooms; taking this we would stand out in the verandah, and, when we caught sight of any servant passing alone in the storey below, we would rap a tattoo on it. This would make the man look up, only to beat a hasty retreat the next moment with averted eyes.[21] In short we cannot claim that these days of our retirement were passed ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... if you were in my case—if you'd given yourself away like me? Supposing you went and lost your little heart to some man-fiend who was, we'll say, about as bad a lot as I am, and who had the execrable taste not to care a rap for you,—wouldn't you feel ashamed of him ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... and (4) an Irishman, which made me feel that these gaudy colours I have burst into are not so famous as I supposed; and on the eighth day I find myself insulted in twenty-seven places by an angry mosquito, whom in the small hours of the morning I had occasion to rap over the knuckles and turn out of my billet. And I've got a nasty cold, and nobody loves me or cleans my buttons, and if I want to go anywhere there are no more motor cars and they make me pay a penny for the tram, and my wife doesn't think I'm a hero any longer, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... rush of French infantry up the slopes, the feathery drift of French gun-smoke lower down, and, high up, on the wooded crest along the sky, the red lightnings and white puffs of the German artillery. Rap, rap, rap, went the answering guns, as the troops swept up and disappeared into the fire-tongued wood; and we stood there dumbfounded at the accident of having stumbled on this visible episode of the great ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... hoary old sinner, little suspecting that he was to be the dupe of his own artifice: "You get the husband invited out to dinner, have him well ply'd with wine by your friends: You assume the dress of a Postman—give a thundering rap at her door, which always denotes either the arrival of some important visitor or official communication; and when you can see her, flatter, lie, and swear that her company is necessary to your existence—that ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... got me there!" And the tranter gave vent to a grim admiration, with the mien of a man who was too magnanimous not to appreciate artistically a slight rap on the knuckles, even if they were ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... and late; I even went up to St. Louis, but the sick man was gone. The whole matter had nearly dropped from my mind, when one night—it was late, and very dark—the little bell at the wicket rung, and presently there was a loud rap at my door. It was the concierge of the next court; a man he said was dying, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... him. "You asked me to go away with you; I will when you git out o' this. If you can't save your own soul—" She stopped and quickly went over to the mantel where she took down a bottle of whisky and a glass; but in the act of pouring out a drink for him there came a loud rap on the window, and quickly looking round she saw Rance's piercing eyes peering into the room. For an instant she paled, but then there flashed through her mind the comforting thought that the Sheriff could not possibly see Johnson from his position. So, after giving the latter his drink, ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... time Margaret was no more puzzled than I was. Yesterday when I stood on the river-bank watching my cork, I cared not a rap whether George or Charles won, and that was an understandable position; but why a man should be spending money in handfuls, and roughing it in the wilds of Staffordshire, merely in order to know who was going to win, was ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... rascal? what did you see?" asked the sailor, turning the boat-hook round and holding it so that he could rap the boy's knuckles with the butt end ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... of on the score of inattention. Mary, who happened to be the only daughter at home, took her in charge and put her through a steady course of gardens, glasshouses, family pets, and old furniture—for none of which Mittie cared a rap. What she had wanted was a gay young party, plenty of fun and merriment, and for ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... rap, at the little third story room. "Come in," called Clemence, listlessly. Mrs. Mann's cheery face looked ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... watched them together," said Carter. "I'll admit he's struck on her, but I don't think she cares a rap for him. She's too ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... exclaimed, 'I've never seen the beat of that. I offered you twenty-five dollars if you would break him, and I'll make it thirty if at the end of a month you'll train him to saddle and harness. He wasn't worth a rap till you took him in hand.' 'It's a bargain,' said Roger coolly, and then he whispered to me, 'That will buy me a pile of books.' That's the kind of a man that I believe in," concluded Belle, nodding her head emphatically, "and I want you ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Trade Unionism of the married? Let us face the facts, dear Ana. The Life Force respects marriage only because marriage is a contrivance of its own to secure the greatest number of children and the closest care of them. For honor, chastity and all the rest of your moral figments it cares not a rap. Marriage is the most ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... encourage the idea, unless it is really true, when she denies it with the utmost vehemence. Bijou, with much feminine circumlocution, insinuated that he was devotedly attached to Miss Price, to which he truthfully replied that he did not care "one rap" about her. Women are born incredulous in such affairs. When sure of themselves, they doubt the lover; when sure of the lover, they invariably doubt themselves. And so the misunderstanding grew, and continued in mutual mistake and suspicion, and no two people were ever more ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... his heels, not a word passing between them all the way: the only noises which came from the two were the brushing of her dress and his gaiters against the heather, or the smart rap of a ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... Concerning this job, estimated to cost $6000, Merrill later wrote that the contractors found themselves fined $300 for six days' overtime on completion of the job. Joseph McRae's record tells that, in 1879, some of the brethren went up the river, twenty miles above St. David, and put in a rip-rap dam and a mile and a half of ditch at Charleston for the Boston Mining Company. This may have been the Boston & Arizona Smelting & Reduction Company, a Massachusetts corporation which had a twenty-stamp mill and a roasting furnace on the San Pedro, between Charleston and Contention, ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... clerk shepherded them back to their tasks. Davidge took up the telephone to ask for more steel. Mamise renewed the cheerful rap-rap-rap of ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... they could only wait in fear and trembling, and on the next day quite early there came a loud rap at the door, and on its being opened by the old man the constable and two ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... up chamber, and change every rag on you, and don't come down agin till I rap on the ceilin'; you dreadful boy, disgracin' your family by sech actions. I'm sorry I was kep' so long, but Mis Plumly got tellin' her werryments, and 'peared to take so much comfort in it I couldn't ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... had placed her letter in the box, Minnie thought she should like to tell Arthur Ellerslie that her aunt Amy was coming to Rosedale. So she walked round by Arthur's house. Her gentle rap at the door was answered by Arthur's mother, with whom Minnie was a great favorite. Taking the little girl's hand, and printing a kiss on her ...
— Aunt Amy - or, How Minnie Brown learned to be a Sunbeam • Francis Forrester
... of the men in front of him. Capt. Keech saw his posture and came up to him and said, "Stand up! What are you crouching for?" The fellow replied, "I'm not crouching." Keech replied, "Yes, you are!" and he hit him across his humped-up back a sharp rap that made him grunt, and said, "Stand up like a man!" In battle the tendency is almost universal for the men to work out of a good line into clumps. The men of natural daring will rather crowd to the front, and ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... boarding house. On one of these last days, a quarter of an hour after she had retired from the dining room, planning to enjoy a rest on a sea grass sofa covered with some large-figured woolen material, there was a gentle rap ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the creeping eastern light had not yet entered her room when a timid rap aroused her. Solomon was outside the door with news. "The ploughs will be here ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... to put the fingers of the left hand through the belt at the back of the waist. If this is done, it counteracts, to a certain extent, that tendency to bring the left hand in front, which a good many beginners display, and for which they get punished by many an unpleasant rap on ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... "let's rap on the pane, and then when she looks up, we'll all stick our tongues out at her. That'll scare her ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... is the certain relation and agreement which different—Here a devil of a rap at the door snapped my father's definition (like his tobacco-pipe) in two,—and, at the same time, crushed the head of as notable and curious a dissertation as ever was engendered in the womb of speculation;—it ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... convulsively. Could it be possible that at the last second a higher bid would come? Felporg with his right hand stretched on the table was shaking his ivory hammer—one rap, two raps, and the deed ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... the truth than Nino's reasoning. They knew it later, when Temistocle found them in Rome, and I may as well tell you how it happened. When he reached the head of the staircase, he took the key from the one side to the other, locked the door, as agreed, and sat down to wait for Hedwig's rap. He indeed suspected that it would never come, for he had only pretended not to see the mules; but the prospect of further bribes made him anxious not to lose sight of his mistress, and certainly not to disobey her, in ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... peaceful, summer night, When all the stars were shining bright, There came a rap on our house door Which made me leap from bed to floor. To me had come a telegram From my old chums, Dick, Tom and Sam Asking if I had a notion To sail with them upon the ocean. To skim ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... The landlord found his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half his fleshy incumbrance. Every one was at his ease, and a most uproarious chorus had just been sung by the whole strength of the company, when we heard the ominous sound of a quiet double rap at the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... for the shoe whizzed by the lad's side, and struck the scroll-work of the iron bedstead with a sharp rap, and ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... the Master-builder heard, his heart Was sad in him, the while he sat at home And rested after toil. The steady rap O' the shipwright's hammer sounding up the vale Did seem to mock him; but her distaff down Niloiya laid, and to the doorplace went, Parted the purple covering seemly hung Before it, and let in the crimson light Of the ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... look thus white and wan, with the expressive eyes so full of tears behind them, which she could not or would not shed? I sat in pain the whole day until evening, and the more because she seemed rather to avoid me. But at night, when we had parted, and all was quiet in the dormitories, a very faint rap came at the door of my cell. I bade the applicant enter in ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... Beth; nor was Patsy, or Uncle John. On the other hand, there is no one in Sangoa who cares a rap whether I come home or not. I'm the last of the Joneses of Sangoa, and while it is still my island and the entire population is in my employ, the life there flows on just as smoothly without me ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... apparently seek to escape by going ever lower. He is almost near enough for some shooting, when the Huns dive steeply, with the evident intention of landing on a near-by aerodrome. One of them fires a light as he goes, and—enter the villain Archibald to loud music. A ter-rap! ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... Michael's positive orders. You and the Cure must remember how I pledged my honour that they should be at Saumur, and so they were: but Michael Stein is an awful black man to deal with when his back is up: he thinks no more of giving a clout with his hammer, than another man does of a rap ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... us! Trouble, trouble!" yelled Crazy Jane. With one rung from a broken chair that Jane had picked up and tucked under her cot for emergencies, she came charging down the street just in time to see Harriet give Mr. Bruin the rap on the nose. It was then she uttered ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... have proved is the best way to bend the purfling is this—place the heated iron (plate 5) in the bending socket, and, when all is so that a smart rap of your hand on the metal shows you the warmth is about as you want it, hold the purfling by the left hand, the mitred end to the iron, so that when you bend, by holding, say rasp 47 in the right hand ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... Gibbs—well, of course, that alters the complexion of things considerably. We have no one to show you in just now. Open that door yonder and rap on the first one you see to the right. It will have the words 'President's Office, Private,' on it," he observed, looking more closely at Dick, and then smiling as though some thought ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... will see to me," he thought, and gave a timid rap with the great bronze knocker, which was a ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... had ended better than he anticipated. The Pelican and the Curlew were at Diablo by now. He should hear from them any minute. While he was waiting there was much that he could do. He took up his personal bank-book and began to balance it. A low rap at the office-door ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... a rap, Nor a crust, nor a handful o' mail; An' unless we can get it o'th strap, We mun pine, or mun beg, ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... does this mean?" The doctor looked in amazement at Miss Blair as she opened the door to his rap, the same evening that Moore gave his dinner to her brother. Traces of tears were to be seen; indeed, more tears seemed ready to fall, despite her ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... he is controlled by his Council) a pure despot. He has the Viceroy at the end of a telegraph-wire, and the Queen's three hundred millions of Indian subjects under his thumb. His salary is not voted by the House of Commons; very few M.P.'s care a rap about India; and he is practically free from Parliamentary control. The Foreign Office, of course, is full of interest, and its social traditions have always been of the most dignified sort—from the days when Mr. Ranville-Ranville used to frequent Mrs. Perkins's Balls ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... lager-beer cask, and stops the buzz of conversation by bringing her mallet down with a smart rap upon the head of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... into his work. He sees visions; peeps into the glass ball; makes spirits write and rap, and the rest of it. There is nothing to stop him. If he mixes up Bacon and Cromwell, it only proves that they are both trying to speak through him at once. If he makes Locke talk gibberish, and ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Billy, don't!" exclaimed Aunt Hannah, lifting shocked hands of remonstrance. "Rap on wood—do! How can you boast ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... knuckles to rap; but old Antony's not over clean clout was pushed each time between Sister Mary ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... say, I say, my boy!" he exclaimed, solicitous for the ancient glaze of his most cherished possession. Sidney paused an instant; then, while Peter still hunted for the envelope, he administered another, and this time a distinctly disobedient, rap. Peter heard it from within and was struck with its oddity of sound—so much so that, leaving the child for a moment under a demoralising impression of impunity, he waited with quick curiosity for a repetition of the stroke. It came of course immediately, and then the young man, who had ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... of bed clothes, dreamed that people were rapping noisily on his door, and grinned in his dream, meaning to let them rap until they tired of it. Suddenly a voice sounded through his defiant slumbers, clear and charming as a golden ray parting thick clouds. The next moment he found himself awake, bolt upright in the icy ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... Hesden!" There was a timorous rap upon the window of Hesden Le Moyne's sleeping-room in the middle of the night, and, waking, he heard his name called in a low, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... sitting alone in her room that evening, thinking of her far-distant home, when hearing a gentle rap at her door, she rose and opened it to find Elsie standing there with her little Bible ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... there came a rap at my window, and there stood Mr. Robin Redbreast, looking in as saucily as you please. "I thought you'd be there," he chirped; "and if you will look out a minute, ...
— Buttercup Gold and Other Stories • Ellen Robena Field
... renewed effort by thoughts like these, I toiled onward. All that day I walked without a particle of nourishment. When I reached Highgate, it was eleven o'clock at night, but in one house I saw a light, and I ventured to rap at the door. It was opened by a pale, but pleasant looking woman. "Kind lady," said I, "will you please tell me how far it is to the States?" "To the States!" she exclaimed, and in a moment she seemed to ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... not seriously injured, nor did he suffer pain. A smart rap on the head from a flying fragment of the splintered post, incurred simultaneously with the frightfully sudden shock to the nervous system, had momentarily dazed him. His term of unconsciousness, including the period ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... minutes of the Colonel's receipt of the order. It may sound a long time, but only a smart and efficient Battalion can do it. The Adjutant has to open and acquaint the C.O. of the order. He has to rap out his own orders. Sleeping men have to be roused, equipment thrown on, arms taken up. The men have to "fall in" in their right sections; have to be numbered, have to form fours. If there is any muddle whatever, a Battalion cannot ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... was another long pause, and Robin was thinking how hungry he was, when something dropped close to him with a loud rap, and looking up sharply, he caught sight of a little keen-eyed bushy-tailed animal, looking down from a great branch as if in search of something ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... shutting of the door was now clearly audible, and there followed the distinct sound of some one moving in the main office. Then the door in the passageway swung open and footsteps pattered, coming nearer. The light firm steps drew nearer, halted; and there came a small rap ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... he ordered him to knock at the door. The boy contemplated disobedience; but a glance at Bounder's whip induced him to change his mind, and he gave the door a sounding rap. The door speedily opened, and Bounder's master appeared. But such was his disguise that Bounder was necessitated to rub his eyes. Divested of his coat, and enfolded in a leathern apron, "the Golden Shoemaker" ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... back I could call them at once. It would do your heart good to see some politician, coming up to rest his stomach from the free bar in the state house at the capital, enter the spring-house where everybody is playing cards and drinking water and not caring a rap whether he's the man that cleans the windows or the secretary of the navy. If he's been there before, in sixty seconds I have his name on my tongue and a glass of water in his hand, and have asked him about the rheumatism in his right ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... but a few days after, Louisa brought her a book and brief note of kind words. One Saturday morning she sat quite alone in her small room; the week had been specially painful, and, wearied in soul, the girl laid her head down on her folded arms, and thought of her home in the far South. A loud rap startled her from this painful reverie, and ere she could utter the stereotyped "come in," Louisa ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... about it! Nobody cares a rap for connections nowadays, even if old Frank were a connection to ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by, lay it theron, saying, that you meane to cast all those three Balls into your mouth at once: and holding a knife as a penne in your hand, when he is laying vpon the poynt of your knife, you may easily with the haft rap him on the fingers, for the other matter will be ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... a strong smell of paraffin oil in the room; and from somewhere at the far end came a faint tap, tapping sound, which might be the light knocking of a window-blind or the rap of a ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... seen it you don't bother any more wi' makin' the spirits rap on tables and such like. What's the sense o' tryin' to find out whether you'll be a spirit after you're dead when you know there's nothing else anywhere? But it's no good talkin'. If you're not a bit of a medium yourself ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... I am dumbfounded. Then I think of the entries we made at the inn in the Urserenthal, and then in a flash I have the truth. I rap the desk smartly with my finger-tips and shake my index-finger in ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... a ghost," said Edwin: "they do things of that kind, you know—turn tables and rap and so on. I've been thinking I must be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... hollows on either side of the patella, and extends for some distance in the synovial pouch underneath the quadriceps. The patella is raised from the front of the femur by the collection of fluid in the joint—"floating patella"—and, if firmly pressed upon, it may be made to rap against ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... Number Two; but, so long as I remained, that was the sum total of their spoil. One could almost observe, by the gradual melancholy which settled upon their countenances as the time went on with no thrilling rap to make the top of the limber rod dance again, the hopeless fading out of these unsubstantial specimens from even the imagination. The east wind of course had been against everything ever since the trout season opened, and it was not surprising to learn that; though the weir had ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... to your head from your youthful passion!" said Mayakin, importantly, accompanying his words with a rap on the table. "Your boldness is stupidity; all these words of yours are nonsense. Would you perhaps go to the cloister? or have you perhaps a longing to go ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... needle or broke her thread, if she heard a carriage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must observe it aloud, whether there were anyone at leisure to answer her or not. At about half past twelve, a remarkably loud rap drew her in haste to the window, and scarcely had she time to inform Catherine of there being two open carriages at the door, in the first only a servant, her brother driving Miss Thorpe in the second, before John Thorpe came running upstairs, calling out, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... till noon. Heaven help the poor waiting-woman who had charge of her toilet! I have often seen the poor wretch come out with red eyes from the closet where those long and mysterious rites of her ladyship's dress were performed, and the backgammon-box locked up with a rap on Mrs. Tusher's fingers when she played ill, or the game was going the ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... the house, and banishing at once the occurrence from her mind, she did not give it a second thought. At night, however, while she was waiting to go to bed, she suddenly heard a sound like a rap at the door. A band of men boisterously cried out: "We are messengers, deputed by the worthy magistrate of this district, and come to summon one of you to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... a purely hopeless, airy, trivial one. Again, stout individuals never take a back seat, but always a front one, and, wheresoever it be, they sit firmly, and with confidence, and decline to budge even though the seat crack and bend with their weight. For comeliness of exterior they care not a rap, and therefore a dress coat sits less easily on their figures than is the case with figures of leaner individuals. Yet invariably fat men amass the greater wealth. In three years' time a thin man will not have a single ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... hard at work doing some examples in geometry when there came a sudden sharp rap on his door. Thinking that one of his school chums had come to have a word with him before retiring, he threw the door open and found ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... country-bred, and have not the manners of your town men, my lady," he said to her, as he sat with her alone on one of the first mornings he spent with her in her private apartment. "I am used to rap out an oath or an ill-mannered word when it comes to me. Dunstanwolde has weaned you of hearing such things—and I am too old ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... records of the glorious battles of the Revolution; let him notice the Eagle of Liberty, and all the emblems of Independence, Freedom, and the rights of man; let him muse on the thoughts they awaken, and then behold the actualities of life around him. Suddenly the sharp rap of an auctioneer's hammer startles him, and the loud striking of the hour of twelve will divert his attention to the throng of men around him, and the appearance of three or four men on raised stands in different parts of the Rotunda, who are calling the attention of those around him, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... down on a spacious Elizabethan settle in the hall. The humorous spider mocked them from the window, the humorous stone fruit from the plate beside the pot-pourri bowl. Even as she repeated, "I cannot lose him," again, a tremendous rap came on the front door, and Georgie, at a sign from his queen, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... is told that he was once aroused by the knocking of a neighbour who had been accidentally locked out of his house in the small hours of the morning. The irate neighbour knocked four raps at a time, with a pause at the end of every fourth rap, and the rhythmic regularity of the sounds not only startled Beethoven out of his sleep, but suggested a musical idea to his mind. Up jumped the composer, and down went the idea in his sketch-book, and the next morning the jotting was ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... fellows with a turnip lantern. Into the wood-work of the east window they had thrust a pin, to which a button was tied, and the button was also attached to a long string. They hunkered afar off and pulled this string, and then the button tapped the death-rap on the window, and the sport was successful, for the Painted Lady screamed. But suddenly the door opened and they were put to flight by the fierce barking of a dog. One said that the brute nabbed him in the leg, another saw the vive tongue of it, a third played ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... the stove in action, when a rap at the door startled me. "Come," I shouted. In answer to my call, a young man, a neighbor, entered, carrying a sack filled with coal. He explained with some embarrassment, that in his extremity during the preceding ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... That is God's truth. Now for the one thing that I just mentioned. Recently I changed my intentions relative to Miss Harding. I was after the money the same as the rest—that I am free to admit; but now I don't give a rap for it, and I had intended taking advantage of the first opportunity to return Miss Harding to civilization unharmed and without the payment of a penny to anyone. The reason for my change of heart is my own affair. In all probability you wouldn't believe the sincerity or honesty of my motives should ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... metallic, like the click of a withdrawn bolt, and came first from the case at his side. A second sharp rap replied from the other raised casket, then an echoing tattoo of metallic impacts rattled and clattered in the resounding room. Each of the hundreds of caskets was adding its voice to ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... grief, and it is company enough. There was the very superior cat who sat on every window-ledge, winking at life. He (for in France all cats are masculine by order of philology), he did not care a rap for man or dog, but he liked women and permitted them to observe him. There was the man who insinuated himself between the tables at the Cafe, holding out postcard-representations of the Pantheon, the Louvre, Notre Dame, and other places. From beneath these cards his dexterous ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... could very well have done, for Carlin did not close his shop until seven, he would have come upon him with the same letter in his hand, his whole mind absorbed in its contents, especially the last paragraph: "Be here at seven o'clock, sharp; don't ring the bell below, just rap twice and I shall know it is you. I have to be very careful who ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... old Tompkins will have to rap pretty loud to make me budge at eight bells," said Tom with a portentous yawn, as he peeled off his reefing jacket and turned in "all standing," as he expressed it, with the exception of his boots. He was too tired to undress; and besides, he thought, in his lazy way, what was the use of his doing ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told, and was rewarded for his partizanship in behalf of his master, by a dexterous rap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into his eyes. Then Mr Quilp departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and the boy revenged himself by dancing on his head at intervals on the extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... of the "mistress" had touched him, also, to anxiety, and he motioned the herder to repeat his statement. He then straightened himself to almost the erectness of the younger man, and begun at once to gather his rushes and rap them carefully in a moistened cloth. With an expressive gesture toward his cabin, he suggested that Samson was free to enter it and provide such entertainment for himself as he chose, or could find. And so well did the herder know the shepherd that he fully understood this significant ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... she sat down by the fire, and tried to sew, and tried to look unconcerned, and tried to feel unconcerned, and tried not to expect anybody, and tried to make her heart keep still. And tried in vain. For a gentle rap at the door sent her pulse up twenty beats a minute and made her face burn. And Hartsook was for the first time, abashed in the presence of Hannah. For the oppressed girl had, in two weeks, blossomed out ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... care a rap," declared Stuart, "if it weren't for the hounds. Somehow or other we will obtain food and drink, and so long as we get that we can keep on marching at night-time and can hide up during the day; but hounds can track us anywhere, and will soon drive ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Mr. Bilham," she replied as with an impatient rap on the glass, "you're not worth sixpence! You come over to convert the savages—for I know you verily did, I remember you—and the savages simply ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Billy Simms, the janitor, in his shirt sleeves, had comfortably propped himself back in an arm-chair to take a nap, when rap-rap-rap sounded on the door. Billy's "office," as he called it, was on the ground-floor of the ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... opened, At a rap-a-tap from Reason, Inspiring in me an intention Which I never had before, Seeing that through all my days My life has been just what it is. Therefore when I rose I said, To-day shall be as yesterday, Since Reason tells me I have been From day to ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... heavy footstep outside the windows opening on the garden. There was a rap at the knocker on the front-door. A minute later, Victor, the man-servant, ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... prison camp we heard at intervals the rap-rap of a machine-gun at the practice range near by, drilling to take more prisoners, and on the way back to Berlin we passed companies of volunteers returning from drill with that sturdy march ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... for forty years he assembled around his table, every Sunday, the elite of the literary world, including nearly the whole of those who took part in the first Encyclopedia. If that table were only in the hands of some of our spirit friends of the present day, what brilliant anecdotes might it not rap out—the sparkling wit of Diderot, the good humor of out host, the hospitable and generous D'Holbach, the occasional bitterness of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the cautious expression of opinion by D'Alembert, the agreeable ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... times is a little altered since the beginning of this last winter. Prerogation, that gave itself such airs in November, and would speak to nothing but a Tory, has had a rap this morning that will do it some good, unless it is weak enough to do itself more harm. The judges of the common pleas have unanimously dismissed Wilkes from his imprisonment,(283) as a breach of privilege; his offence ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... pour out another charge. I did it hastily, as you may well believe, an' about three times what I wanted came out. Hows'ever, I lost a deal of it in pourin' it into the gun; then I spat the ball in, gettin' another nasty rap on the teeth as I did so, but I'd bit the ball so that it ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... regard, Moggs resorted to his feet—then tried his knee, and anon his back, after the usual desperate variety of such appeal resorted to by the "great locked out," when they become a little savage or so at the delay to which they are subjected. Sometimes, also, he would rap fiercely, and then apply his eye to the key-hole, as if to watch for the effect of his rapping. "I don't see 'em," groaned he. And then again, his ear would be placed against the lock—"I don't hear 'em either." There were moments when he would frantically ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... by a peremptory rap on the door, startled the girl back to a realisation of the flight of time. The sun had set, and a grey light filled the room. Without a passing thought of the tears upon her face, she lowered the bolt and ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... simple in this hall, where sit the glorious heroes of Erin?" cried, from his couch, Bricriu, son of Carbad. "To each his share, according to his fights and deeds. But ere the shares are distributed, more than one rap on the nose will ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... I do not feel any despondency about it because I know it is good and worth doing. It is extraordinary how much more moral one is than one imagines. At school I never minded getting into a row if it were really not my fault. Similarly, I have never cared a rap for rejections or criticisms, since I had got a point of view to express which I was certain held water. Some people think it holds water—on the brain. But I don't ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... Not a rap did the girl care for the hardships in front of her. She laughed and thought it a great adventure that she had no "trousseau," but only the few clothes which were wearable after her long visit to Djazerta. And if they were never to find the Lost Oasis, or if they themselves were ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... the sake of obtaining credit for different qualities. Thus a terrific crack at the back of the ear might produce so great an elevation of the organ of combativeness as might obtain for the greatest coward a reputation for the greatest courage; and a thundering rap on the centre of the head might raise on the skull of the veriest brute a bump of, and name ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... can't," replied Titmouse, striving to screw his courage up to the sticking place, to encounter one who was plainly bent upon mischief. "I've got two shillings—there they are," throwing them on the table; "and cuss me if I've another rap in the world; there, ma'am! take 'em, do; and ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... into the Chapel of the Holy Office. She stops at a certain part of the flooring. Her great effect is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts at the brave courier, who is explaining something; hits him a sounding rap on the hat with the largest key; and bids him be silent. She assembles us all, round a little trap-door in the floor, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... sitting by my mother the next night about ten o'clock—she wouldn't let me out of her sight—when there came a rap at the door and Aleck came in. I knew how my father would feel about seeing him in those clothes. I didn't know till afterward that they were all he had and that the poor fellow was as bad off as any ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Lord, and as he did not appear to open up any way for us to leave the field, we went forward with our work as faithfully as we knew how, believing that the Lord would provide in his own time and way, when one evening, just after family worship, a rap came to the door. I opened it, there came in quite a company of persons, all bearing something, and just exactly the things we needed most, and to the amount of over fifty dollars' worth, and about a sixth of it was, as we learned, given by Romanists who had opposed ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... down, my lovely dears." He varied his expressions, however, according to the urgency of the case. If more speed was required, the more endearing were his words. I won't undertake to say that he did not sometimes rap out words of a very different signification, but that was only in extreme cases, when all others seemed to fail, or he had exhausted his vocabulary; but the men did not mind it a bit, for it only showed them ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... juncture a fortunate diversion occurred. A rap—three times—of no uncertain quality was heard at the door, and Mr. Brush Bascom hastened to open it. A voice cried out:—"Is Manning here? The boys are hollering for those passes," and a wiry, sallow gentleman burst in, none other than the Honourable ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of the American teacher. He was in a blind rage, which was not diminished by the outcries and lamentations of the Governor and a horde of clerks, who swarmed out to express their grief over the wanton destruction of a landmark. Privately, I don't believe they cared a rap, but the opportunity to reproach an American for bad judgment comes so seldom to the Filipinos that they refuse to ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... in the last fifty years—the changes in economic and social life have been so rapid that the "always was and always will be" protest is having a harder and harder time to make itself heard above the clatter of the social house-wreckers, and the rap and beat of the ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... stomach.' In 'Timon of Athens' there's a chap who 'greases his pure mind,' probably with fried sausages, gravy, and such like trash. The fellow in 'Macbeth' who has 'eaten of the insane root' was meant, I calculate, as a hard rap on tobacco-chewers (and smokers too); he called it root, instead of leaf, just to cover up his tracks. What a splendid thought that is in 'Love's Labor's Lost': 'Fat paunches have lean pates'! Everybody knows how Julius Caesar turned up his nose at fat men. The poet never could stand ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... first glance,—I was astounded. That you, the man in all the world most cordially hated by Frenchmen, should venture into France quite unattended was a conception to confound belief. Still, here you were, and I comprehended that such an opportunity would not rap twice upon the door. So I despatched a letter post-haste to Madame de Pompadour ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... dressed all in his best and seated astride of a grand horse. At last he came to the palace which was finer than the handsome new house of Herr Mayor Kopff. Rap! rap! rap! Peter knocked at the door, and presently came a neat servant girl and opened it to him. "Is the King at ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... up with the innocence of nasty little children," said the great and expanded personage, expanding a little more, as it were. The haughty drooping glance struck crushingly the carpet at the Assistant Commissioner's feet. "They'll have to get a hard rap on the knuckles over this affair. We must be in a position to—What is your general idea, stated shortly? No ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... chap a creature of limitless self indulgence. He's crazy to learn, and I've no doubt that already he is studying like a steam engine; but when he wants to do other things he'll do 'em with the same zeal. I gather from the Colonel that he doesn't give a rap for anybody or anything just so he gets to a book. Self control? He doesn't know any more about it than water coming down ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... I was an ambition incarnate," continued the young man, unwittingly adding to her delight by detailing how brilliant her conquest was. "I've never cared a rap about women—until I saw you. I was all for politics—for trying to do something to make my fellow men the better for my having lived. Now—it's all gone. I want you, Jen. ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... lead, so Skinny was wise to what she ment when she piped "Ask dad." If she'd told me that same I would have thought she was flashin a spiel for Sweet Caps. Skinny says that's repartee, but I think its RAP-artee. Speakin of Russia, I see by the papers that a new revolution has busted out there. That God forsaken country reminds me of a fly wheel on a automobeel—2000 ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... tell my friends that they must bring us some, for not a rap of salary have I had since I became prime minister, and if they were to load the boats up to the thwarts, I shouldn't be overpaid for the good I have done the state," said Pat; and, flourishing his axe in the fashion he had found so effective, he made his way back to where the blacks were ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... disappeared. He had always been accustomed to make a villegratura at L'Arriccia during a portion of the summer months, returning only now and then to look after his affairs in Rome. On such visits he would often arrive towards midnight, and rap at the door of a friend to claim his hospitality, barking a most intelligible answer to the universal Roman inquiry of "Chi e?" "One morn we missed him at the accustomed" place, and thenceforth he was never seen. Whether a sudden homesickness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... became rigid, and her well-cut lips fixed themselves in a straight line. But she relaxed them to rap out ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... it," said Mister Woodchuck; "for we never get far from home, and don't care a rap what state bounds Florida on the south. We don't travel much, and studying geography would ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... over-early, so said I to myself, 'Hie thee to a certain person and make ye merry, thou and she, until the sun shall rise and thou art bound to wend palace- wards.'" "'Tis well," quoth she and seated him and designed to take seat beside him when behold, came a rap at the door and he cried, "Who is that?" and she replied, "Allah only is Omniscient, but haply 'tis my husband." So he was startled and afeard, and when she whispered to him, "Up and enter yon closet," he did her bidding ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; With heart-struck, anxious care, inquires ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... the stranger, 'it may be that he is a sound sleeper, and may not answer my first rap. I will therefore, with your permission, take the lamp, and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the wretched. And more, I owe no grudge to good people, though in their case there is much insolence. And if, Master Leonard, like myself, you should have been familiar with respectable people, you would know that they are not a rap better than the others, and are often of a less agreeable companionship. I have been seated at the third table of the Bishop of Seez and two attendants, both clad in black, were at my ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... him by the scalp-lock, while Donald severed the thong that bound his wrists. In his rage, the Indian attempted to seize the gunwale of the canoe and pull it under; but, anticipating this, Donald struck him a rap on the head with the back of the knife that caused him ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... for any troubles: my Lord St. John did, a day or two since, openly pull a gentleman in Westminster Hall by the nose, one Sir Andrew Henly, while the judges were upon their benches, and the other gentleman did give him a rap over the pate with his cane, of which fray the judges, they say, will make a great matter: men are only sorry the gentle man did proceed to return a blow; for, otherwise, my Lord would have been soundly fined for the affront, and may be yet for ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... With a rap on the table which brought Sweetwater into the room, he proceeded to pin again into its old place on the lining of Mr. Roberts' coat the so-called tag. Then, taking the arrow which Sweetwater proceeded to hand him, he slipped it into ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... refreshing slumber. Mrs. Hammond, the sister of Mrs. Jakeman, was sitting by her bed-side, full of compassion for the lovely sufferer, and rejoicing in the calm tranquillity that had just taken possession of her, when a little girl, the only child of Mrs. Hammond, opened the street-door to the rap of the bailiff He said he wanted to speak with Miss Melville, and the child answered that she would go tell her mother. So saying, she advanced to the door of the back-room upon the ground-floor, in which Emily lay; but the moment it was opened, instead of waiting for ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... go to your room, and don't let me see you till tea-time. You must be taught respect as well as obedience,' and Mr. Fairbairn gave the table a rap that caused his ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... you want your trees worsled?" They then proceed to the orchard, and encircling one of the largest and best-bearing trees, chant in a low voice a certain doggerel rhyme; and this ended, all shout in chorus, with the exception of the trumpeter, who blows a loud blast. During the ceremony they rap the trees with their sticks. "Thus going from tree to tree, or group to group, they wassail the whole orchard; this finished, they proceed to the house of the owner, and sing at his door a song common on the occasion. They are then admitted, ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... would happen. If the policemen of England did their duty as our soldiers do, at once I would have gone to them; my duty would have been to do so. As it is, I go to our private police, who would not exist if the force were worth a rap. Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, in spite of Goad's clumsiness, rank second. I go to the first of all these firms, and I get their very ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... Peter was one who did honour to the body he belonged to. Though not so tall as a west of London footman, he was as shapely; and he had a power of making his voice insinuating, or arrogant, as it suited the exigencies of his profession. He had not a rap of money in the world; yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended largely. The world said that the Hon. Peter was salaried by his Lordship, and that, in common with that of Parasite, he exercised the ancient ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the law must have a care where they go, and to whom they appeal, yet Ester's father was growing more desperate every moment. He went boldly to the door and gave a timid rap with his knuckle. That hand once bold enough to strike a king from his throne was weak and trembling on this night. At sound of the knock, the husband and father seemed to have suddenly changed. The lion may sport and play with his whelps in his lair, but when the intruder enters his domestic abode, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... to comfortable railway travelling in Germany is to make up your mind not to care a rap whether the guard gets killed in the course of the journey or not. Any tender feeling towards the guard makes railway travelling in the ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... really too short for art—one hasn't time to make one's shell ideally hard. Firm and bright, firm and bright is very well to say—the devilish thing has a way sometimes of being bright, and even of being hard, as mere tough frozen pudding is hard, without being firm. When I rap it with my knuckles it doesn't give the right sound. There are horrible sandy stretches where I've taken the wrong turn because I couldn't for the life of me find the right. If you knew what a dunce I am sometimes! Such things figure ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... fellow who got me out of my scrape said we must. He says we have got to make Thompson's farm as quickly as possible and stay there until the storm blows over," insisted Lieutenant Wingate. "Of course, I don't give a rap for myself, but I ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders Among the Kentucky Mountaineers • Jessie Graham Flower
... caught and turned aside the thick rain of blows with a facility and precision which set the motley on-lookers wild with admiration; and every now and then, when his practised eye detected an opening, and a lightning-swift rap upon Hugo's head followed as a result, the storm of cheers and laughter that swept the place was something wonderful to hear. At the end of fifteen minutes, Hugo, all battered, bruised, and the target for a pitiless bombardment ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... She just hit the door a good rap with the hatchet and kept pushing the button. Boy, I ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh |
