"Rap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from her father and his apprentices. She lost money and found it in Victor's pocket, which gave her an opportunity to appeal to his conscience. She could read fortunes in the cards and make spirits rap at her table. She promised Victor a good wife, and added cheerily: "One like me." She also promised him four healthy and handsome children, and at the prophesy lapsed at ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... plate so as to let the end of the block come upon the sand cushion. Don't twist and turn the block, and to remove the working plate pass a stick through the core holes in both block and plate so that the plate will not fall when loosened. A slight rap on the center of the plate will loosen it. As soon as the blocks are up-ended commence the spraying and soak the sand underneath the block. It may seem unnecessary to dwell on these points so long, but barrels of cement and barrels ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... "squared up" and all mental pictures completed. The story is told that a gentleman took a room in the hotel next another who was notoriously fussy. He remembered this fact after dropping one boot carelessly to the floor, and laid the other gently down. After a pause he heard a rap on the door and a querulous, "For heaven's sake, drop the other boot, or I can't ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... Carroll's lap, with a look of relief that repaid him fourfold for the trials he was about to undergo. They went merrily away together, leaving Aunt Pen to wish that it was according to the laws of etiquette to rap officious gentlemen over the knuckles, when they introduce their fingers into private pies without permission from the chief cook. How the dance went Debby hardly knew, for the conversation fell upon books, and in the interest of her favorite theme she found even the "grand square" an impertinent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... again, into the Chapel of the Holy Office. She stops at a certain part of the flooring. Her great effect is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts at the brave courier, who is explaining something; hits him a sounding rap on the hat with the largest key; and bids him be silent. She assembles us all, round a little trap-door in the floor, as round ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the best of the first of it and run down to our boats before our canvas is ripped out of us. After that I don't give a rap what happens. The sticks 'll stand it, and you and I will have to, though we've plenty ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... your own hand," said Mr. Dempster, "and ask the spirit his name, and then pass your finger over the alphabet—the rap will arrest ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... sharp rap at the door. Guinea opened it and in came the old General. "Mr. Jucklin, can I speak to you in private?" he asked, ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... hear her. He moved his chair toward the stove, put his feet on the fender, lighted his pipe and then sat without moving until a stamping of feet and a hearty rap on the door roused him. Lizzie let ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... head off," Doctor Masters was contending. "The police had to rap him with their clubs in the ambulance. He was violent. He wanted his dog. It can't be done. It's too raw. You can't steal his dog this way. He'll make a howl in ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... hit me a good rap on the shoulder and said, "So you see how it was, kiddo? Instead of going home to hear how handsome I looked, I just beat it up that creek and fished this suit of greasy rags out of one of the lockers. There ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... unexpected on her part, that she would have drawn back again, if it had been possible; but the usher led her forward, and Robin Hood and the foresters having bent the knee before her, the hobby-horse began to curvet anew among the spectators, and tread on their toes, the fool to rap their knuckles with his bauble, the piper to play, the taborer to beat his tambourine, and the morris-dancers to toss their kerchiefs over their heads. Thus the pageant being put in motion, the rush-cart began to roll on, its horses' bells jingling merrily, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... my seat and faced him. I was tingling all through. I didn't care a rap what became of me for just that minute. I forgot about Tom. I prayed that the cop wouldn't come for a minute yet—but only ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... hardly known, as if she would fain summon that understanding spirit and in her arms seek the comfort that none other in this world could give her. So thoroughly did she abandon herself to this first—and final—paroxysm of despair that she failed to hear a tentative rap upon the front door and, shortly, the tread of rough-shod feet on the board walk round the house. Her first intimation that some one had arrived to comfort her came in the shape of a hard hand that thrust itself gently under her chin and lifted ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... rose to their feet and walked, as unconcernedly as they could, toward the counter, upon which Terry rapped with a coin, to attract the landlord's attention. But that gentleman had, for some reason or other, vanished, and, rap as they might, no one put in an appearance; while all the time the crowd continued steadily to close in on them, with angry looks ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... "I don't care a rap about laws such as yours. As for gangs—that was what you were going to say—I'd snap my fingers in the face of Ike the Dropper himself if he were here. You could kill me, but I ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... stood before the mirror in her room, putting the last touches to her toilet, there was a rap at ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... are deep in the side of the hill. It's what is called an advanced H.Q.—i.e., when the Push begins, the gilded ones will crawl in and rap out messages to the various commanders, and ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... arch a train, a billowing tumult of white, firelit smoke, and a long caterpillar of lighted windows, went flying south—clatter, clatter, clap, rap, and it had gone. A dim group of people talked in the gate of one of the houses in the pretty little row of gables that was called Oriental Terrace. It was all so real and so familiar. And that behind me! It was frantic, fantastic! Such things, I ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... carry us to our journey's end," said Jacques in a whisper; "the sight of them gives me fresh courage. I care not a rap of the fingers now for ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... more, and gradually lulled himself into the opinion that the furniture was his own. This was his convenient state of mind when, late one night, a step came up the stairs, and a hand passed over his door feeling for his knocker, and then one deep and solemn rap was rapped that might have been a spring in Mr. Testator's easy- chair to shoot him out of it; so promptly was it attended ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... knife, you must bid a stander by, lay it theron, saying, that you meane to cast all those three Balls into your mouth at once: and holding a knife as a penne in your hand, when he is laying vpon the poynt of your knife, you may easily with the haft rap him on the fingers, for the other matter ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... "There was a rap at the door. It was a passenger whom we had met shortly after the ship left Liverpool, and his name was Roebling—Washington A. Roebling, 2d. He was a gentleman and a brave man. He warned us of the danger and told us that it would be best to be ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... say of Mr. Brown is humiliating; I had suspected it, but would not allow myself to believe in such heresy. Fitz-Roy gave him a rap in his preface (13/1. In the preface to the "Surveying Voyages of the 'Adventure' and the 'Beagle,' 1826-30, forming Volume I of the work, which includes the later voyage of the "Beagle," Captain Fitz-Roy wrote (March, 1839): "Captain King took great pains in forming and ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... had just caused a tremendous scandal; for Jory had therein run down all the painters whom the public appreciated to extol his friend, whom he set up as the leader of a new school, the school of the 'open air.' Very practical at heart, he did not care in reality a rap about anything that did not conduce to his own pleasures; he simply repeated the theories he heard enunciated by his friends. 'I say, Mahoudeau,' he now exclaimed, 'you shall have an article; I'll launch that woman of yours. What limbs, my boys! ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... been clinched around the mast, the last coil followed the example of "its illustrious predecessors," and disappeared through the hawse-hole, after having, by an unexpected whisk, upset the mate, and given the captain a rap across the shins, which ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... girl with her face turned in his direction. Her companions, on the contrary, were standing with their backs to him, one beside the door she had just thrown open, the other at his wife's door on which she had just given a significant rap. ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... wouldn't be many at the lodge, and he wouldn't be so embarrassed, and as I was one of the officers of the lodge I would put it to him light, and he said he would go, so my chum got five other boys to help us put him through. So we steered him down to the gymnasium and made him rap on the storm door outside, and I said 'who comes there?' and he said it was a pilgrim who wanted to jine our sublime order. I asked him if he had made up his mind to turn from the ways of a hyena, and adopt the customs of the truly good, and he said if he knew his own heart he had, and then I told ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... night I was awaked by hearing the sound of footsteps moving along the passage, and soon afterwards there was a rap at the door. I jumped out of bed, and asked who it was. It was the butler, who entered the ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... me almost gaily, and I was just pretending to compare it with mine, when there was a smart rap on the door and Vard stalked in. There was always a civic majesty in his gait, an air of having just stepped off his pedestal and of dissembling an oration in his umbrella; and that day he surpassed himself. Miss Vard had turned pale at the ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... woods a downy woodpecker, late one fall, drilled a hole in the top of a small dead black birch for his winter quarters. My attention was first called to his doings by the white chips upon the ground. Every day as I passed I would rap upon his tree, and if he was in he would appear at his door and ask plainly enough what I wanted now. One day when I rapped, something else appeared at the door—I could not make out what. I continued my rapping, when out came ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... just as the first cold rays of the chilly spring dawn cast a ghastly blue light on the dormant figures around me, deadening the yellow flame of the lamp which was burning itself out, I was roused from my torpor by a light rap at the outside door. In the office all was quiet, but for the heavy and rhythmic snores of the weary comrades, and wondering who could claim admittance at such an unearthly hour, I rose with a shiver and opened the door. To my surprise I found myself ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... back, and presently he saw the man was now looking after him, that he leaned to the right and leaned to the left, and stooped down in his scrutinizing. Suddenly the man reached forward with a cane, smote the sidewalk, "rap, rap—rap; rap, rap—rap," and taken up on either side of the way, louder and louder as it came up the street toward the now fleeing doctor, from sequestered nooks between buildings, ran the fateful, hurrying volley of "rap, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... graec. affect. rap. de providentia; quotiescunque divitiis affluentem hominem videmus, cumque pessimum, ne quaeso hunc beatissimum putemus, sed ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... The rap that startled Doom in the midst of his masquerade in the chapel of his house, came like the morning beat of drums to his guest a storey lower. Count Victor sprang up with a certainty that trouble brew, dressed with all speed, and yet with the coolness of one who has heard alarums on ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... to Brookes's thence thy footsteps bend What gratulations thy approach attend! See Gibbon rap his box—auspicious sign, That classic compliment and wit combine; See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise, And friendship give ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... was now free to claim. But the Queen, who was nothing if not an arrant coquette, was in no mood to be caught even by the man she loved. She drove him to distraction by her caprices. One moment she would "rap him on the knuckles," only to smile her sweetest on him the next. One day she would flaunt in his face a patent of peerage, as evidence of her affection; the next she would cut the parchment to pieces under his nose, laughing the while. She roused ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... windows. Others I sent to bring in the wounded, and still others to serving out the coffee and soup we had found in the kitchen. After giving these orders I ran to the barricade to report. When I reached it the men behind it began to rap on the stones with the butts of their rifles as people pound with their billiard-cues when someone has made a difficult shot, and those on the roof leaned over and clapped their hands. It was most unmilitary, but ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... door, and then checked himself, as though he could not bear again a cold denial. It were far easier to feel the blast and storm than again to hear unwelcome tones fall on his ears. Despite his feeble faith, he walked to the door and gave a timid rap. ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... consisting of Everard, Lilias, and Dulcie, promptly presented themselves at the study door and tapped for admission. As there was no reply to a second rap, they opened the door and walked into the room. Grandfather was rather deaf, and sometimes, when he had ignored a summons, he would say: "Well, why didn't you come in?" He was generally to be found writing letters at this hour in the morning, but to-day the revolving chair was ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... her glance had lost none of its stern kindliness, and her bearing none of its indomitable courage. As she appeared, this most representative audience of women in the world sprang to its feet and burst into wild cheering. In vain did Lady Aberdeen rap for order and beg the audience to let Mrs. Creighton proceed. Not until Miss Anthony came to the front and urged the women to sit down was quiet restored. These women knew the price of a life which their champion had paid for ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... its following puff of smoke, making the fourth pony start and begin to limp for a few yards with its off foreleg broken; and crack! once more, and the sound of a sharp rap caused by another bullet striking the suffering beast right in the middle of the shoulder-blade, when it dropped dead instantly, pierced through ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... hour after we had parted from Pakenham, and before we had recovered sense, came a great rap at the door. "Will you see anybody, ma'am?" I was going to say, "No, nobody," but I bid Smith ask the name, when behind him, as I spoke, enter Mrs. Lushington. "I have forced my way up—forgive me, it is for Pakenham; I hope I am not too late; I've brought him good letters from ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... scent," he said, drawing away from her hands. "Lost it utterly. And why do you want to come and live here? You're not fond of me. You don't care a rap for me. Are you ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... Trubshaw (see {MUD}). BartleMUDs are noted for their (usually slightly offbeat) humor, dry but friendly syntax, and lack of adjectives in object descriptions, so a player is likely to come across 'brand172', for instance (see {brand brand brand}). Bartle has taken a bad rap in some MUDding circles for supposedly originating this term, but (like the story that MUD is a trademark) this appears to be a myth; ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... round with delight. He did not know much about books, but the flush on Sally's cheeks and the excitement in Max's voice were enough for him. He could not resist giving his elder brother a rap ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... criticisms of the New York attorney, and he was re-reading it by the light of the corridor bracket when a young man sprang from the ascending elevator and hurried to the door of the parlor suite. Hawk collared his Mercury before he could rap on the door. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... heard in the outer apartment, in earnest conversation, and very soon a rap was heard on the door. Eliza started and ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Peterson sat by a table in her mother's room studying her spelling lesson. Suddenly she startled her mother by giving the table a sharp rap with her pencil ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... husband had a rap, they were ready for anything, and yet they did not make a large fortune. One of the chamberlains of the Regent, with an annual salary of six thousand livres, having received another appointment, Madame de Sabran thought six thousand livres a year too good to be lost, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... rise till noon. Heaven help the poor waiting-woman who had charge of her toilet! I have often seen the poor wretch come out with red eyes from the closet, where those long and mysterious rites of her ladyship's dress were performed, and the backgammon-box locked up with a rap on Mrs. Tusher's fingers when she played ill or the game was going ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a horse clattered on the stony pavement, and stopped suddenly at the door. A light step and the clink of a scabbard rang on the steps. A familiar rap followed. Angelique, with the infallible intuition of a woman who recognizes the knock and footstep of her lover from ten thousand others, sprang up and met Le Gardeur de Repentigny as he entered the boudoir. She received him with warmth, even fondness, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... to class the tradition of its high ambition, but never again was the lost digamma so nearly in its grasp. If it still meets upon its midnight labors, a toothless member boasts of that night of its topmost glory, and those who have gathered to his words rap their stale unprofitable ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... a thunderous rap at the door of Shirley's shop brought the four girls on the run from the back room, where they had been doing the last of the ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... pocket aw hav'nt a rap, Nor a crust, nor a handful o' mail; An' unless we can get it o'th strap, We mun pine, or ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... the same chance against that fellow up there. But they're in the same puzzled state that the other fellows were. Men on both platforms are examining the flag through glasses, and the flag doesn't give a rap for them. It's standing out in the wind, now, straight and stiff. It seems to know that old Noah's ark ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 'dies with feeding his own stomach.' In 'Timon of Athens' there's a chap who 'greases his pure mind,' probably with fried sausages, gravy, and such like trash. The fellow in 'Macbeth' who has 'eaten of the insane root' was meant, I calculate, as a hard rap on tobacco-chewers (and smokers too); he called it root, instead of leaf, just to cover up his tracks. What a splendid thought that is in 'Love's Labor's Lost': 'Fat paunches have lean pates'! Everybody knows how Julius Caesar turned up his nose at fat men. The poet never could stand frying; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... as I was still soundly sleeping at five-thirty a loud rap sounded at my door. The night before I had noticed above my bed a framed sign which read: "Guests must be dressed in running trunks, shoes and sweater, and appear in the gymnasium by six sharp." "Gymnasium at six! Gymnasium at six!" a voice echoed down the hall. I ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... to make me feel that I'd like to be a spy once just for pure spite!" declared Jimmie. "You and your spy business make me tired! We Boy Scouts don't care a rap about your old information!" ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... he heard steps along the gravel, then on the porch. There was a pause; leaning closer to the door he could hear the rapid, irregular breathing of his visitor. Knocking began at last, a very gentle rapping; silence, another uncertain rap, then the sound of retreating steps from the gravel, and the click of the gate-latch. With one hand covering the weapon in his coat-pocket, he opened the door without a ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... From liberal Brooks, whose speculative skill Is hasty credit, and a distant bill; Who, nurs'd in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid."] What gratulations thy approach attend! See Gibbon rap his box-auspicious sign That classic compliment and wit combine; See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise, And friendship ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... door of my private office and finished off some imperative work. By ten o'clock I was free, and for the twentieth time I consulted my train schedule. At five minutes after ten, with McKnight not yet in sight, Blobs knocked at the door, the double rap we had agreed upon, and on being admitted slipped in and quietly closed the door behind him. His eyes were glistening with excitement, and a purple dab of typewriter ink gave him a peculiarly villainous ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of a good honest seven knots. The helmsman was steering by compass, and not by the sails, since it was impossible to see anything above a dozen feet up from the deck; hence the ship was going along with everything a-rap full. ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... man thinks that he alone of mortals is impervious to love, and so the discovery that he is in it suddenly alters his views of his own mechanism. It is thus not unlike a rap on the funny-bone. Did Gavin make this discovery when the Egyptian left him? Apparently he only came to the brink of it and stood blind. He had driven her from him for ever, and his sense of loss was so ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... ricevo de la dua letero, la Redaktoro de tiu cxi malproksimega organo skribis kiel sekvas.—"The fact that our playful rap at Esperanto should have inspired a disciple of that up-to-date language in this far corner of the world to champion its cause is certainly almost sufficient to make us reconsider our former verdict (which was perhaps dictated by aesthetic rather than utilitarian motives), and to admit that ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 2 • Various
... own pleasantry, as men in authority are apt to enjoy that which comes exclusively of their own cleverness, and he winked round among his followers, as if he would invite them to bear witness to the rap he had given the Papists, even on their own exclusive ground. When the platform of the Col was attained, he checked the mule and continued his address, for want of wind had nipped his wit, as it ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... on the morning of Beatrice's capture Brandon was roused by a rap at his bedroom door. He rose at once, and slipping on his dressing-gown, opened ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... bewitched fingers and all, home with me. There they may weave and stitch as much as you like; but as man and wife no one shall part us, and we will lead a life such a life! The joys of Paradise shall be no better than a rap on the skull with an ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... appeared to be quite sensible of his absurd position, caned by his enemy, and ridiculed by his friends, in whose cause he was suffering. On these occasions, he often made a run, open-mouthed, at the sailors; in return for which mutinous proceeding he was sure to get a smart rap over the nose from his own party, which more than counterpoised the anguish at the other extremity of his person, giving ludicrous occupation to both his hands, and redoubling the shouts of laughter at his expense. In short, poor St. Jago literally got what is currently ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... There's Smithie's brother. They manage on two hundred and fifty, but that's very little. She says they have a semi-detached house almost on the road, and hardly a bit of garden. And the wall to next-door is so thin they hear everything. When her baby cries—they rap. And people stand against the railings and talk.... Can't we wait? You're ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... in comment upon his words, there was the sound of a faint rap at the door. Then it opened, and through the dense blue haze of the room they saw some shadowed forms softly indistinct save where the light from the ceiling outside shone down upon a group of coiffured heads. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... thinking for himself, "Hank" was also childishly vulgar. He gulped loudly as he ate, thinking it an evidence of hearty good-fellowship. And he deliberately broke wind at the table ... then would rap on wood ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... figure reached its evident destination, instead of knocking or making an effort to enter, it hesitated, stopped, turned and walked away for a few steps and then came back again. The second time, however, summoning a sudden courage, the arm shot forth, and there was a single rap on the door. The rap was so imperative that in spite of the rival noises inside, the door opened quickly. Then the newcomer entered and for another moment stood ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a very merops apiaster, or bee-bird; and very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... caress or a bone were equally childish things: Let me alone, he seemed to say, I have my grief, and it is company enough. There was the very superior cat who sat on every window-ledge, winking at life. He (for in France all cats are masculine by order of philology), he did not care a rap for man or dog, but he liked women and permitted them to observe him. There was the man who insinuated himself between the tables at the Cafe, holding out postcard-representations of the Pantheon, ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... leather, the finest grained kid, without a seam or wrinkle, slightly greased with the best watch-maker's oil—selected a ball perfectly round and true—laid the patch upon the muzzle, and placing the bullet exactly in the centre over the bore, buried it with a single rap of a small lignum vita mallet, which hung from his button-hole; and then, with but a trifling effort, drove it home by one steady thrust of the stout copper-headed charging rod. This done, he again inspected the cone, and seeing that the powder was forced quite up into sight, picked out, with the ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... sitting-room." He rose and clasped my hand in his adhesive pressure. "I'm awfully obliged to you for telling me this; but perhaps you won't mind my asking you not to mention our talk to Miss Copt? It might bother her, you know, to think the picture isn't exactly up to the mark; and it won't make a rap of difference ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... staircase, as it is called, the state of which, so far as it could be judged of by one of his senses, annoyed Mannering's delicacy not a little. When they had ascended cautiously to a considerable height, they heard a heavy rap at a door, still two stories above them. The door opened, and immediately ensued the sharp and worrying bark of a dog, the squalling of a woman, the screams of an assaulted cat, and the hoarse voice of a man, who cried in a most imperative tone, 'Will ye, Mustard? ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... she held her breath to listen. In the profound hush, footsteps echoed along the uncarpeted corridor, and passed her door. Was it Ogden on his way upstairs? No! the footsteps paused at the next door—Kate's room; and there was a light rap. Rose, aflame with curiosity, tip-toed to her own door, and applied her ear to the key-hole. Kate's door opened; there was a whispered colloquy; the listener could not catch the words, but the voice that spoke ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... a false oath; also to curse. He rapped out a volley; i.e. he swore a whole volley of oaths. To rap, means also to exchange or barter: a rap is likewise an Irish halfpenny. Rap ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... boy wheeled about suddenly and fell to copying digits furiously. Nor did he look Emmy Lou's way, only drove his pencil into his slate with a fervor that made Miss Clara rap sharply on ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... and banishing at once the occurrence from her mind, she did not give it a second thought. At night, however, while she was waiting to go to bed, she suddenly heard a sound like a rap at the door. A band of men boisterously cried out: "We are messengers, deputed by the worthy magistrate of this district, and come to summon one of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Skinny knowed her "old" man was dead, he also knowed what kind of a life he'd lead, so Skinny was wise to what she ment when she piped "Ask dad." If she'd told me that same I would have thought she was flashin a spiel for Sweet Caps. Skinny says that's repartee, but I think its RAP-artee. Speakin of Russia, I see by the papers that a new revolution has busted out there. That God forsaken country reminds me of a fly wheel on a automobeel—2000 revolutions ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... writer, from information received, believes that little girls like to think that they are made of sugar and spice and all that's nice, and that their lover's synthesis of slugs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails doesn't matter a rap so long as they are ravenous. But they mustn't snap, however large a percentage ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... very well have done, for Carlin did not close his shop until seven, he would have come upon him with the same letter in his hand, his whole mind absorbed in its contents, especially the last paragraph: "Be here at seven o'clock, sharp; don't ring the bell below, just rap twice and I shall know it is you. I have to be very careful ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... nor mademoiselle. I passed the court early and late; I even went up to St. Louis, but the sick man was gone. The whole matter had nearly dropped from my mind, when one night—it was late, and very dark—the little bell at the wicket rung, and presently there was a loud rap at my door. It was the concierge of the next court; a man he said was dying, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Rap! rap! rap! went her ruler upon the desk, as a signal for quiet. At the noise the monkey dodged out of sight in a moment, and soon the children were restored to order. Aunt ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... Ada, happen to prefer a blue jacket to a scarlet one, however much I might, when I was a youngster, have pitied your taste, egad, you have chosen so fine a fellow inside it, that I promise, when I slip my cable (as he would say), to leave you and him every rap I possess; for from what I have seen of him, I am very certain that he loves you for yourself (which, by the bye, shows his good taste), and does not care one pinch of snuff for the gold he knows that I am ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... A rap on the window drew the writer's attention, and, looking up, he saw, against the twilight sky, the broad German face of the boy Carl darkening the pane. He stepped ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... call. Indeed I am pretty sure it is. Thank you.' Then Mr. Pecksniff, gently warbling a rustic stave, put on his garden hat, seized a spade, and opened the street door; calmly appearing on the threshold as if he thought he had, from his vineyard, heard a modest rap, but was ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... re-electing PARNELL on Tuesday, thought he would relieve them of difficulty by forthwith resigning. Mr. P. doesn't take that view; thinks it would be rude, after having been unanimously elected, to appear to undervalue such remarkable, spontaneous act of confidence; doesn't care a rap for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various
... shortly after this tete-a-tete that Lilian Rosenberg was interrupted in her work, by a rap at the door. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... straight fast ball at Reddie's head. Reddie ducked, neither too slow nor too quick, just right to show what an eye he had, how hard it was to pitch to. The next was a strike. And on the next he appeared to step and swing in one action. There was a ringing rap, and the ball shot toward right, curving down, a vicious, headed hit. Mallory, at first base, snatched at it and found only the air. Babcock had only time to take a few sharp steps, and then he plunged down, blocked the hit ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... irritation to have these striking statements made in a good-humored, impersonal fashion which totally disarmed all opposition. That the Venusians were perfectly sure of their ground, was undeniable; but they had such a cheerful way of looking at it, as though they didn't care a rap whether Van Emmon agreed or not, that—If they'd only have shown some spirit! Van Emmon would have liked it infinitely better if one of them had only become hot ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... her bed-side, full of compassion for the lovely sufferer, and rejoicing in the calm tranquillity that had just taken possession of her, when a little girl, the only child of Mrs. Hammond, opened the street-door to the rap of the bailiff He said he wanted to speak with Miss Melville, and the child answered that she would go tell her mother. So saying, she advanced to the door of the back-room upon the ground-floor, in which Emily lay; but the moment it was opened, instead of waiting for the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... wid that circulatin' vagabone," replied Jemmy; "I'm a Christian man—a peaceable man; an' I know what my religion ordhers me to do when I meet the likes of him—and that is when he houlds the one cheek towardst me to give him a sound Christian rap upon the other. So to the divil I pitch, you, you villain, sowl and body, an' that's the worst I wish you. If you choose to be unchristian, be so; but, be my sowl, I'll not set you the example. Charley," he proceeded, addressing Hanlon, "I was sent for you in ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... called me to Washington the next day, and I had to take the night train back, arriving in New York at the uncomfortably early hour of seven. But it was some small satisfaction to rap vigorously upon Indiman's door as I passed to my own room. One always experiences a sense of virtue in being up at unseasonable hours, and blessings should be shared with one's friends. Later on we met at breakfast, and he ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... as he spoke, his face and eyes aflame, and stalked straight to the sleeping-room of Mme. Blanche. One loud rap; then, before the attendant could open it he had flung it wide, and he was standing, stern as Rhadamauthus, above the cowering woman ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... they?" was Bert's saturnine comment. "There ain't no difference dyin' in battle or in the poorhouse. The thing is they're deado. I wouldn't care a rap if my father'd been hanged. It's all the same in a thousand years. This braggin' about folks makes me tired. Besides, my father couldn't a-fought. He wasn't born till two years after the war. Just the same, two of my uncles were killed ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... so red in the face at this, that Dorothy thought he was going into some kind of a fit; but just at this moment there was a sharp rap at the door, and Sir Walter exclaimed, "That's Bob Scarlet, and here we ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... He might wonder and be hurt at her message. It was good that he should wonder and be hurt. Her anger said, as anger is apt to say, that God was with her—that all heaven, though it were crowded with spirits watching them, must be on her side. She had determined to ring her bell, when there came a rap ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... minutes. He rushed us again and again, uttering ferocious growls. We had to step high and lively to keep out of his way. Between charges he sat down and tore savagely at his wounded paw. We wanted him as nearly perfect a specimen as possible, so tried to rap him over the head with a club. Owing to remarkably long teeth and claws, this was soon proved impracticable; so we shot him. He weighed about fifty pounds, and we subsequently learned that he was a honey badger, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... sight tolled site knights maid cede beech waste bred piece sum plum e'er cent son weight tier rein weigh heart wood paws through fur fare main pare beech meet wrest led bow seen earn plate wear rote peel you berry flew know dough groan links see lye bell great aught foul mean seam moan knot rap bee wrap not loan told cite hair seed night knit made peace in waist bread climb heard sent sun some air tares rain way wait threw fir hart pause would pear fair mane lead meat rest scent bough reign scene sail bier pray right toe yew sale prey ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... but knowing nothing of the points of a horse. She decided to make friends with it, and rubbed its nose. The animal, giving her an affectionate look, furtively tried to bite her arm, and then threw back its head, expecting the rap on the nose that always followed this attempt. Mrs Partridge trembled with fear ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... Quacks with him, when to be angry at it is the avowing it. Then in Ladies chambers, he will tumble beds, and towse your Ladies dress up unto the height, to the hazard of a Bed-staff thrown at his head, or rap o're the fingers with a Busk, and that is all; only is this he is far worse than the Buffoon, since they study to delight, this only to offend; they to make merry, but this onely to make you mad, whence wo be t' ye of he discovers and imperfection or fault in you, for he never ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... missing! The dress-box containing the skirts of all her best frocks, spread at full length and carefully padded with tissue paper. It had been there ten minutes ago; the custom-house officer had given it a special rap. She distinctly remembered noticing a new scratch on the leather. Where in the name of everything that was inexplicable could it have disappeared? Appealed to for information the porter was not illuminating. ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the synovial pouch underneath the quadriceps. The patella is raised from the front of the femur by the collection of fluid in the joint—"floating patella"—and, if firmly pressed upon, it may be made to rap against ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... brief testimony was concluded without cross-examination. Audience and jury sat erect. Word was passed out to the crowd that the half-breed was testifying. In the court-room there was such a stir that the bailiff was forced to rap for order. ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... struck a despatch was handed Peter. A moment later came the rap of the drum, and the men rose from the floor and fell in. A few sharp, quick words were passed from mouth to mouth. Guns rose to the shoulders with a click and a movement almost mechanical. The regiment swung from a long straight line into companies, the door rolled ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... moment a loud rap at the door interrupted the discourse, and three men were ushered in, which proved to be the sheriff and his attendants, sent by the more inexorable creditors of Alonzo's father and company, to level on the property of the former, which orders they faithfully executed, by seizing the lands, ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... possibilities are absolutely unlimited. Get them for us, old man; and while you are about it, bring a stepladder. (Exit Perkins, dejectedly.) Now, Barlow, you and Bradley help me with this piano. Pianos may do well enough in gardens or pirates' caves, but for conservatories they're not worth a rap. ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... "He'll take the rap," answered the Chief. "His defense will be that if there were any Phoenix activities going on here he didn't know about it. He was just running a barber college in good faith. I don't think they can ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... chants, the hymns, all had a great attraction for me,—and this although I was somewhat severely held to the proper observance of worship. I remember well that at the age of six years, if I faltered in the public reading of the Psalter, a gentle rap on the side of my head from my father's knuckles reminded me ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... with the administration of the cane, strike the sides of the barrow with malignant smartness and perseverance—fish are snatched away with lightning rapidity and pickpocket neatness of hand. The hardest rap over the knuckles fails to daunt the sturdy little assailants. Howling with pain, they dash up to the next barrow that passes them, with unimpaired resolution; and often collect their ten or a dozen fish a piece, in an hour or two. No description can do justice to the "Jack-in-Office" importance ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... came to Wilson's, I was shown up, and found that he was sitting with Miss Penclosa. For half an hour I had to endure his fussy talk about his recent research into the exact nature of the spiritualistic rap, while the creature and I sat in silence looking across the room at each other. I read a sinister amusement in her eyes, and she must have seen hatred and menace in mine. I had almost despaired of having speech with her when he was called from ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... thought it worth his while to deprecate at that moment. This was, anybody coming to bother him. The worthy Justice did not like to be bothered. A good many people are of the same opinion. He had that evening but one enemy in the world, and that was the man who should next rap at his house door. ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... be "out of Spirits." Why doesn't he come to New-York, where he can get plenty of the article, either in the sense of the Tap or in that of the Rap? ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... A rap came then at the door, and master Joe, springing up, ushered the subject of our conversation into the room. He held his hat in his hand, and had under his arm ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... captain, gave a vigorous rap upon a nail he was driving into place, "it's necessary to be every dang thing these days, with the world so full of idiots. It's good there's somebody who kin turn his hand to anything. It's the fools who make so much work fer ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... little more of the Dismal Swamp left, and when I reached over to the opposite end of the kid, I received a rap on the knuckles from a spoon, and was told that I must help myself from my own side, for that was the rule. But my side was scraped clean, so I got no burgoo ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... your stick, tell us what's up,' said an old Republican colonel, who cared not a rap for Imperial ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... round the room and up and down as if in hopes he could see someone layin' round on the floor, or danglin' from the ceilin', that would take the responsibility offen him, and in the very nick of time the door opened after a quick rap, and the President jumped up with a relieved look on ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... flutter of skirts and sudden vanishment, even as Miss Norvell's ears caught the sound of a low rap on the outer door. She stood breathing heavily, her hands clasped upon her breast, until the knock had been repeated twice. Her voice utterly failing her, she pressed the latch, stepping backward to permit his entrance. The first swift, inquiring glance ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... said anything, and in a moment there was a loud rap at the door,—the concierge, come to take down Bentley's luggage and to announce that the cab was below. Bentley got his hat and coat, enjoined Hartwell to take good care of his perroquets, gave each of us a grip of the hand, and went briskly down ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... "An thou make sport of me," said he, "I'll rap thy head with this dagger hilt. Thou art a silly fellow, Francis, to talk so. But tell me, hast thou heard who rides with ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... street was unpeopled, he would go up to one of these dwellings, lift the heavy knocker of the low postern, and timidly rap. The songs and merriment would instantly cease. There would be audible behind the wall nothing excepting low, dull flutterings as in ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... fortunate diversion occurred. A rap—three times—of no uncertain quality was heard at the door, and Mr. Brush Bascom hastened to open it. A voice cried out:—"Is Manning here? The boys are hollering for those passes," and a wiry, sallow gentleman burst in, none other than ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... numbers of them did not care a rap what way it went; and that others had ceased to be mental creatures and were merely machines for registering the sensations ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... looked curiously at his fatuous friend. Perhaps he knew that the man was predestined to lose the money, and preferred that it should flow back into his own coffers rather than any other. He nodded his head, and drew his chair toward the table. At the same moment there came a rap upon the door. ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... at his word and so completely that the small and early saw him no more. What was that to him? There were other pastures, less scrumptious perhaps, but also far less fatiguing. He had not cared, not a rap. Behind him the yard of brass yodled in a manner quite as lordly as before. His high-steppers lost none of their sheen; his yacht retained all its effulgence; so, too, did the glare of his coin. No, he had not cared. But that was long ago, so long that it might have happened ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... had done to trace her! Only the one letter. He decided to write again, this time to Dom Francisco. If only he could talk to Natalie, what long tours it would take to tell and to hear all! A faint flush of anticipation was rising to his cheeks when a rap on the door startled him. Before he could look around Nelton announced, "A lady to see ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... connection with stabbing affrays. For the first day or two I felt as though I ought to carry a revolver. Whenever I was forced to leave Ruth alone in the house I instructed her upon no circumstances to open the door. The boy and I arranged a secret rap—an idea that pleased him mightily—and until she heard the single knock followed by two quick sharp ones, she was not to answer. But in wandering around among these people it was difficult to think ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... There was a rap at the door which communicated with Beevor's office, and Beevor himself, a florid, thick-set man, with ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... watchmaker he told me of an American recently arrived from Kiachta. Two hours later while writing in my room I heard a rap at my door. On opening I found a man who asked in a bewildered air, ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... there, Beth; nor was Patsy, or Uncle John. On the other hand, there is no one in Sangoa who cares a rap whether I come home or not. I'm the last of the Joneses of Sangoa, and while it is still my island and the entire population is in my employ, the life there flows on just as smoothly without me as ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... a leg to the Devil, And answer him civil, and off with your cap: Sing—Hey, trolly-lolly! Good-morrow, Sir Evil, We've finished the tap, And, saving your worship, we care not a rap!" ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... relation to the ritual of politics and sport, we travel south for the Budget and north for the grouse, we play games to amuse the men who keep us—not a woman would play a game for its own sake—we dabble with social reform and politics, for which few of us care a rap except as an occupation, we 'discover' artists or musicians or lecturers (as though we cared), we try to believe in lovers or, still harder, try to believe in old or new religions, and most of us—I don't—do our best to give the gratifications and exercise the fascinations ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... way for us, and which will come right on without minding whether they run us down or not. The colliers are the worst for that; they just go straight on, and expect you to get out of the way, and don't mind a rap about the rule of the road or anything else. I should like to see half a dozen of ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... doubt the chocolates would be appreciated, but she had not expected to receive back a poetical effusion from her small knight. He evidently, however, had some slight gift for minstrelsy, for one day there was a tremendous rap on the front-door knocker at Burswood Farm, then a sound of running footsteps, and inside the letter-box was a note addressed to 'Miss Merle Ramsay,' in a rather wobbly and unformed hand. At the top of the sheet of paper ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... man, giving his cane a rap upon the floor, "you must get up; you have already been here ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various |
