"Penknife" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time, to catch every word of their variously modulated conversation. They were seated at different sides of a light-stand, on which a candle was burning, she assiduously engaged, to all appearance, with her needle on some light sewing work, and he diligently, with his penknife, on a pine chip, which he was essaying to shape into a human profile, that of his mistress, it might be surmised from the sly glances with which he seemed occasionally to scan her features. Though now dressed in his smartest fustian, he yet appeared awkward and ill at ease; ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... you mourn ever meet your eyes again! You are living your daily life among trifles that one death-stroke may make relics. One false step, one luckless accident, an obstacle on the track of a train, the tangling of the cord in shifting a sail, and the penknife, the pen, the papers, the trivial articles of dress and clothing, which to-day you toss idly and jestingly from hand to hand, may become dread memorials of that awful tragedy whose deep abyss ever underlies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... competent judges, who assert that its tout ensemble a more perfect piece of ingenious workmanship they have never seen; nor could the most experienced ship carpenter do more justice to the various compartments, appendages, and riggings than has its mute architect, with but very indifferent apparatus—a penknife, a file, and a bradawl being the principal instruments employed in the work. It measures exactly six feet from the figure head to the helm, and is precisely the same extent in height from the top of ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... connived at nothing, Madame, and I know of no adventurer." Uncle Bob took his penknife from his pocket and tapped on the table with it. His manner was legal in the extreme. He was ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer, come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. And this same half-faced fellow, Shadow; give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat; how swiftly will this Feeble the woman's tailor run off! O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... rattle as she pitched down the last six stairs of the first flight headlong. Let us hope she has not broken her leg. I meanwhile am driving a silver pronged fork into the Bourbon corks, and the blade of my own penknife on the other side. ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... the Sahib's knife?" asked Moussa Isa, "I have broken my pencil and cannot draw." Mr. Edward Jones picked up the penknife that lay on his desk, the cheap article of restricted utility supplied to Government Offices by the Stationery Department, and handed it to Moussa Isa. Even as he took it with respectful salaam, Moussa Isa summed up its possibilities. ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... valiant dung-beetle is capable of "evading the accidental" (which to Fabre constitutes one of the distinctive characteristics of the intelligence), since it immediately intervenes if with the point of a penknife we open the roof of its nest and lay bare its egg. "The fragments raised by the knife are immediately brought together and soldered, so that no trace is left of the injury, and all is once more ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... try to walk. Be still," answered the boy. "They'll be here soon." Slowly and carefully he took off the boot and sock from the broken leg, and, with his penknife, opened the seam of the corduroy trouser. "I believe I could set ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... little, dripped down the front of Frank's white flannel coat, the glorious crimson bound coat of the first eleven. He did not care in the least. He had lapsed hopelessly. No urchin in the lower school, brewing cocoa over a form room fire, ladling out condensed milk with the blade of a penknife, would have been more dead to the decencies of life than this degenerate hero ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... on light-coloured woods can be obtained by the following method: Cut a stencil pattern in stout cartridge paper (this is best done upon a piece of glass with the point of a sharp penknife), and place it on the centre of a panel or wherever required, and have ready some gas-black mixed with thin polish; apply this with a camel-hair pencil over the cut-out pattern, and when it is removed finish the lines and touch up with a finer tool. The work should be first bodied-in, ...
— French Polishing and Enamelling - A Practical Work of Instruction • Richard Bitmead
... be a clumsy way. I'll show you a better." And while she looked at him wondering what he meant, he turned from her and in an instant, bringing up a chair, had stepped upon it and made with his penknife a line across what he judged would be the top of the picture. Feeling along the length of this with his finger he cut a perpendicular line from each end of it, so that the tapestry fell down like the end of a broad ribbon, and showed that Elizabeth had not been at fault in her supposition. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... Dandie's education had been more carefully and continuously carried on, than that of his before mentioned brethren. He selected his master's hat from a number of others, or a card chosen by his master from a whole pack; picked his master's penknife from a heap of others, and any particular article which he might have been told to find, although he would have to search among a multitude of others belonging to the same person; proving that it was not smell which guided him, but an understanding of what he was required to do. One evening, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... laboriously copying in pencil Veronese's "Christ in the House of Levi" (the original being a mile away, at the Accademia) from an old copper plate, whistling the while. Having no india-rubber he corrected his errors either with a penknife or a dirty thumb. Art was then more his mistress than Pecunia, for on this occasion he never left his work, although more than one Baedeker was flying the red ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... Harry Esmond, who was indeed but just come to himself, bethought him of a similar accident which he had seen on a ride from Newmarket to Cambridge, and taking off a sleeve of my lord's coat, Harry, with a penknife, opened a vein in his arm, and was greatly relieved, after a moment, to see the blood flow. He was near half an hour before he came to himself, by which time Doctor Tusher and little Frank arrived, and found my lord not a corpse indeed, but as pale ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and this she pushed gently at first and then vigorously without producing the slightest impression. She still had her bag, a small affair of black moire, which hung from her belt, in which was nothing more formidable than a penknife, a small bottle of smelling salts and a pair of scissors. The latter she had used for cutting out those paragraphs from the daily newspapers which referred to ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... It is thickly covered with long, fine, silvery-white needles that glisten in the sun. Its stem is hollow and filled with a white pith like the elder. After the prickly bark is stripped off the punk can be picked out through the fenestra with a penknife, which occupation affords pleasant pastime for a leisure hour. When thus furbished up the unsightly club ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... 12th of July, just a week afterwards, numerous experiments as to the capability of different substances for conveying the magnetic influence were tried upon her. A slip of crumpled paper, magnetised by being held in the hand, produced no effect. A penknife magnetised her immediately. A piece of oilskin had no influence. A watch placed on her palm sent her to sleep immediately, if the metal part were first placed in contact with her; the glass did not affect her so quickly. As she was leaving the room, a sleeve-cuff made of brown-holland, which ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... his pockets, looking sternly down on the letters. Then he took a little gazetteer off a tiny shelf near the bell-rope, where was a railway guide, an English dictionary, a French ditto, and a Bible, and with his sharp penknife he deftly sliced from its place in the work of reference the folded ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... strikes a man, and afterwards I sell my horse, and after that the man dies, the horse shall be forfeited. Hence it is, that, in all indictments for homicide, until very lately it has been necessary to state the instrument causing the death and its value, as that the stroke was given by a certain penknife, value sixpence, so as to secure the forfeiture. It is said that a steam-engine has been ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... broke the thigh of a captain of infantry, who fell insensible. He was seized by the soldiers, who threw him into the sea. We saved him, and placed him on a barrel, whence he was taken by the rebels, who wished to put out his eyes with a penknife. Exasperated by so much brutality, we no longer restrained ourselves, but rushed in upon them, and charged them with fury. Sword in hand we traversed the line which the soldiers formed, and many paid with their lives the errors of their revolt. ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... stroke; he meanwhile stood aside with an air of smiling superiority, mingled with a good deal of admiration for the slight active figure arrayed in the blue kirtle and scarlet bodice, on which the warm rays of the late sun fell with so much amorous tenderness. Poor little Lilla! A penknife would have made as much impression as her valorous blows produced on the inflexible, gnarled, knotty old stump she essayed to split in twain. Flushed and breathless with her efforts, she looked prettier ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... this advice, but could not do so effectually. Pierston then experimented by slipping his hand into the crevice till he could just reach the buttons of her boot, which, however, he could not unfasten any more than she. Taking his penknife from his pocket he tried again, and cut off the buttons one by one. The boot unfastened, and out ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... for which his master had sent him. He held it out on a couple of fingers, as one might a penknife, but Tom took both hands to set it on ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... darted upon Belinda a look, which fixed her to the spot where she stood. It said, "Come not a step nearer, at your peril!" Belinda's blood ran cold—she had no longer any doubt that this was insanity. She shut the penknife which lay upon the table, and put it ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... gone through. Rupert Gascoigne, as the Englishman was called, was interrogated, searched, deprived of money, watch, penknife, and pencil-case; his description was noted down, and then he was asked whether he would go into the common prison, or pay for the accommodation of ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... piece of paper, opened the capsule, and, let the white powder fall on the paper. He looked critically at the powder, and a shade of astonishment came over his face. He picked up the penknife, took a particle on the tip of it, and touched ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... the last of the pens, brushing away with it the quill-chips from her desk first, and she looked at me with a kind, wondering face. I brushed them away, clicked the penknife into my pocket, made her a bow, and walked off—for the bell was ringing ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he used to say. Then he extended the cock's wings, and cut each feather, one after another, to a point, and thus the wings were furnished with darts. So much for the enemy's eyes, he would say. Then he scraped its claws with a penknife, sharpened its nails, fitted it with spurs of sharp steel, spat on its head, spat on its neck, anointed it with spittle, as they used to rub oil over athletes; then set it down in the pit, a redoubtable champion, exclaiming, "That's how to make ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... his deeds. It was hard, cold, despotic, yet in judging it we should consider the woulds of that quaint old writer, Thomas Fuller, when he says, "No pen hath originally written the life of this King but what was made with a monkish penknife, and no wonder if his picture seems bad, which was ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... he always contrived to be discovered rummaging among his papers, hunting for a stray note or mending a pen; but he spent the whole time in his study on puerilities, reading the newspaper through from end to end, cutting figures out of corks with his penknife, and drawing patterns on his blotting-paper. He would turn over the leaves of his Cicero to see if anything applicable to the events of the day might catch his eye, and drag his quotation by the heels into the conversation that evening saying, "There is a passage in Cicero which ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... and rhyme, I grant you—long and short—but show me the afflatus! They make verse with a penknife, like their wooden nutmegs. They are perfect Chinese for ingenuity and imitation, and the resemblance to the real Simon-pure is very perfect—externally. But when it comes to grating the nut for negus, we ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... the process of learning their physical properties, and at which the results of carelessness cannot be understood; but to a later period, when the meaning and advantages of property are perceived. When a boy, old enough to possess a penknife, uses it so roughly as to snap the blade, or leaves it in the grass by some hedge-side where he was cutting a stick, a thoughtless parent, or some indulgent relative, will commonly forthwith buy him another, not seeing that, by doing this, a valuable lesson is prevented. ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... cabinet, it had at some time been broken, and this rough substitute provided. Stimulated curiosity would not allow her to recede now. She fetched a screwdriver, withdrew the screw, pulled the door open with a penknife, and found inside a cavity about ten inches square. The ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... PENKNIFE ICE. A name given by Parry to ice, the surface of which is composed of numberless irregular vertical crystals, nearly close together, from five to ten inches long, about half an inch broad, and pointed at both ends. Supposed ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... real reason for getting rid of him. He was old and strange, but he behaved himself and played with the children, both Ruth's couple and little Jim; he was a huge success. He ousted the grandfather—so much more vivid were his tales, so much more amusing the things he could do with a penknife and a bit of wood. Whistles, whips, boats, all seemed to grow under his gnarled old hands, with their discoloured and broken nails, as though without effort. And watching his success, knowing by some instinct he would not have told for fear of misconstruction to any but Judy, who always ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... poverty, had attracted. Rather than again subject himself to a similar situation, he summoned his young messenger; and, by her assistance, furnished himself with an English hat and coat, whilst with his penknife he cut away the embroidery of the order from the cloth to ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Museum drawings one often sees the liberties with the penknife by which the artist would secure difficult effects of snow, or of light on foliage. And sometimes in the margin there are pencil studies from which figures in the illustration have been re-drawn. And nearly always not altogether ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... to contain a wonderful quantity of things, almost all new to me. There were two brushes, twelve combs, three pair of scissors, a penknife, a little bottle of ink, some pens, a woman's thimble, a piece of wax, a case of needles, thread and silk, a piece of India ink, and a camel's-hair brush, sealing-wax, sticking plaster, a box of pills, some tape and bobbin, paper of pins, a ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... on the cage and says, "Huh, cheap!" He takes a paper clip out of his pocket and opens it out, and I think maybe he has a penknife, too, and next thing I know ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... She untied her silk apron, tore off the strings—ripped up the sleeve of Mr. Stillinghast's shirt, and wound the ribbon tightly around his arm above the elbow; and while waiting for the vein to swell, she took a small penknife from her pocket, and opened the blade—it was thin, keen, and pointed. She had found it among her father's papers years ago, and kept it about her to scrape the points of her ivory knitting-needles. In another ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... inspection did not seem thoroughly to satisfy, for in another instant he had lifted a glass of water from the tray and, going to the nearest wall, began to moisten the paper at one of the edges. When it was quite wet, he took out his penknife, but before using it, he looked behind him, first at the door, and then at the window. The door was shut; the window seemingly guarded by an outside blind; but the former was not locked, and the latter showed, upon closer inspection, a space between the slats ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... a sound of hollowness beneath the tread. Dust and litter covered the entire floor, but having cleared the top of this particular stone, a ring was discovered, lying flat in a circular groove cut to receive it. The blade of a penknife served to raise it from its resting place, and Dr. Cairn, standing astride across the trap, tugged at the ring, and, without great difficulty, raised the stone block ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... the click of a key in the front door lock as he groped his way to the window curtains and pressed back into the semi-circular recess that led out onto a window balcony. As he did so he unlatched the heavily grilled balcony window, drew out his penknife and slit ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... felt of the candlewick. It was quite stiff and hard. But not considering this a satisfactory proof that it had not been lately burning—the tip of a wick soon dries after the flame is blown out—I took out my penknife and attacked the wick at what might be called its root; whereupon I found that where the threads had been protected by the wax they were comparatively soft and penetrable. The conclusion was obvious. True to my instinct in this matter the woman had not lifted her weapon in ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... stray figures. He has everything cross-indexed neat and accurate. He's that way about everything, always a spare umbrella and an extra pair of rubbers in his locker, and he carries a pearl-handle penknife in a chamois case. ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... of canvas up one side with my penknife. It contained three long fragments of paper, a thick, expensive, highly glazed paper. Top, bottom and left-hand side of each was trim and glossy: the fourth side showed a broken edge as though it had been ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... newspapers were read by him, and he fancied that he was Lord Castlereagh. Acting precisely by the accounts recorded in the newspapers, he went through the same forms, and actually divided his carotid artery, using his penknife, as had done the unfortunate peer. Peace be with him! To proceed. I was driving in a gig, a distance of about forty miles from town, on the Northern Road, when, at the bottom of a steep hill, we fell in with a group who were walking ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... investigation of the scandal and the condign punishment of the guilty ones. Confusion and panic followed in more than one family of exalted station. A nobleman of proud lineage burnt all his papers and then opened the veins of his wrists with a penknife, and so escaped the ignominy of a trial in court. Another submitted to arrest, but no sooner saw his prison door closed upon him than he despatched himself by piercing his heart with a breast-pin. Two others vanished completely from sight and hearing the very day the edict ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... while the horses are changing, or after breakfast or dinner for a quarter of an hour at a time, so that it is impossible that it should tire me. I owe all my present conveniencies for writing to various Sneyds: I use Emma Sneyd's pocket-inkstand; my ivory-cutter penknife was the gift of my Aunt Charlotte, and my little Sappho seal a present ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... when starting to paint, if I find the brushes in disorder, and a ruler or penknife gone, I feel inclined to lose patience, and have to keep a firm hold over myself not to betray my feelings. Of course I may ask for these needful things, and if I do so humbly I am not disobeying Our Lord's command. I am then like the poor who ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... her chair and went to her favourite tree; Merrill followed her with a ready penknife. They came back with a fine half-blown rose on a leafy twig about nine inches long. As she held it out to Phadrig he declined it with a bow and a wave of ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... returned in the evening. Cordiani, who felt uneasy, came to inquire from me what my intentions were, but I rushed towards him with an open penknife in my hand, and he beat a hasty retreat. I had entirely abandoned the idea of relating the night's scandalous adventure to the doctor, for such a project I could only entertain in a moment of excitement and rage. The next ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... speed with despatches. Lieutenant Hadley had returned to consciousness to find himself a prisoner in hospital, somewhat bruised, and robbed of his valuables, but not otherwise disabled. We two concluded to start for Washington by way of Kelly's Ford. I traded my penknife for a haversack of corn-bread with one of the Confederate nurses, and a wounded officer, Colonel Miller of a New York regiment, gave us a pocket compass. I provided myself with a stout pole, which I used with both hands in lieu of my left foot. At 9 P.M. ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... pencils and a fountain pen; lower right waist-coat, match-box and a small stamp book; right-hand pocket coat, pair of gray suede gloves, new, size seven and a half; left-hand pocket, gun-metal cigarette case studded with pearls, half-full of Egyptian cigarettes. The trousers pockets contained a gold penknife, a small amount of money in bills and change, and a handkerchief with the ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fell to pieces under Mark's vigorous blows, and then his penknife assisted Ruth's shears. Beneath the burlaps was a thick layer of straw; then came heavy wrapping-paper, and, under this, layers and wads of news-paper, until the children began to think the whole package ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... very brave with your bragging tongue; But if you had been there, you'd have sung A very different tune Poor Blue Beard! He would have been afraid Of a little boy with a penknife blade, Or ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... decanting off against the finger. Dry the crucible in a warm place; and when dry, but whilst still black, take the gold up on a small piece of pure lead. Half a grain of lead is sufficient, and it is best to hold it on the point of a blunt penknife, and press it on the gold in the crucible. The latter generally adheres. Transfer to a small smooth cupel and place in the muffle. When the cupellation has finished, the button of gold is measured ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... thoroughly frightened. I can see him still, swaying as he stood, with eyes bleared and pendulous lips—but I sat there quiet and outwardly unmoved, as is always my impulse in danger till I see some way of escape, only grasping a penknife in my pocket, with a desperate resolve to use my feeble weapon as soon as the need arose. The man came towards me with a fatuous leer, when a jarring noise was heard and ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... interrupting. "This is nothing worse than watching, spying, and following a creditor. Have confidence in me; I shall find out if Lady Alexandrine sticks a penknife in the contract, which appears to me quite improbable; for, without flattery, general, you are too handsome a man, and too ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... inner angle between one bed of rock and the next, and the whole mass will be found as firmly united as a piece of glass. There is absolutely no crack between the beds,—no, not so much as would allow the blade of a penknife to enter for a quarter of an inch;[124] but such a subtle disposition to symmetry of fracture in the heart of the solid rock, that the next thunderbolt which strikes on that edge of it will rend away a shell-shaped fragment or series of fragments; and will either break it ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... Peterkin, fumbling in his trousers pocket, from which he drew forth a small penknife with only one blade, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... pigeon, and snapped several caps on the other, which refused to go off. As we approached Henderson, quite a crowd had gathered at the hotel to see the arrest, and just as the stage swung up to the sidewalk, the Frenchman took out of his pocket a small penknife, the largest blade of which could not have been over four inches long. He opened it so quietly that it did not excite my apprehensions in the least, although I had my right hand on my six-shooter, intending to draw and cover him the moment the stage stopped. He made ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... species wraps himself in his rugs, and rolls into his corner, defiantly, but not aggressively, boorish; the Italian is almost a gentleman; the German is apt to take sausage out of a newspaper and eat it with his penknife; the Frenchman aggravates human nature beyond endurance by his restless ill-breeding, and his evident intention not only to keep all his own advantages, but to steal some of yours upon the first occasion. There were ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... The ends or points of the nails should be pared once every week or ten days, according to the rapidity of their growth, which somewhat varies with the season of the year and the habit of the individual. This is best done with a sharp penknife or nail-knife. Scissors are less convenient for the purpose, and have the disadvantage of straining and distorting ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... up with a round turn, found herself face to face with the truth of things and, deaf to the incessant jangle of the Merry-go-round, had discovered that Martin was not merely the gallant and obliging boy, playing a game, trifling on the edge of reality, but the man with the other blade of the penknife who, like his prototype in the fairy tale, had the ordained right to her as she had ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... up in his blankets. This was the direct result of his previous inaction. He moved only with pain; and yet, by the stern north-country code, he made no complaint and moved as rapidly as possible. Each time he raised his knee a sharp pain stabbed his groin, as though he had been stuck by a penknife; each time he bent his ankle in the recover the mal de raquette twisted his calves, and stretched his ankle tendons until he felt that his very feet were insecurely attached and would drop off. During the evening he sat quiet, but after he had fallen asleep from the ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... the assistance of the woman, placed my fallen adversary in a sitting posture. I put my hand to his heart, and felt a slight pulsation. "He's not dead," said I, "only stunned; if he were let blood, he would recover presently." I produced a penknife which I had in my pocket, and, baring the arm of the Tinman, was about to make the necessary incision, when the woman gave me a violent blow, and, pushing me aside, exclaimed, "I'll tear the eyes out of your head, if you offer to touch ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... cigar-case. He selected a weed with a discriminating care that I felt cast an unwarranted reflection on the quality of the cigars I smoked. I watched him in silence while he cut off the end with a neat, precise stroke of his penknife, lit the cigar and blew a cloud of blue smoke out of his mouth. All the time I was staring at him I could feel Moira's eyes on me, and I knew that she was wondering what made me so boorish and morose. Or, perhaps, with a woman's keen instinct for ferreting ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... you," said Lapham, jabbing the point of his penknife into the writing-pad on the desk before him, "when I hear women complaining nowadays that their lives are stunted and empty, I want to tell 'em about my MOTHER'S life. I could paint it ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... (Boot Blacking). Uwantit (Combined pocket twoblade penknife with corkscrew, nailfile ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... had occasion to go to Formosa on business, he found it in an old rice hong (shop), and Patridge's name among the rest, spelled with two "r's" (Partridge), whereupon he could not resist the temptation of cutting off the list with his penknife and, on his return to Shanghai, triumphantly handing it to ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... Europe. About eight years ago, while eating a boiled toucan, the thought struck me that the colours in the bill of a preserved specimen might be kept as bright as those in life. A series of experiments proved this beyond a doubt. If you take your penknife and cut away the roof of the upper mandible, you will find that the space betwixt it and the outer shell contains a large collection of veins and small osseous fibres running in all directions through the whole extent of the bill. Clear away all these with your knife, and you ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... up. "I had a picnic last Monday," he said; "father let me cut all the blinders off our head-stalls with my penknife." ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... mere boy he discovered several mechanical principles, made models of mills and spinning-wheels, and by means of beads on strings worked out an excellent map of the heavens. Ferguson made remarkable things with a common penknife. How many great men have mounted the hill of knowledge by out-of-the-way paths! Gifford worked his intricate problems with a shoemaker's awl on a bit of leather. Rittenhouse first ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... my sister cut it, but it's frightful. It looks as if one had tried to mow a lawn with a pair of scissors, or shear a sheep with a penknife.' ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... which attacked me with incredible fury. But I killed it cleverly. Yes, it was a clever thing, undoubtedly, to split a lion in two, from the tip of its nose to the extremity of its tail, with one stroke of a penknife—" ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Well," he said, "I sat up till past twelve last night reading your book; it is excellent, and I gave it to my lad before starting him off. But there is just one chapter in it, called a 'Strange Companion,' which I took the precaution of previously cutting out with my penknife; and my boy in his after years will thank me for not putting any such ideas in his head, but having kept him the pure and innocent lad that he is." I need not say that it was the one chapter that would have put the boy on his guard. Oh, befooled and purblind father! I happened ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... inconsiderable proficients in surgery, of which indeed we happened to have more direct evidence. One of our seamen, when he was on shore, run a large splinter into his foot, and the surgeon being on board, one of his comrades endeavoured to take it out with a penknife; but after putting the poor fellow to a good deal of pain, was obliged to give it over. Our good old Indian, who happened to be present, then called over one of his countrymen that was standing on the opposite side of the river, who, having looked at the seaman's foot, went immediately down to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... examine them, with an absorbed look. The pot that held the six spindling shoots had streaks of white mould down its sides, and the earth was black and hard with the deluge of water with which Mr. Dale's anxious care usually began the season. He began now to loosen it gently with his penknife, saying, "I'm sure they'll flourish if you ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... caused occupied an important place among the provisions of early English criminal law. It became a necessary part of an indictment to state the nature and value of the weapon employed—as, that the stroke was given by a certain penknife, of the value of sixpence—so that the king might have his deodand. Accidents on the high seas did not cause forfeiture, being beyond the domain of the common law; but it would appear that in the case of ships in fresh water the law held good. The king might grant his right to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... [51] Helicon, Then roister doister in his oily terms, Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoever he meets... Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch'd terms, Cleanly to gird our looser libertines?... Ay, there is one, that backs a paper steed, And manageth a penknife gallantly, Strikes his poinardo at a button's breadth, Brings the great battering-ram of terms to towns; And, at first volley of his cannon-shot, Batters the walls of the ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... should be added, and there was no resource but to hop or crawl down the rugged path, in the hope of finding a forked sapling from which I could extemporize a crutch. With endless pain and trouble I reached a thicket, and was feebly working on a branch with my penknife, when the sound of a heavy footstep ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... tubes as shown in Fig. 43, fill all with dry soil well pressed down, then add water carefully till it appears in the glass tubes. Next day mark with stamp paper the level of liquid in each tube and then leave one jar {91} untouched, carefully cultivate with a penknife every two or three days the top quarter of an inch of the second, and cover the third with a layer of grass. After a week notice again the levels of the liquid and mark with paper; you find that the water has fallen most in the untouched jar, showing that more has ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell
... magic of her touch behold Transformed at once the warlike aims of old! The mighty falchion to a penknife shrinks, The mailed meshes from the purse's links; The sturdy lance a bodkin now appears, A bunch of tooth-picks once a hundred spears; A painted toy behold the keen-edged axe! See men of iron turned to dolls ...
— The Hawarden Visitors' Hand-Book - Revised Edition, 1890 • William Henry Gladstone
... name he assumes—'Pom-de-Tair.' A commissary of police sat yawning at the end of the orchestra, his secretary by his side, while the orators stammer out fragments of would-be thunderbolts. Commissary of police yawns more wearily than before, secretary disdains to use his pen, seizes his penknife and pares his nails. Up rises a wild-haired, weak-limbed silhouette of a man, and affecting a solemnity of mien which might have become the virtuous Guizot, moves this resolution: 'The French people condemns Charles Louis Napoleon the Third to the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a good clean one, steady it between your palms while with your fingers you separate the bristles at the tip. Pull them apart, thus splitting the rib down the center. If by chance it should not split evenly, take your sharpened penknife and cut ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... were identical. Locke with great care examined every feature of them, looking for a clue. He took one of the whole candles from the candlestick which the butler had brought in and scraped the wax from in with his penknife. He examined the particles carefully, then approached the candlestick which stood on the table the fatal night, and very carefully removed the wax from the stumps of candles which were still in ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... Casting a loving glance at the letter, he laid it on his writing-table; then turning away, so as not to be seen by Ephraim, he took up the two books, and looked carefully at their heavily-gilded covers. Frederick smiled, and, taking a penknife, he hastily cut off the backs of the books, and took out a number of folded papers. As the prince saw them, a look of triumph ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... granulated sugar, three-fourths pint water, boil to a light crack; set off, add four ounces glucose (or the amount of cream tartar you can hold on the point of a penknife); set back on the fire, just let come to a boil to dissolve the glucose; set off again, add immediately one-fourth ounce shaved paraffine, six ounces cream dough cut up fine, one grated cocoanut. Stir all until it creams, pour out into a frame on brown paper dusted with flour, mark and ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... penknife and proceeded to impale his cigar upon the blade thereof. "No," he said, to John's proffer of the box, "this 'll last quite a spell yet. Wa'al," he resumed after a moment, in reply to John's remark, "viewin' it all by itself, it was ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... dextrous scissors ready to produce The flying squirrel or the long-neck'd goose, Or dancing girls with hands together join'd, Or tall spruce-trees with wreaths of roses twin'd, The well-dress'd dolls whose paper form display'd, Thy penknife's labor ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... surgeon came, he took him aside, and desired he would inform him freely whether the wound were mortal, because in that case, he said, he had some affairs to settle, relating to his family. The blade of the penknife, broken by the violence of the blow against a rib, within a quarter of an inch of the handle, was dropt out (I know not whether from the wound, or his clothes) as the surgeon was going to dress him; he ordered it to be taken up, and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... nothing less than death, and death in a few minutes. I lay down in the bottom of the car and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so far succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood. Having no lancet, I was obliged to open a vein in my arm with the blade of a penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a basin-full most of the worst symptoms were gone. The difficulty of breathing, however, was diminished ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... compliment calmly—did not indeed seem to hear it. She was already scratching out the offending words with a sharp penknife, and daintily rewriting them. Then she ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... officer, as she for a moment carelessly showed the upper part of her person, from a slight eminence near the rifle pits, and was fired at by one of the enemy's sharp-shooters. The ball lodged in a tree, close by her side, from which she deliberately dug it out with her penknife, retaining it as a memento ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... a meal-chest, picked up a straw and put it into his mouth. Elbridge sat down at the other end, pulled out his jack-knife, opened the penknife-blade, and began sticking it into the lid of the meal-chest. The Doctor's man had a story to tell, and he meant to get all the enjoyment out of it. So he told it with every luxury of circumstance. Mr. Veneer's man heard it all with open mouth. No ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a snapshot photograph of a young officer in khaki and puttees, not very well taken, and badly mounted on a bit of white pasteboard that might have been cut from a bandbox with a penknife; but it was all she had, and there could never ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... ready to hear about more things which can be made with a penknife? Then I am ready ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... he took a penknife from his pocket, and putting his hat upon his knee, began to busy himself in ripping off the blue cockade which he had worn all day; at the same time humming a psalm tune which had been very popular in the morning, and dwelling on it with a ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Close by, in the side of the circular hill that surrounds the lake, stands the famous Grotto del Cane, closed with a door to enable the keeper to get a little money from the foreigners who come to visit it. You may be sure I was careful not to trim any of the myrtles with my penknife. ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... theatres, which gave the King offence. The King agreed with his illegitimate son, who had been born abroad, and whom he had made DUKE OF MONMOUTH, to take the following merry vengeance. To waylay him at night, fifteen armed men to one, and to slit his nose with a penknife. Like master, like man. The King's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, was strongly suspected of setting on an assassin to murder the DUKE OF ORMOND as he was returning home from a dinner; and that ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... snow begins to fall, It's like a bird upon the wall; And when the bird away does fly, It's like an eagle in the sky; And when the sky begins to roar, It's like a lion at the door; And when the door begins to crack, It's like a stick across your back; And when your back begins to smart, It's like a penknife in your heart; And when your heart begins to bleed, You're dead, and dead, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... his eyes turned in his head; he uttered a cry, staggered, and fell into the arms of one of his lords. A physician who had charge of the royal retorts and crucibles happened to be present. He had no lances; but he opened a vein with a penknife. The blood flowed freely; but the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the dark with a pen would do the same with a penknife, were he equally safe from detection and ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... to carve her own initials, but he insisted upon substituting his penknife and assisting her in the task, to which she consented. As they stood side by side, he guiding her hand, and his long, soft locks playing against her cheek, or mingling with her own, she surrendered herself to a feeling of unalloyed happiness, when all at once Miss Thusa's ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... stock of medicines with me; and a small phial of quinine, which I had bought at Para in 1851, but never yet had use for, now came in very useful. I took for each dose as much as would lie on the tip of a penknife-blade, mixing it with warm camomile tea. The first few days after my first attack I could not stir, and was delirious during the paroxysms of fever; but the worst being over, I made an effort to rouse myself, knowing that incurable disorders ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Your penknife! Quick, sir, quick! Not that old branch—a sapling. There, that's it. Now you shall hear me ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... seizing a penknife, cut the first knot. "Oh, Cecilia, I am undone if Katrine comes in! Make haste, make haste! I can only let you have a peep or two. We must do it up again as well as ever," continued Lady Castlefort, while Lady Cecilia, fast as possible, went on cut, cut, cutting the packthread to ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... the book, close to the binding. A page had been cut out with a sharp penknife, so deftly that they had passed it twice ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... recruits of the army of Sir John Falstaff. "A half-faced fellow," so thin that Sir John said, "A foeman might as well level his gun at the edge of a penknife" as at such a starveling.—Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV. act ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... turn away—for a time at any rate—from whittling of wood, and to speak of cutting of cork—that is ordinary corks. So many things can be constructed with them by the help of a penknife and liquid glue. ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... out while he was telling his story. He cleaned it out methodically, drew from his pocket a cake of Cavendish tobacco, and, after cutting off with a penknife the necessary quantity, refilled his pipe and lit it. The way in which he performed all these little operations betrayed long habit. He had ceased to speak while he was relighting his pipe, and kept on whistling between his teeth. Hermann looked on—silently. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... he placed it upon his bosom, which was now streaming with his blood! He had taken the momentary opportunity afforded him by her absence at the window to stab himself to the heart with a penknife which he had contrived to conceal upon his person. Horror-struck, the affrighted woman would have called out for assistance, but, seizing her by the wrist, he sternly stayed her speech ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... frise[Fr], porcupine, hedgehog, brier, bramble, thistle; comb; awn, beggar's lice, bur, burr, catchweed[obs3], cleavers, clivers[obs3], goose, grass, hairif[obs3], hariff, flax comb, hackle, hatchel[obs3], heckle. wedge; knife edge, cutting edge; blade, edge tool, cutlery, knife, penknife, whittle, razor, razor blade, safety razor, straight razor, electric razor; scalpel; bistoury[obs3], lancet; plowshare, coulter, colter[obs3]; hatchet, ax, pickax, mattock, pick, adze, gill; billhook, cleaver, cutter; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the French noblesse, are ready, more generously than wisely, to throw away their own social and political advantages, and play (for it will never be really more than playing) at democracy. Let them, too, beware. The penknife and the axe should respect each other; for they were wrought from the same steel: but the penknife will not be wise in trying to fell trees. Let them accept their own position, not in conceit and ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... that the tablecover had been cut into strips to accomplish their purpose; and it was clear that a penknife had been used, for one was found on the floor. Suddenly my attention was called to the fact that two penknives, which no one had hitherto noticed, were produced. They belonged, not to the prisoners, but to the deceased man, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... much less what Figure they were of: But judging from the lightness and yielding quality of the Cork, that certainly the texture could not be so curious, but that possibly, if I could use some further diligence, I might find it to be discernable with a Microscope, I with the same sharp Penknife, cut off from the former smooth surface an exceeding thin piece of it, and placing it on a black object Plate, because it was it self a white body, and casting the light on it with a deep plano-convex Glass, I ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... picked all the locks with a penknife many a time. Besides, the key is sure to be under the doormat. Yes, here it is! Of all the unaccountable customs I ever knew, that's ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the right, is a bed made up ready for use, and on the other side a smaller one full of straw and hay, and without bed-covers. Opposite to it stands a large deal table tattoed with marks that are the handiwork of the Melammed. With his little penknife, which was never out of his hands, he would cut them into the wood all the time he was teaching us— figures of beasts ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... school late, because he was ill for two years. He is the tallest and the strongest of the class; he lifts a bench with one hand; he is always eating; and he is good. Whatever he is asked for,—a pencil, rubber, paper, or penknife,—he lends or gives it; and he neither talks nor laughs in school: he always sits perfectly motionless on a bench that is too narrow for him, with his spine curved forward, and his big head between ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... been. The young man took his cigar from his mouth, ran a penknife through the end, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... geometrical demonstrations. I should think wood as good as ivory; and that in this case, it might add to the improvement of the young gentlemen, that they should make the figures themselves. Being furnished by a workman with a piece of vineer, no other tool than a penknife and a wooden rule would be necessary. Perhaps pasteboards, or common cards, might be still more convenient. The difficulty is, how to reconcile figures which must have a very sensible breadth, to our ideas of a mathematical line, which, as ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the cat's claw has swollen, and causes me annoyance and some pain. It throbs and itches. I'm afraid my blood must be in poor condition, or it would have healed by now. I opened it with a penknife soaked in an antiseptic solution, and cleaned it thoroughly. I have heard unpleasant stories of the results ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... before the chest, and once more pressed his finger along its interior, following regular lines. Then he shook the pillars, and inserted his penknife in each most minute interstice of the carving; he prodded the ribs of the arches, and brought his fist down violently on the separate floors of the mosque. At the end of an hour he sprang to his feet with a smothered oath, and ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a little penknife, That was both long and sharp, And betwixt the short ribs and the long, Prick'd fair ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... that had been torn from the fringe of my girdle that other night, and had been lying on the floor. I remember that the girdle caught when I was looking under one of the bureaus. He also gave me the broken penknife-blade to keep, as he said it was best to leave nothing around there that any one else could discover and use as ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... as strongly as possible. Of course the principal object in such an examination of written or printed documents is the erasures or additions; then the coloring of different inks applied and the mode of their execution. As to erasures, this can be accomplished in two ways, either by the use of a penknife or by a chemical preparation. The former is the one most commonly resorted to, and is effected in the following manner. With a well sharpened knife blade the surface of the paper is carefully scraped until all objectionable lettering and wording appear to the naked eye to have been effaced; ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... on a dressing-board Where she did sometimes dine; She put a penknife in his heart And dressed him like ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... which the pen refuses to portray in their fulness. One woman, driven mad with fear and despair, deliberately hung herself from the roof of the saloon. A man, taking out his penknife, dug it into his wrist and worked it about as long as he had strength, dying where he fell. Another, incoherently calling on the wife and child he had left in Germany, rushed about with a bottle in his hand frantically ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy |
