"Balking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the more hardly. The only reason in this case was, that the captain had determined to have the custom-house officers on board on Monday, and wished to have his brig in order. Jack is a slave aboard ship; but still he has many opportunities of thwarting and balking his master. When there is danger or necessity, or when he is well used, no one can work faster than he; but the instant he feels that he is kept at work for nothing, or, as the nautical phrase is, "humbugged,'' ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... about his sister? Grace wondered. Certainly he had directly or indirectly been the means of balking every one of Miriam's schemes for injuring Anne. Perhaps Miriam had told him she was to win the prize, and he was thinking of Anne's disappointment. All three boys paused when they saw their friends of the Christmas house party. Hippy leaned over ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... months had dragged or flown along, retarded or spurred on as privation or adventure predominated, thoughts of his own home, while oft recurring, had become less vivid. The old life had grown to seem more like a dream than a reality, and the balking of his determination to reach the coast and return to London had finally thrown the hope of realization so remotely into the future that it too now seemed little more than a ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... coons aren't fixing to build a fire under him!" exclaimed Decker. "They'd rather fool with a balking mule than eat watermelon! Let's go ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... once green shade as far down as he dared without giving cause for suspicion, and before the window had placed a high-backed chair and thrown upon it a greenish, blackish, brownish veteran of a fall overcoat—thus balking any glances that might rove lazily ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... on Conniston, quietly, "you've got to be careful not to drive them too hard. Keep your men good-natured. If you see any signs of balking let me know. I haven't any kick to make about the way you have been working, but I want you to work harder! Get me? And I am going to pay you four dollars a day instead of three. Wait. I am going to make you another proposition: over and above your wages I'll pay each man of you for every day ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... got this dog," the engineer explained. "Out from under the ice. One day, after the first freeze this winter, I was Balking along a little pond. I came to a thin place in the ice, and looking through, from the shore where I stood, I saw a little white dog down below, just as if he were under ...
— Daddy Takes Us Skating • Howard R. Garis
... fixed rules, by which it enforces social continuity and connection. To neglect these throws one off the ring; and, with rare exceptions, isolation is barrenness and death. One cannot even go into the street in a wilfully strange costume, without establishing repulsions and balking relations between him and his neighbors which destroy their use to each other. Every man is bound to the actual form of society by his necessities at least, if not by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... you balking chaplain," he cried, "here's a chance for you to begin. What would you have me do? Drain off this great mug and go slashing among my crew, or hurl ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... to get her into the Bonnie Lassie's house, where her eloquence could not draw a crowd. To get young David there was not quite so easy. He made one well-timed and almost successful effort to bolt, and even evinced signs of balking on ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... way, or rather, his balking way, as regarded a recognition of the liberality of his former wife's husband—for that ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... are Sons of The Blood and call me Mother still. Now must ye speak to your kinsmen and they must speak to you, After the use of the English, in straight-flung words and few. Go to your work and be strong, halting not in your ways, Balking the end half-won for an instant dole of praise. Stand to your work and be wise — certain of sword and pen, Who are neither children nor Gods, but men ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... watched, the driver pulled them up short, and waved them towards the canal. They stopped, and it was apparent that they were balking and expostulating. But the driver was inexorable. He went near to them and threatened their bare backs with the slack of the rope. Gingerly and shiveringly they stepped into the cold water, while the driver stood on the bank. The water was up to their waists ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis |
