"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... describe the where— Young, slender, and packed easily, he lay, No doubt, in little compass, round or square; But pity him I neither must nor may His suffocation by that pretty pair; 'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.[ag] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Drake, showing the butt. "I got them out of your cabin aboard the Su-chen—she got back safely to Tien-tsin, I may tell you; but how I came to be aboard her, or to get up here, is too long a yarn to spin now. Let it wait until we are in less danger than we ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... stone, throw stones at; stone, lapidate^, pelt; hurl at, hurl against, hurl at the head of; rock beset [U.S.], besiege, beleaguer; lay siege to, invest, open the trenches, plant a battery, sap, mine; storm, board, scale the walls. cut and thrust, bayonet, butt; kick, strike &c (impulse) 276; whip &c (punish) 972. [attack verbally] assail, impugn; malign (detract) 934. bomb, rocket, blast. Adj. attacking &c v.; aggressive, offensive, obsidional^. up in arms. Adv. on the offensive. Int. up and at them! Phr. the din of arms, the yell of savage ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... however small they may be, provided that they do but amount to half-a-dozen, you will invariably meet with a bully. And it is also generally the case that you will find one of that society who is more or less the butt. You will discover this even in occasional meetings, such as a dinner-party, the major part of ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... High Court of Parliament. Likewise to arrest the person of Dame Mary Woodley, widow, suspected of harbouring and concealing traitors:" and he advanced to lay his hand upon her. Walter, in an impulse of passion, rushed forward, and aimed a blow at him with the butt-end of the fishing-rod; but it was the work of a moment to seize the boy and tie his hands, while his mother earnestly implored the soldier to have pity on him, and excuse his thoughtless haste ...
— The Pigeon Pie • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had been christened the Robert Bullmer, and her first act when the dog-shores had been knocked away was a bull charge down the launching slip, resulting in the bursting of a hawser, the washing over of a boat and the drowning of two innocent spectators; her next was an attempt to butt the Eddystone over in a fog, and, being unbreakable, she might have succeeded only that she was going dead slow. She drifted out of the Bullmer line on the wash of a law-suit owing to the ramming by her of a Cape boat in Las Palmas harbour; engaged herself in the fruit ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... thou gain the butt of sack And salary that Pye has, Would it not cheer thy visage black, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 14. Saturday, February 2, 1850 • Various
... affection. Is it love I feel? Can I, Felix, who have had but one thought, known but one enthusiasm, retain in this breast of iron a spot however secret, however small, which any woman, least of all his daughter, could reach? Never! I am the prey of frenzy or the butt of devils. Yet only the inhabitants of a more celestial sphere brighten around me when I think of those half-raised eyes, those delicately parted lips, so devoid of guile, that innocent bearing, and the divine tenderness, mingled ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... grimly, with his bald head sunk between his huge shoulders, he gazed after the departing riders. "Eyah! 'tis best so!" he murmured softly, "a showdown—wid no ould shtiff av a non-com like meself tu butt in. . . . An', onless I am mistuk that same will come this very morn, from th' luks av things. . . . Sind th' young wan is as handy wid his dhooks as Brankley sez he is! . . . Thin—an' on'y thin will there be peace ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... watched the maneuvering with interest, and no sooner did the gun begin to shift than three leaped forward, snarling angrily. One snapped at the barrel of the piece, one at the butt, and a third at the trigger. An instant later came the report heard by the Rovers ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... their party, (which, till he found attractions elsewhere, was generally the case,) their more elevated subjects of conversation were almost always put to flight by the strange sallies of this eccentric young man, whose vanity made him a constant butt for Lord Byron's sarcasm and merriment. The son of a highly respectable Italian gentleman, who was in early life, I understand, the secretary of Alfieri, Polidori seems to have possessed both talents and dispositions which, had he lived, might have rendered ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... unless some change in height had to be made to fit a gun port or embrasure. To prevent cannon from pushing shutters open when the ship rolled in a storm, lower tier carriages let the muzzle of the gun, when fully elevated, butt against the sill ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... When his breathing showed him fast asleep indeed, I slipped over to the black eunuch and crouched, right hand close to the butt of ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... reformation, which he had such an eminent hand in erecting and building up, but also to find himself at the king's mercy, for his accession to the same. He knew, that next to the marquis of Argyle, he was the butt of the enemies malice, and he had frequently applied for his majesty's grace, but was as often refused; so that the violent courses now carrying on, and the plain invasions upon the liberties and religion ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... and bruised, put them into a clean butt, and start your mild brown, or pale beer upon them, so as to fill up the vessel, about the beginning of November, and let it stand till the next season; and ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... American football suit—that's what you'll want. Well, good-bye. I'll have the answer for you here on Wednesday morning—if he ever deigns to answer you. He is a violent, dangerous, cantankerous character, hated by everyone who comes across him, and the butt of the students, so far as they dare take a liberty with him. Perhaps it would be best for you if you never heard from the ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... invariable answer: "I don't know!" So confused was she that these words were the only ones she could utter, even when she knew the correct answer, or would have done so if she could have collected her wits. By the end of the hour, Peggy was entirely convinced that she was the dunce and butt of the school; that she knew nothing, and never would ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... misbehaving himself most grossly; treating my opinions with no more respect than those of a schoolboy, and telling me to mind my horses and tailors, and not trouble myself about letters. His Scotch bear-leader, Mr. Boswell, was a butt of the first quality. I never saw such a figure as the fellow cut in what he called a Corsican habit, at one of Mrs. Cornely's balls, at Carlisle House, Soho. But that the stories connected with that same establishment are not the most profitable tales in the world, I could tell tales ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ear of his chief clerk. On some matters, however, others have spoken since his book appeared. He is very precise about the trial for an agrarian murder in Monaghan, giving details from his own actual observation. Mr. Butt, Q.C., who was engaged in the case, has published a letter, stating that Mr. Trench was quite mistaken in his account. It seems strange that he did not refresh his memory by looking at a report of the trial ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... form of government rests; but it is strange to see what Daedalian complications, and wheels within wheels, we have contrived to work into the superstructure. A modern ward heeler in New York could have taken up the whole frame of government in Seventeenth Century New England by the butt end, and cracked it like a whip—provided of course the Pilgrim fathers had allowed ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... warning! Perhaps this is the last time you shall have an opportunity to take it! I will not always be the butt of your simplicity and inexperience, nor suffer your weakness to triumph over my strength! Why do you trifle with me? You little suspect the extent of my power. At this moment you are enclosed with the snares of my vengeance unseen by you, and, at the instant that you flatter yourself ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... see his old acquaintance, and inquiring by name for every person whom he could recollect at Sydney; and among others for a French cook, one of the governor's servants, whom he had constantly made the butt of his ridicule, by mimicking his voice, gait, and other peculiarities, all of which he again went through with his wonted exactness and drollery. He asked also particularly for a lady from whom he had once ventured to snatch a kiss; and on being told that she ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... conqueror to die sword in hand, making a tomb for his body of his enemies on the field of battle, than to be hated of his own and poniarded by the hands of his nearest and dearest, or to die of poison or of drowning in a wine-butt." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... am that clumsy butt Of your nursery tales—aloud Will I shout that name forever Through the ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... were hauled and pushed down the steep, winding path to where the camels were waiting below. The Frenchman waved his unwounded hand as he walked. "Vive le Khalifa! Vive le Madhi!" he shouted, until a blow from behind with the butt-end of a Remington beat ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... just declared that he finds nothing amiss in him; but the rabble cry out, all the more, "crucify him." While ardently loved by a devoted few in that tumultuous crowd, he is, to all the rest, an object of severest scorn, the butt of ribald jest. Wearing his crown of thorns, he is made to bear, till he faints under his burden, the very instrument of his torture. His Roman executioners, giving to him the punishment accorded to thieves ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... a butt, as a butt should be strod, I gallop the brusher along; Like a grape-blessing Bacchus, the good fellow's god, And a sentiment give, or a ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... of your "lean-to" lay a thick layer of the "fans" or branches of balsam fir or hemlock, with the convex side up, and the butts of the stems toward the foot of the bed. Now thatch this over with more "fans" by thrusting the butt ends through the first layer at a slight angle toward the head of the bed, so that the soft tips will curve toward the foot of the bed, and be sure to make the head of your bed away from the opening of the "lean-to" and the foot toward the opening. Over this bed spread your rubber blanket ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... when they suddenly heard a rush in the jungle, and in another instant two elephants charged out upon them. Wortley and Palliser both fired, but without effect—the gun-bearers bolted,—an elephant knocked one man over, and tried to butt him against the ground; but two more shots from both Palliser and Wortley turned him; they were immediately obliged to run in their turn, as the other elephant charged, and just grazed Palliser with his trunk behind. Fortunately, they doubled ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... said Harry. "Hold the butt close against your shoulder. Take your time, and aim right at the ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... greater. Few its end regret. Surely not the Waiter. He his finger had In the pie—or gravy. Did he? Well, 'tis sad. He must cry "Peccavi!" But whoever mixed, Or whoever boiled it, Our opinion's fixed, He, or they, quite spoiled it. 'Tis the general scoff, Butt of chaff and rudeness. Irish Stew is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... attempts to air his grievances to passing members touching the question of the expectant Jorrocks and the missing purse. Beyond, however, eliciting many sallies of wit from the younger spirits, for it was part of the major's policy to lay himself open to be a butt, his laudable perseverance was entirely thrown away. At last he gave it up in disgust, and raising his stick hailed a passing 'bus, into which he sprang, taking a searching glance round to see that no one was following him. After a drive which brought ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with his legs apart, bent a little at the knees, as if he intended to make a jump. His right hand was near the butt of his gun, his fingers were clasping and unclasping, as if he limbered them for action. Taterleg slipped up behind him on his toes, and jerked the gun from Jim's scabbard with quick and sure hand. He backed away with it, presenting it with determined mien ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... heavy butt of a Winchester rifle descended on my head and I fell to the ground. Rough hands seized me and angry men bore me ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... to her and spoke low. "Your ladyship makes a butt of me," he said. And 'twas so ordained by Fate, at this moment when the worst of him seethed within his breast, and was ripest for mad evil, Sir Christopher Crowell came bustling into the apartment, full of exultant ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the best of their judgment 2000 miles. The gale then ceasing they turned back, and were seventy days in getting to the aforesaid Cape Diab. The ship having touched on the coast to supply its wants, the mariners beheld there the egg of a certain bird called Chrocho, which egg was as big as a butt.[3] And the bigness of the bird is such that between the extremities of the wings is said to be 60 paces. They say too that it carries away an elephant or any other great animal with the greatest ease, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... my holding my rifle with one hand, while I endeavoured to free myself with the other, I could not point the muzzle at my assailant, and my only way of clearing myself from his hold was by battering his head with the butt end of the weapon with my right hand, while he still clung round my left side. At last I disengaged myself, and he let go suddenly, and slipped instantly behind one of the thick acacia bushes, and got away, just as ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... mony ane, And, lassie, ye're but young ye ken; Then wait a wee, and cannie wale, A routhie butt, a routhie ben: There's Johnie o' the Buskie-glen, Fu' is his burn, fu' is his byre; Tak this frae me, my bonnie hen, It's plenty beets the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... thinkin ye're no just a here-a-wa man, by your tongue," said she; "an', if I'm no mista'en, ye've seen better days; for, when I was bringin butt your wet claes to get them dried, though your bit jacket an' your breeks were just corduroy, I couldna help noticin that there is no a bit bonnier linen inowre our door than ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... covet before their eyes. Then, I can never count change even when my mind is tranquil, and she knows that, and swoops threateningly upon me in booking offices and stationers' shops. When I am dodging cabs at crossings she will appear from behind an omnibus or carriage and butt into me furiously. She holds her umbrella in her folded arms just as the Punch puppet does his staff, and with as deadly effect. Sometimes she discards her customary navy blue and puts on a glittering bonnet with bead trimmings, and goes and hurts people who ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... was beyond me. I could have emptied a water-butt, laid down and gone to sleep, or melted ice with a touch of the finger, but I could not speak. The conversation was opened by the other man, in whose restraining hand Aunt Elizabeth now lay, outwardly resigned but inwardly, as I, who knew her ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... so. Few of the creeks ran half a mile from their heads. The country is rent with deep chasms, made still deeper by vast torrents that pour down them during times of heavy rains." There were found petrified trees. One of them was 210 feet long and another was over five feet across the butt, this in a land where not a tree or bush was found growing. Holmes fervently observed, "However, I do not know whether it makes any difference whether the country is barren or fruitful, if the Lord has a work to do in it," ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... clarinets, or oboes and horns, it forms part of a rich and beautiful combination. There is a very telling quality in the upper notes of the bassoon of which composers have made use. Structurally, a bassoon consists of several pieces, the wing, butt, long joints, and bell, and when fitted together, they form a hollow cone of about eight feet long, the air column tapering in diameter from three-sixteenths of an inch at the reed to one and three-quarter inches at the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... also were the wisest leaders, as the stark elder Stone- face, and the tall Hall-face, and his father of the unshaken heart, and above all Folk-might, fierce in his wrath, but his anger burning steady and clear, like the oaken butt on the hearth of ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... utter shiftlessness. With square miles of woodland all about them, they had prepared no billets of suitable size. The man had merely cut down two small trees, lopped off their branches, and dragged them into the room. Their butt-ends were placed together on the hearth, whence the logs stretched like the legs of a compass to the two further corners of the room. Amy, in the uncertain light, had nearly stumbled over one of them. As the logs burned away ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... "I hate to butt into a man's meditations," I said, looking him straight in the eye, "but there's a limit to everything, and you've played right up to it. You've had time, my friend, to remember all your sins and plan enough more to keep you ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... Nautilus men gave me a simple gun, the butt end of which, made of steel, hollow in the centre, was rather large. It served as a reservoir for compressed air, which a valve, worked by a spring, allowed to escape into a metal tube. A box of projectiles in a groove in the thickness of the butt end contained about twenty of these ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... of the school to butt in?" warned Jess. "Then keep quiet, can't you? Much taffy you'll get if Rachel catches us. Your only chance is to lie low, ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... an instant; and, almost as he caught sight of it, the rifle went up to his shoulder. For a moment the foresight wavered across the indistinct form, and then his numbed hands grew steady, and, trusting that nothing would check the frost-clogged action, he pressed the trigger. He felt the jar of the butt, a little smoke blew in his eyes, and he could make out nothing on the crest of the ridge. It seemed impossible, however, that he had missed, and the next moment he heard a heavy floundering in the snow among the rocks above. He went up the ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... a small oblong object from his pocket, lighted the end of it with the glowing butt of one of my Corona Coronas, and placed it underneath the car. In a few moments all that remained of my three-thousand-guinea ten—cylinder twelve-seater was one small nut, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... to the woman, or to me, would be my being beaten to death by five men there on the bank of the Susquehanna? I once saw a man hanged, and though my whole soul cried protest, my mouth cried not. Had it cried, I should most likely have had my skull crushed by the butt of a revolver, for it was the law that the man should hang. And here, in this gypsy group, it was the law that ...
— The Road • Jack London
... lad whose sunburned face already bore the stamp of self-indulgence was stationed behind the butt with Lisle, and the latter was not favorably impressed with his appearance ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... they cooled your fever. They were a great team, and they pulled you through. Seems as if they'd pulled you through a knot-hole, but they were on to their job. And you weren't one bit grateful—seemed to think they had no business to butt in." ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... temperate, scornful of petty calculations and scornful of being scorned. It persists; it is of an undaunted boldness and of a fortitude not to be wearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common life. That false prudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt and merriment of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus, is almost ashamed of its body. What shall it say then to the sugar-plums and cats'-cradles, to the toilet, compliments, quarrels, cards and custard, which rack the wit of all society? What ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... on the shoulder of the nearest man and succeeded in winging the fugitive at the first shot, the other going wild. Then, frantic with rage and anxiety, he beat his way through the crowd, hammering mercilessly at heads with the butt of his Colt, and ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... cottage, with a thatched roof and overhanging vines, about which I have serious doubts, and fully expect some day to see Columbine appear on that pistache-green balcony (where the magpie is hanging in a wicker cage), and, taking Arlequin’s hand, disappear into the water-butt while Clown does a header over the half-door, and the cottage itself turns into a gilded coach, with Columbine kissing her hand ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... know about the ghosts," replied the caretaker, "but I really was getting a little bit nervous when you boys arrived. You know," he continued, "that we all feel a little shivery when we butt into ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... close, termination; desinence^, conclusion, finis, finale, period, term, terminus, endpoint, last, omega; extreme, extremity; gable end, butt end, fag-end; tip, nib, point; tail &c (rear) 235; verge &c (edge) 231; tag, peroration; bonne bouche [Fr.]; bottom dollar, tail end, rear guard. consummation, denouement; finish &c (completion) 729; fate; doom, doomsday; crack of doom, day of Judgment, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... cultivation. Yet the growth of trees and bushes was heavy, and Harry decided to keep in the middle of it, as long as it continued northward in the direction in which he was going. He found a narrow path among the trees, and with his hand on a pistol butt he ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and on crossing a large flat creek I observed two new trees or shrubs (they are both) from one I obtained some seeds like beans, and rather a nice tree; the other, when large, at a distance looks like a shea-oak, having a very dark butt and long, drooping, dark-green, narrow leaves, and did not appear to have any seeds at present. Started at 7.17 till twenty-two minutes to 10, nine miles, on a bearing of from 100 to 105 degrees; at 8.18 sighted a large timbered creek, distant one mile, for about seven miles, 360 to 140 ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... and was as little precise in its aim as a hailstorm, but the light foreign pistol which, shot as true as a musket. Weir had learned his trade in Italy, and was a neat craftsman, so I employed him to make me a pistol after my own pattern. The butt was of light, tough wood, and brass-bound, for I did not care to waste money on ornament. The barrel was shorter than the usual, and of the best Spanish metal, and the pan and the lock were set after my own device. Nor was that all, for I became an epicure ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... me with fury. As he did so, I took the spade and held it on a level with my waist, resting the butt end on the ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... many ways butt down upon this, and they are crooked and wide. But thus thou mayest distinguish the right from the wrong, the right only being straight ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... and rushed in every direction, but the other soldier came behind the Prince and knocked him down with the butt of his gun. Then he tied his legs with another rope, and, seeing him thus bound, the crowd of monkeys, which had scattered and fallen over one another in their efforts to escape, came creeping timidly back, and looked on him ...
— The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People • L. Frank Baum
... "I am the butt of everybody's joke," she said, complacently. "That is what makes me so popular. You see, you skinny girls are scarcely noticed. It is me the men-folk ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... mechanism set ready for firing. In the stock of the gun is the cylinder, in which an accurately fitting and hollow piston moves. A powerful helical spring, turned out of a solid bar of steel, is compressed between the inside end of the piston and the upper end of the butt. To set the gun, the catch is pressed down so that its hooked end disengages from the stock, and the barrel is bent downwards on pivot P. This slides the lower end of the compressing lever towards the butt, and a projection on the guide B, working in a groove, ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... of individualities a herd of cows presents when you have come to know them all, not only in form and color, but in manners and disposition! Some are timid and awkward, and the butt of the whole herd. Some remind you of deer. Some have an expression in the face like certain persons you have known. A petted and well- fed cow has a benevolent and gracious look; an ill-used and poorly fed one, a pitiful ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... is a lie, a damned, infernal lie!" Max Breuck was maddened now. "Another jest Of your befuddled wits. I know not why I am to be your butt. At my request You'll choose among you one who'll answer for Your most unseasonable mirth. Good-night And good-by,—gentlemen. You'll hear from me." But Franz had caught him at the very door, "It is no lie, Max Breuck, and for your plight I am to ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... though deserted, made a gallant stand. The Life Guards attacked them on the right, the Blues on the left; but the Somersetshire clowns, with their scythes and the butt ends of their muskets, faced the royal horse like old soldiers. Oglethorpe made a vigorous attempt to break them and was manfully repulsed. Sarsfield, a brave Irish officer, whose name afterwards obtained a melancholy ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... watching the man shudder and close his eyes, watching the blood seep out along a crooked seam, then gush over the face and fine, black hair and silken mustache. A bloody flood streamed there while he watched. Then Fenn wiped dry the butt of his revolver. He felt of the gash in the forehead, and found that the bone was not crushed. He was sober, and an unnatural calm was upon his brain. He could feel the tears in his eyes. He stood looking at the face ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... walked, perhaps, six miles, when again I saw the red speck ahead of me. It was the post-boy—a post-boy returning on foot, of all miracles. He came straight up to meet me, and then stood in the road, barring my path, and tapping his riding-boot with the butt of his whip—a handsome young fellow, well proportioned ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... man, stamping the butt of his rod in the water. "There, I've done with you both. You are a pair of young ravens, sons of the old ravens, who have their nests up on the stony cliffs, and you'll both grow up to be as bad and bitter as your fathers, and take to punching out the young lambs' eyes with your beaks. ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... faith in prayer was not unmixed with a desire for action of a very vigorous and immediate variety, seized an old rifle hung from a nail on the wall. She had no idea whether there were any loads in it, but she had made up her mind to use the butt-end on the first man who entered the room. In the meantime, the axe had crashed through one of the thick, hardwood panels, making a slit broad enough ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... 'scape? How cam'st thou hither? swear by this bottle how thou cam'st hither—I escaped upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved overboard, by this bottle! which I made of the bark of a tree, with mine own hands, since I ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... of the arrow shot into its place appointed or intended, in the shooting of this arrow of pride there be divers purposings and appointings. For the proud man himself hath no certain purpose or appointment at any mark, butt, or prick upon earth, at which he determineth to shoot and there to stick and tarry. But ever he shooteth as children do, who love to shoot up cop-high, to see how high their arrow can fly up. But now doth the devil intend and appoint a certain mark, surely set in a place into which he ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... still keep harping on it. The kitchen hearth had an old-fashioned breadth, depth, and spaciousness, far within which lay what seemed the butt of a good-sized oak-tree, with the moisture bubbling merrily out at both ends. It was now half an hour beyond dusk. The blaze from an armful of substantial sticks, rendered more combustible by brushwood and pine, flickered powerfully ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... leader of the little company of Irish Home Rulers that had appeared in Parliament in the early '70's was Isaac Butt. His repeated attempts to have the subject considered were as often rejected with derision. In his own party he was opposed by an element which desired to resort to aggressive measures to compel the English to heed Ireland's demand for local self-government. Prominent in ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... snouts of the multitude, and grunts and squeals were loud and frequent as a frisky party of younglings in their play would heedlessly bump up against some short-tempered old boar, who in his turn would angrily butt a too venturesome rival in the wind and send him, expostulating noisily, down ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... was burnt, As I too have learnt; But, as you will read, She jumped into the water-butt before you could count, ONE, TWO, ...
— The Nine Lives of A Cat - A Tale of Wonder • Charles Bennett
... was named Guayaquerita, so they told me. 'Not for me,' says I. 'It'll be little old Hilldale or Tompkinsville or Cherry Tree Corners when I speak of it. It's a clear case where Spelling Reform ought to butt ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... leaving on the table the letter of sale which he had signed. In a moment, Mathias de Gorne had seen the advantage which he could take of my slip: he could keep his property, keep his wife ... and keep the money. Quick as lightning, he tucked away the paper, hit me over the head with the butt-end of his gun, threw the gun on the floor and seized me by the throat with both hands. He had reckoned without his host. I was the stronger of the two; and after a sharp but short struggle, I mastered him and tied him up with a cord which I found lying in a corner ... Mr. ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... only present at the murder of Noonan; now, was it not you who knocked down the unfortunate man with the butt-end of a blunderbuss?—Yes, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... possessed of an idea that made him the butt of many gibes and jeers. He thought that if he could breathe enough, he would be able to think clearly, and headaches would be gone. Life, he said, was a matter of breathing, and all men died from one cause—a shortness ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... ire he rose to mete out justice to this highwayman. Had the butt of his whip hit Shelby he would have seen more stars than twinkled overhead. But it didn't. It was caught in one hand, given a dexterous twist and sent flying into the road as Shelby ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... "I didn't butt in," said Charlotte. "I turned round an' come straight home. An' the next day they rode by, as budge as you please, she with the baby in her lap. Baby had on a nice white coat. I didn't go ag'in. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... was diving to the right, breaking his fall with the butt of his auto-carbine, rolling rapidly toward the cover of a rock, and as he did so, the thinking part of his mind recognized what was wrong. The tank-tracks had ended against the vine-grown side of the ravine, what he had smelled had been lubricating oil and petrol, and the leaves ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... he said, with his eyes on Mosby, and slightly accenting the pronoun with a tap of his revolver butt on the bar. "Ye don't ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... him, even as he pushed his jacket back to reveal the butt of his own weapon. He made no attempt to ...
— Medal of Honor • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... of the king. This made me impatient, and by degrees deprived me of my natural gaiety. One day when the king was with me, he perceived my want of spirits. "What ails you?" said be, with the greatest solicitude. "What ails me!" replied I, "I wish I were dead, rather than see myself the butt of all the scandal of the foul-mouthed gossips of your court." The king, suspecting the confidence I was about to repose in him, was sorry he had asked for it, and was silent. He began to play a tattoo with his fingers on the chimney-piece. At this ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... up the bank of the stream toward a huge sycamore that leaned lovingly over the water. An ancient wild grape vine, its butt four inches through and its roots fairly in the water, had a strangle-hold upon this decrepit forest monarch, its tendrils reaching the sycamore's ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... of livin', how I do gabble! My grandmarm used to say my tongue was loose at both ends and hung in the middle, and I guess she wa'n't fur off the course. Good-by. Take care of yourself. You can put what's left of that mock mince pie on the top shelf in the butt'ry and you'd better heave a dish towel or sunthin' over it to keep the ants out. There's more ants in this house than there is dollars, a good sight. Betsy B., she's got a plan for keepin' of 'em out by puttin' sassers of brimstone round the shelves, but I told her, s' I, 'THEM ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... flotilla—that from Lumberton—was a hilarious start indeed. Poor Prettyman Sweet was the butt of everybody's laughter. The glare of rage he threw now and then at the ridiculous dog in the bow of the Duchess sent the boys into ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... take refuge in a squirrel-hole in a tree. Hark! Is that the hound, or doth expectation mock the eager ear? With open mouths and bated breaths we listen. Yes, it is old "Singer;" he is bringing the fox over the top of the range toward Butt End, the Ultima Thule of the hunters' tramps in this section. In a moment or two the dog is lost to hearing again. We wait for his second turn; then ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... to shoot a cigarette from a lady's lips. One could see that he was entire master of the rifle, and a trick which always brought rounds of applause was the hitting of a target while standing with his back to it, simply by the aid of a mirror held at the butt ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... Diomede slept, "their spears were driven into the ground erect on the spikes of the butts" (X. 153). Aristotle mentions that this was still the usage of the Illyrians in his day. [Footnote: Poctica, 25.] Though the word for the spike in the butt (sauroter) does not elsewhere occur in the Iliad, the practice of sticking the spears erect in the ground during a truce is mentioned in III. 135: "They lean upon their shields" (clearly large high shields), "and the tall spears are planted by their sides." No butt-spikes have been found in ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... and seventh centuries, but never, to my knowledge, with any of a later age. They may, in fact, be considered as characteristic appendages, or accompanying features, to the ecclesiastical structures of those times. There is one at Rathmichael, near Dublin, where there is the butt of a round tower. I have seen many of them in various states of preservation, and I think all were about 4 feet both in breadth and height. They were, however, never arched, but roofed with large flags, laid horizontally, and their upper surface ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... his hammered hand to his forehead courteously, and as lightly as if the hammer had been the butt-end of a whip. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... the soldier assigned to their home bang on the door with the butt of his rifle, fled to the kitchen, where she stood listening and watching. She nearly cried out when the soldier thrust the bayonet of his rifle at her father, and all the resentment of her race at such injustice rose ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... The sail which they are now just hoisting is, in shape, like a right-angled triangle, with a parallelogram below its base; the hypothenuse or head of the sail is secured to a yard, like an enormous fishing-rod; the halyards are secured to it about a third of the way from the butt-end, and it is hoisted close up to the head of the mast. A tackle brings down the lower end of the yard to the deck, and serves to balance the lofty tapering point, while the sheet is secured to the lower after-corner of the sail. Though many of the smaller dhows ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... company had contented themselves with going in "domino." At the Circolo ball a very large proportion of the dancers were in costume. The Conte Leandro Lombardoni,—lady-killer, Don Juan, and poet, whose fortunes and misfortunes in these characters had made him the butt of the entire society, and had perhaps contributed, together with his well- known extraordinarily pronounced propensity for cramming himself with pastry, to give him the pale, puffed, pasty face, swelling around a pair of pale fish-like eyes, that distinguished him,—the ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... shells that burst while I was there, but likewise from those of the French. One of the largest of their shells bursted within nine or ten yards of me: there was a single rock close by, about the size of a butt; and I got instant shelter under it in time to avoid the fury of the shell. Where it burst the earth was torn in such a manner that two or three butts might easily have gone into the hole it made, and it threw great quantities of stones and dirt to a considerable distance. Three shot ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... falls in love with a widow who has already promised her hand to a man infinitely Ralph's superior. Ralph, however, unable to understand why she should not want him, persists in his wooing. She makes him the butt of her jokes, and he finds himself in ridiculous positions. The comedy amuses us in this way until her lover returns and marries her. The characters of the play, which is written in rime, are of the English ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... knew no other way of passing his life than in dangling about women. He was generally tolerated as a butt, and being impervious to contempt, supposed that his fascinations procured him immunity. He did—it must be reckoned the first of his two accomplishments—he did know a pretty woman from a plain one, and therefore as soon as he knew Alison much resorted to her. His other accomplishment ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... of blue light were moving. And a man had died. He lay on the rock, his flesh blackened jelly, with a rope of glowing light running from the metal of his gun butt to the metal buttons on ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... we speak of the independence of the country? We mean something beyond price, something that is the indispensable condition of true manhood in any country, something without which a country is poor in the present and a butt for the world's scorn in the future. There are men, or things that look like men, who say that as long as we put money in our purse, nothing else counts. How that class of men must have laughed some centuries ago at a fool ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... him as much out of sight as possible, as a wool-gathering[26] and discreditable member of the family, denied him all public honours, and left him a most paltry legacy. Tiberius, when looking out for a successor, deliberately passed him over as a man of deficient intellect. Caius kept him as a butt for his own slaps and blows, and for the low buffoonery of his meanest jesters. If the unhappy Claudius came late for dinner, he would find every place occupied, and peer about disconsolately amid insulting smiles. If, as was his usual ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... criticism, playful and otherwise, of others. There are people in whom the adversely critical spirit is so highly developed that they find it hard to praise any one or to hear any one praised—their criticism leaps to the surface in one way or another, in the sneer, in the "butt," in the joke, in the gibe, in the openly expressed attack. This way of being superior may be direct and open, more often it is disguised. Many a woman (and man) who denounces the sinner receives from her contemplation of that sinner the ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... fly-fishing is impossible, he has become a stout-hearted apologist for the worm. His apparatus is most singular. It consists of a very long, cheap rod, stout enough to smash through bushes, and with the stiffest tip obtainable. The lower end of the butt, below the reel, fits into the socket of a huge extra butt of bamboo, which R. carries unconcernedly. To reach a distant hole, or to fish the lower end of a ripple, R. simply locks his reel, slips on the extra butt, and there is a fourteen-foot rod ready for action. He fishes with a line unbelievably ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... saw, too, the crouching figure of a native, armed with a gun, in the shadow of the undergrowth. Without hesitation the brave fellow rushed out, fell upon the native before he could dart away, wrenched the gun from him, and brained him with the butt. A cry of the utmost horror rang out upon the air, and, uttering it, another native bounded out from a hiding-place close to where the first had been killed, and flew zigzagging across the open, where Cedric was. ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... ill-luck which one can bear, not indeed without grumbling, but without rancour. The man who is unlucky to experience these things at least has the consolation of other people's sympathy; but the man who is the butt of inanimate things has no one's sympathy. We may be on a motor bus which overturns and nobody will say that it is our fault, but if our collar deliberately and maliciously squeaks, everybody will say that we ought to buy ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... heavy black belt about his waist. Attached to the belt were at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, another pistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a glassy looking tube fitted to a pistol-butt, and a blue-black ugly thing which was ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... to remove it. The doctor hinted that the heart clasped the bit by strong muscular exertion, with a view to his own private use; but this being speculative merely, I only mention the fact. As he was now nearing the water rapidly, a rope was slipped round the butt of the helm, a quick turn made around a stiff sapling on the bank of the river, and all hands made fast to the rope. At this moment, just as they were all braced, the alligator made his plunge into the water, and the sapling, I don't remember ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... me; called me into his dining-room, locked the doors, then ordered me to pull off my shirt. I told him no, sir, I wouldn't; right away he went and got the cowhide, and gave me about twenty over my head with the butt. He tore my shirt off, after I would not pull it off; he ordered me to cross my hands. I didn't do that. After I wouldn't do that he went and got his gun. and broke the breech of that over my head. He then seized up the fire-tongs and struck me over the head ever so often. The next thing he took ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... only to Galloway folk of the ancient time, in the word "cuif." It conveys at once the ideas of inefficiency and folly, of simplicity and the ignorance of it. The cuif is a feckless person of the male sex, who is a recognized butt for a whole neighbourhood ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... myself, I lifted my head slyly up, and with horror I beheld that the wolf had ate his way into the horse's body; it was not long before he had fairly forced himself into it, when I took my advantage, and fell upon him with the butt-end of my whip. This unexpected attack in his rear frightened him so much, that he leaped forward with all his might; the horse's carcass dropped on the ground; but in his place the wolf was in harness, and I on my part whipping him continually, we both arrived ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... a moment turned faint and dizzy, then, setting the butt of his rifle on to the stone, he leaned upon the barrel till his brain cleared. It was well for him that he had not known what lay beneath when, but now, he thrust his foot into vacancy, for then his senses ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... and of strife which must have reached even this hallowed spot, had fled into the more remote portions of the palace, or mayhap had even joined the throngs in the Forum, on the principle that 'tis better to form an unit in an angry crowd, rather than to be its butt. ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... look of terrified anxiety leapt into Vasilovich's eyes as the professor produced the handsome little weapon; but the placid manner of the latter as he tendered the pistol for examination seemed to reassure him, and grasping the butt, he looked ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... ye, where didst thou purchase that rich Canary we drank to-day? Tell me, that I may adore the Spigot, and sacrifice to the Butt: the Juice was divine, into which I must dip my Rosary, and then bless all things that I would have bold ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... democracy of Leigh Hunt, the unhappy lapse of Hazlitt, the drunkenness of Lamb. Assumptions so open to ridicule, and so disparaging to far abler men, told as disadvantageously upon his fame as upon his character. He became the butt of contemporary satire. Horace Smith, Moore, Shelley, Byron, lampooned him savagely. The latter made him the hero of his wicked "Vision of Judgment," and to him dedicated his "Don Juan." The dedication was suppressed; but no chance offered in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... in bed, and lights out, than I was favoured with all sorts of missiles pitched over the partitions on either side with extraordinary accuracy. A book from Langrish hit me on the ear, and a wet sponge from Trimble moistened my cheek. And when I sought shelter under the sheets, the butt-end of a fishing-rod in the ribs drew me from my hiding-place, and a clever cast with a hooked pin by Langrish relieved me of my outer covering altogether. The footsteps of the monitor on duty deprived me of the privilege of making an audible ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... moved by something that was not myself, I gradually got the gun into position, grasping it firmly and pressing the butt home, while I carefully sighted the monster, wondering a little what the consequences would be if I missed, whether I should be attacked, and whether I should have time to get away. But directly after every sense was concentrated ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... retort the frown of others; to wrestle with the anxiety of the heart, and to depend on the caprice of the excited nerves. It is something to feel one part of the drama of disgrace is over, and that I may wait unmolested in my den until, for one time only, I am again the butt of the unthinking and the monster of the crowd. My lord, I have now done! To you, whom the law deems the prisoner's counsel,—to you, gentlemen of the jury, to whom it has delegated his fate,—I leave the ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the court-fool was generally not a wit, but a naive blockhead, who believed all that was said, and was therefore a butt for jests. He only placed a letter in Cercas' hand, and disappeared. When Cercas had read the letter, she changed colour and seemed to become a different being. Overcome with rage, she ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... hunting on the 23d of February, when a pack of about twenty wolves attacked him. He jumped upon a big rock, which was soon surrounded, and there he fought the savage beasts off with the butt of his gun until he got a sure shot, when he killed one, and while the others fought over and devoured the carcass, he made the best of the opportunity to get back into camp. It was a most fortunate escape, as he ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... out, and drives the butt of his spear into the earth, and throws himself into the ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... him and went on, but none of them noticed that Tom Ross, who was last, turned softly aside from the path, and then swung the butt of his rifle with all his might. But all heard the impact and the sound of a fall, and, as they whirled around, ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... rude and offensive. Those who wished to go to her house were forced to put up with Ferdishenko. Possibly the latter was not mistaken in imagining that he was received simply in order to annoy Totski, who disliked him extremely. Gania also was often made the butt of the jester's sarcasms, who used this method of keeping in ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... kindly touch—has become an uncourteous monster of 35 heads and 3 appendices—I see no early end of it. The British Foreign Office has a lot of lawyers in its great back offices. They and our lawyers will now butt and rebut as long as a goat of them is left alive on either side. The two governments—the two human, kindly groups—have retired: they don't touch, on this matter, now. The lawyers will have the time of their lives, each smelling ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick |
