"Ripping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "It was simply ripping, Mother," said Peter, when they reached home very happy, very tired, and very dirty, "right over that glorious aqueduct. And locks—you don't know what they're like. You sink into the ground and then, when you feel you're never ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... his pastureland, where the grass grew thick and tall, he was in no hurry to return to his clumsy companion. He listened for a time to the sound of the horses, ripping away the grass close to the ground, and to the grating as they chewed. Then he turned his attention to the mountains. His spirit was easier in this place. He breathed more easily. There was a sense of freedom at once and companionship. He lingered ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... by I told him about the Island, and he said, "Right you are, young Soc-ra-tees," and we landed there, and he kept saying, "Ripping," "Splendid," and things like that, and by and by he fished out some sandwiches and sweet chocolate from his pocket, and gave me some, and told me to stay there while he rowed around and explored farther up the side of the Island. I said, "All right," for with things ...
— W. A. G.'s Tale • Margaret Turnbull
... valueless, when the captain jerked it overboard. "Oh! murder!— captain, drop the boat," cried Paddy; "pick my jacket up, or I'm a ruined man. All my money's in it." The jacket was fortunately picked up before it sank, and, on ripping it up, it was found to contain, sewed up in it, upwards of fifty sovereigns and gold eagles. The same captain narrated to me the particulars of one instance in which about one hundred Irish were on board, who when asked for payment, commenced an attack upon the captain ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... and spray, seeing nothing, hearing no word. The gale roared above us with that peculiar tearing sound that accompanies the body of a typhoon; a sound suggestive of unearthly anger and violence, as if elemental forces were ripping up the envelope of the universe. The wind gained steadily in volume; it picked up the sea in steep ridges of solid water that flung us like a chip from crest to crest, or caught us, burst above us and swallowed us whole, as if we had suddenly sunk in a deep well. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... tugging at the door, but never a jot did it stir, and after about five minutes of this futile work he appeared again at the window. The water was nearly on a level with the opening now, and rising moment by moment, while there were ominous ripping and rending sounds in Katherine's ice island, which warned her that the rescue must take place in the next few minutes if it was ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... dinner, a perfectly ripping dinner, with everything I like—including tons of jelly, at sight of which I grinned at Mother and she grinned back—if you can call her gorgeous smile a grin. After dinner the lights were put on and we had some music, ...
— The Whistling Mother • Grace S. Richmond
... exactly at stage centre, in the latter play? In what dulcet tones, love-laden, the future Hamlet and Macbeth murmured to his lady fair! Even the sword duel in the last act, all over the chamber, across the great bed ripping down the curtains, back and forth with flash of steel and rattle of blade, was not so thrilling as that moonlit scene across the dial plate. My constant companion in those days was a boy who to-day preaches each week from a famous pulpit, with gravity and eloquence. He is a man ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... talk to you," he said, turning back to Brion. "Privately," he added, bending over and ripping out the communicator with a sweep ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... even the most irritable of tourists, meeting it on his way southward, will be disposed to consider it good-naturedly. There is far too much bustling and scrambling, and the facilities afforded you for the obligatory process of ripping open your luggage before the officers of the Italian custom-house are much scantier than should be; but for myself there is something that deprecates irritation in the shabby green and grey uniforms of all the Italian officials who stand loafing about ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... motors, proclaimed the unpleasant fact that her antagonist was circling around the spot marked by the phosphorescent swirl and the iridescence of escaped oil, and was firing explosive grapnels in the hope of ripping open ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... leaped upon them like a mad panther, rending their branches from them, ripping off great strips of bark, and leaving long, gaping wounds, dripping with the white blood of trees. The lesser of the two oaks had felt the greater blow, and would have toppled to the ground had it not fallen across its mate; and its mate, though grievously riven, held it up, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... my dress be, Master Robin," she said, "you're ripping out all the gathers, and listen while I whisper. As sure as you're a living boy, that gentleman's ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... as Andy spun around, dashed to Bettijean's desk and yanked out the wide, top drawer. He pawed through it, straightened, then leaped across to the desk Janis had used. He snatched open drawer after drawer. In a bottom one he found her purse. Ripping it open, he dumped the contents on the desk and clawed through the pile until he found what he wanted. Handing it to the lab technician, he said, ...
— The Plague • Teddy Keller
... Mr. Greeley's bald head suddenly found its way through the roof of the coach, amidst the crash of small timbers and the ripping of strong canvas. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... feel more sorrow than resentment; for I am old enough to have heard those talk of England who still, even after the unhappy estrangement, could not unschool their lips from calling her the Mother-Country. But England has insisted on ripping up old wounds, and has undone the healing work of fifty years; for nations do not reason, they only feel, and the spretae injuria formae rankles in their minds as bitterly as in that of a woman. And because this is so, I feel the more satisfaction that our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... Rusche shouting and fists battering and the tinkle of metal or crystal on metal. He was fighting desperately, his super mech's strength overtaxed. The unseen man's hands tore at his neck and shoulder, ripping away the synthetic flesh and baring ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... part of his gains, he presented it to the young lady in Englewood previously mentioned, who reduced the ruby red jacket to a beautiful bolero jacket, made a table throw of the sash, and after much hesitation seized the exceedingly baggy trousers—which were made with but one seam—and ripping them up, did, with a certain degree of confusion, fashion them into two lovely shirt waists. But she did not wear them in the presence of Mr. Middleton and did not even mention them to him. Nor did Mr. Middleton allude to any of ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... grapnels," shouted Bascomb, "and then let every man follow me aboard the Spaniard." As he spoke the Adventure crashed alongside the galleon, there was a sound of ripping and rending timber, and a heavy rebound; and then, as the two ships rolled toward each other after the rebound the English crew went swarming over their own bulwarks and down upon the Spanish deck, where ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... that the managers had jumped at the chance to produce the first drama from the country's newly acquired jungle? The lines had been rife with the struggle and intrigue of the great canal cutting. It really was a ripping play he told himself with a smile—and this other? He looked at it a moment in a detached way. This ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... "Ripping! Done splendid war work and all that. But the older generation, now that things have begun again, are jolly well up a tree—how to fit the new to the old. I have some elderly relations at Oxbridge—a nice old professor ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... observed the Oxbridge President, Sir WELFORARD LONGSTROKE, as he selected his fourth regalia from the Duke's pearl- encrusted box, and lit it with all the abandon of a Society darling, "may I be jiggered if this is not ripping! What say you?" he continued, addressing young PULYER WRIGHT, the Coxswain, and tossing him playfully four times to the raftered ceiling—"shall we not beat the dastard foe from Camford to-morrow?" A roar of applause sprang from the smoking mouths ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... said. He cracked an instrument case and took out a delicate knife with a near-microscopic edge. He bent it in half and threw the crumpled wreckage away. Wildly he destroyed everything he could, raging from one end of the room to the other, ripping down furnishings, smashing, destroying, while Dr. Goldring stood at the door and ...
— The Happy Unfortunate • Robert Silverberg
... have been almost at a discount, owing to the immense popularity of the moving picture play, then in its infancy and as yet unaccompanied by mechanical reproduction of the voices of the actors. Indeed at one time it was said that there were only three adjectives in use in Flapper society—"ripping," "rotten" and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... Elting were unaware. Their efforts were directed toward getting out of the tent to learn what had occurred. They could hear the canvas ripping; and the noise of the floundering hordes just outside was still going on. Together the two women fought their way out ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... for money - treasure, you know; but we couldn't spend it. And yesterday we wished for wings, and we got them, and we had a ripping time to ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... am quite behind-hand, but fortunately I am keeping lengthy diary notes in pencil; so, if I have not the time to let you know all my experiences just now, I hope to get a connected narrative together sometime. How ripping it will be when that far-off day arrives when I can come home and tell you all about everything! It will be a long tale which I shall have to tell. I have almost forgotten which articles from home I have acknowledged and which ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... exactly. It is a long, long time ago. But were I to live as long as I have already lived again, I should not forget a single detail, so much was I struck by it amid the tumult that was raging within me and without; amid the din of shots striking the ramparts, the lightning flashes ripping the sky, and the violent palpitations which sent my blood surging from my heart to my brain, and from ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... way it all started from that. You put me on to seeing Markovitch in quite a different light. I'd always thought of him as an awfully dull dog with very little to say for himself, and a bit loose in the top-story too. I thought it a terrible shame a ripping woman like Vera having married him, and I used to feel sick with him about it. Then sometimes he'd look like the devil himself, as wicked as sin, poring over his inventions, and you'd fancy that to stick a knife in his back might be perhaps the best ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... look at, and if you touch it, it feels soft as jelly outside; but it has a bad way o' ripping holes in the bottoms of ships. Copper and iron's nothing to it. Goes right through 'em. Ah! that coral's sent hunderds o' fine vessels to the bottom o' the sea, the sea. 'And she sank to the ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... sedately by the unknown girl. "That settles it. You couldn't start on your campaign in a better way. You shall be the Lady of Mystery in this story! I will not breathe a hint of your identity to Shirley, and no one else knows, of course. What a ripping good joke: I'm glad you came here the first hour after ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... busy with a pleasanter task was correspondingly cheerful. She altered father's "Prince Albert" into a stately full-dress coat, ripping up its waist-seams, and pinned back the skirts of the coat ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... ripping out a peck of oaths that had cost dear and meant a day in the stocks if the elders heard, "who's going to inform when my father sails the only other ship in the bay? Devil sink my soul to the bottom of the sea if I don't ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... the kind used by professional players. It is covered with horsehide, and is warranted to last an entire game without ripping or getting out of shape. Baseball bats are made of a variety of woods, the common materials being ash, willow, and hickory. A bat must not exceed 2-3/4 inches in thickness at its thickest part. There are a great many shapes and models named after the professional players who use them. ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... if you can't break bounds? A ride of about a quarter of a mile's no good. There's a ripping place about ten miles down the Stapleton Road. Big wood, with a ripping little hollow in the middle, all ferns and moss. I was thinking of taking a book out there for the afternoon. ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... and attire, and is not noisy, I believe, except when holding religious services and political conventions in a tree; but this Indian sham Quaker is just a rowdy, and is always noisy when awake—always chaffing, scolding, scoffing, laughing, ripping, and cursing, and carrying on about something or other. I never saw such a bird for delivering opinions. Nothing escapes him; he notices everything that happens, and brings out his opinion about it, particularly if it is a matter that is ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... land. Naked and unarmed he was pushed forward into a dark cavern and told to beard the lion in his den. In childlike simplicity he undertook the task. Soon the air was filled with his agonizing cries; for the claws and teeth of the lion were ripping open every vein and crushing every bone. In this hour of dire distress the negro lifted up his voice in loud, long piteous wails calling upon those for help at whose instance and partially for whose sake he had dared to encounter the deadly foe. These whilom ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... no one has ever been able to penetrate, came sliding down the bed of the dried-up river, and in a little time,—though the channel was six hundred feet deep and two hundred broad,—the glowing deluge overflowed its banks, crossed the low country of Medalland, ripping the turf up before it like a table-cloth, and poured into a great lake whose affrighted waters flew hissing and screaming into the air at the approach of the fiery intruder. Within a few more days ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... underbrush just below him, and out of the bushes came a young lynx to join in the chase. He missed the marten on the ground, but sprang to my tree like a flash. I remember still that the only sound I was conscious of at the time was the ripping of his nails in the dead bark. He had been seeking my bait undoubtedly—for it was a good lynx country, and Upweekis loves fish like a cat—when the chase passed under his nose and he joined it ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... to do anything—and I had to sit down and tell them. I wonder with intelligence like theirs that their Intelligence Department did not tell them the Boers fought with war clubs and spears. I bought a ripping pony and my plan is to cut away from all my magnificent equipment and try to overtake Buller before he reaches Ladysmith and send back for the heavy things later. It is just a question of minutes really ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... it, too: from the roof came a ripping, splintering sound, as though people on the slates were prying up the bolted scuttle. The three men on the stairs hesitated a moment longer; then turned to flee, too late; a hail of pistol shots swept the attic stairs; all three men came pitching ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... great distinctness, and so silent was the valley otherwise that they could hear the sound of his claws ripping across the bark. He was like some gigantic survival of another age. Dick waited until both his brother and ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... desk. "There he is! That's Garrison! Out with the scoundrel!" and other such words of recognition and execration, burst from one and another of the mob. The shattering of the partition, the noise of splitting and ripping boards, the sharp crash caused by the shivering of the office door, the loud and angry outcries of the rioters warn the serene occupant of the office that his position has become one of extreme peril. But he does not become excited. His composure does not forsake ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... heave of O'Neil's body cleared his way, a few strides and he was at the window, ripping the blazing hangings down and flinging them into the court below. When he turned it was to behold in the dim twilight Vittoria Fabrizi kneeling beside Blake. Her arms were about him, her yellow hair ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... of Carr's coming off in all his trials, to the disgrace of my Lord Gerard to that degree, and the ripping up of so many notorious rogueries and cheats of my Lord's, that my Lord, it is thought, will be ruined: and above all do show the madness of the House of Commons, who rejected the petition of this poor man by a combination of a few in the House; and, much more, the ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... was upon him. More than that, it was over him, for, trusting to his agility—for which he was famed—he tried to leap to one side, intending to make a vigorous thrust at the same moment. In doing so his foot slipped; he fell flat on his side, and the boar, tripping over him, just missed ripping him with its fearful tusks. It fell, with a ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... the auricular vapour, as it were, of action, undefined and indefinable, the hum of the human hive, compounded of all confluent noises—the chatter of the servants' hall and the nursery, the stamping of horses, the ringing of harness, the ripping of the chains of kenneled dogs, the hollow stamping of heavy boots, the lowing of cattle, with sounds besides so strange to the ears of Dorothy that they set her puzzling in vain to account for them; not to mention the chaff of the guard-rooms by the gates, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... waving to me, and I grabbed my scarf to wave at him. The Princess flashed by so swiftly I couldn't see how she looked, and then I heard a voice I knew cry: "Ep! Ep! Over Lad!" And I almost fell dead where I stood. Mr. Pryor sailed right over the barnyard fence into the cornfield, ripping that dumb-bell as he went, and neck and neck, even with him, on one of his finest horses, was our Leon. His feet were in the stirrups, he had the reins tight, he almost stood as he arose, his face was ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... battle. One day they asked me to come and look at the dead body of one of their field cornets, whom they alleged to have been done to death whilst wounded by our Lancers. I went and saw the man, and at a glance saw that the wounds were not lance wounds at all, but ripping bullet wounds. He had been sniped by some Australian riflemen from a high kopje whilst in a valley. I tried to explain this to the excited burghers, but they only sneered at me for my trouble, until ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... in shrubbery and fruit trees and kept as a park, so that you will motor for 100 miles through odorous bloom in spring!—I mean I am going down there to-morrow for a month, one day for golf at Pinehurst, the next day for clearing land with an oil locomotive, ripping up stumps! Every day for life out-of-doors and every night, too. I'm going to grow dasheens. You know what a dasheen is? It's a Trinidad potato, which keeps and tastes like a sweet potato stuffed with chestnuts. There are lots of things ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... frantically in the stop signal. For an instant that seemed an age, the passenger engineer made no sign. Then came a short, sharp whistle-scream, a spewing of sparks from rail-head and tire at the clip of the emergency brakes, a crash as of the ripping asunder of the mechanical soul and body, and a wrecked train lay tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees against the bank ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... He was transfixed by this terrific medley of all noises. It was as if worlds were being rended. There was the ripping sound of musketry and the breaking crash of ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... finicky spinsters. Their intermittent sputtering to the right and left of us was unenlightening. We couldn't tell whether they were speaking German or English. Occasional bullets whining somewhere through that wet air gave forth sounds resembling the ripping of linen sheets. ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... a captain. One of those sudden moral cataclysms that sometimes sweep the city had hurled him from a high and profitable position in the Police Department, ripping off his badge and buttons and washing into the hands of his lawyers the solid pieces of real estate that his frugality had enabled him to accumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One month after his dishabilitation ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... obviously a huge and particularly savage cat. He knew the deadly power of its hind claws, with all the strength of those great hind quarters behind them. As he grappled with the screeching lynx, silently, after the fashion of his bull ancestors, he received a ripping slash from one of its armed fore paws, but succeeded in fixing his grip on the base of the beast's neck, not far from the throat. Instantly he drew himself backward with all his weight, crouching flat, and dragging ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... It is all useless. No sooner do they reach the bridge-end when down they go by the dozens before the hot fire of a thousand Southern rifles. So dense is the fog that the gunners cannot aim. Shot, shell, and canister go shrieking through roof and wall, and ripping up streets and crossings; but the plucky riflemen hug the shore in stern determination, and ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... four well-defined kinds. First, a long, flat saw, for cross-cutting. Second, a slightly larger saw for ripping purposes. Third, a back saw, with a rib on the rear edge to hold the blade rigid, used for making tenons; and, fourth, a compass ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... fierce gust of wind, followed by a second and then a third. Around spun the biplane and then tilted up as if about to go over. Then came an unexpected ripping and tearing sound. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... did not go with them as hostage. On the contrary, the moment they left him alone he quickly undid his bonds. He tiptoed past the leopard which flew at him savagely, ripping the post from its socket and wrecking the banisters. Umballa, unprepared for this stroke, leaped through the window, followed by the hampered leopard. It would have gone ill with Umballa even then had not some keepers rushed for the leopard. In the ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... gentlemen's car; which is something narrower. As I had a window close to me yesterday which commanded this gentlemen's car, I looked at it pretty often, perforce. The flashes of saliva flew so perpetually and incessantly out of the windows all the way, that it looked as though they were ripping open feather-beds inside, and letting the wind dispose of the feathers.[51] But this spitting is universal. In the courts of law, the judge has his spittoon on the bench, the counsel have theirs, the witness has his, the prisoner his, and the crier his. The jury are accommodated at the rate of three ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... turned out the man who voted for Arthur—the Radical miller—Martover gent—who's coming to see me at three this afternoon, to ask what the deuce I mean by spreading reports about him. Shall have a ripping time with him!" ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... became beads of light. A shadowy arm heaved up, fell with a dry, ripping sound and a vertical flash. A sword had cut the ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... ask you then to call upon them both to join with us in becoming friends, and in having on the last night in port a ripping jollification. I propose," said the peacemaker, "that we have some chanties, and that we start these aboard the vessel I belong to by hoisting the ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... endeavouring to maintain a semblance of self-possession, he described his recent experience, omitting no single detail that he could recall. He showed them exactly where and how he had been sitting, and followed every movement made by Edestone, even to the ripping of the glass from the portrait of the King, until finally, as if overcome by the strain that he had put upon himself to appear perfectly calm, he ended with a ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... much, with so little to ask, from Federalism as he. His was the pivotal province of Confederation, the grand compromise of Old Macdonald with Cartier; the basic sixty-five members of Parliament, unchangeable except by ripping up the B.N.A. Act, an instrument of Empire. He could wink the other eye and reflect that from the political concessions of the Act in official bilingualism and a fixed representation, in the outlet of the St. Lawrence, in the possession of the historic city, in the control of ocean navigation, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... over the entire band; then the wild work commenced, bolts and bars were broken open, the trading-shop was quickly cleared out, and in the highest spirits, laughing loudly at the glorious fun they were having, the braves commenced to enter the houses, ripping up the feather beds to look for guns and tearing down calico curtains for finery. The men of the fort were nearly all away in the plains, and the women and children were in a high state of alarm. Sometimes the Indians would point their guns at the women, then drag them off ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... me whether or not an epic goes at a hexameter gallop through the ages, or whether it chooses to be a flood of muddy water, ripping out a channel from the mountains to the sea. It is merely a matter of how the great dynamic force shall ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... thunder—a ripping, rending roar of swift, unknown disaster—filled the air, and shook the quiet houses around our Lady of the Victories with nameless terror. After it, ten seconds of thrilling silence, and then the distant sound of shrieking and wailing. ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... in the windows, shutters, latches, glass, and all, but their small size and height from the ground made them most dangerous to enter by when there were defenders within went round to the back of the house, and presently I heard a great ripping and banging of boards there, and Mr ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... our decks covered with hides and bodies, slippery with fat and blood, the scuppers running red; masts, ropes, and rails spattered with the sanguinary colour; and the men, like butchers plying their trade, naked and red of arm and hand, hard at work with ripping and flensing-knives, removing the skins from the pretty sea-creatures they ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... though pale with heat and fatigue. He had nothing to say of himself, but much of his aunt and of the boy Mohammed. "Ripping little chap," he exclaimed, when Saidee had gone indoors. "You never saw such pluck. He'd die sooner than admit he was tired. I shall be quite sorry to part from him. He was jolly good company, a sort of living book of Arab history. And what do you say to our surprise,—the twins? ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... thinking of having my ruby cashmere colored over. I don't seem to feel like ripping it all up, pleatings and all; but Mrs. Peebles says it can be dipped just as well made up, and I needn't take out a seam. I might have it a kind of dark olive, ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... almost running; and as soon as we came to the closed door of Dr. Quint's room, I could hear a commotion inside—desk drawers being pulled out and their contents dumped, curtains being jerked from their rings, an unmistakable sound indicating the ripping up of a carpet—and through all this din the agitated ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... fortnight she was doing a dance with the comedian, exchanging lines with him. Then a little individual song-and-dance specialty was introduced. At the close of the engagement on Broadway she announced that she would not sign for the next season unless given a "ripping" part and the ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... of their hearts upon the hope of glutting that hunger with the life-blood of their victim, they waited long years. When once their swords had drunk the consecrated blood, they laid the severed head upon their master's tomb and then gladly, even rapturously, delivered themselves up, and ripping open their bowels they died by that judicially ordered seppuku which cleansed their memory from every stain, and gave to them the martyr's fame and crown forever. The tombs of these men, on the hillside ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... the fourth hour, a great tree came crashing down with a ripping, rending roar. Another followed it soon after, and at intervals still other trees lost their foothold and surrendered to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... forbid it," she interrupted. "Arguments bore me. Have you heard that little song before that I was singing? It's a ripping little ditty. Chain Aunt Emily to the drawing-room sofa and I'll sing it all through to you; but if she were to hear it she might faint, and ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... waters that, from the description of the hills, may now be identified as Rupert Bay, in the south-east corner. The furious autumn winds bobbled the little high-decked ship about on the water like a chip in a maelstrom, and finally, with a ripping crash that tore timbers asunder, sent her on the rocks, in the blackness of a November night. The starving crew dashed up the hatchway to decks glassed with ice and wrapped in the gloom of a snow-storm thick as wool. To any ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... articles denominated them—"the fun of the fair." By this is meant a little notched wheel, with a piece of wood fastened on it, like a miniature watchman's rattle. The "fun" consists in drawing them down the back of any one you pass, when they make a sound precisely like that of ripping cloth. The women take great delight in this, and as it is only deemed politeness to return the compliment, we soon had enough to do. Nobody seemed to take the diversion amiss, but it was so irresistibly droll to see a large crowd engaged in this ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... on the walls, falling in bruised and torn heaps upon the floor. It was fortunate that no customers happened to come in, for it is certain they would never have come in again—the noise was too tremendous, a noise of smashing and ripping and tearing, mixed now and then with the tinkling of glass, the quick breathing of the two throwers, and the intermittent outbursts of laughter to which ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... roaring. A piece of the island behind the wharf broke loose and sank into the bay with a suddenness that put the Tuckahoe in dire peril. The wave that followed the engulfing of an acre of land lifted the little bugeye and nearly capsized it, at the same time ripping the wharf to pieces and snapping the moorings. Captain Cromwell and his negro sprang to the tiller and succeeded in steadying her. When they had time to look about them they saw the red-headed King in the water a hundred feet away, swimming ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... dwelling-places like flood-beset rats; and like rats, half-drowned and gasping, when the weather cleared they crawled out and up the green Piedmont slopes to bask in the blessed sunshine. And they invaded my field in swarms and droves, crushing the sweet wheat into the earth and with lustful hands ripping the poppies out ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... to hold my head down, presently, when the tall brush began to whip the basket and I heard the big boots of Uncle Eb ripping the briars. Then we came into the blackness of the thick timber and I could hear him feeling his way over the dead leaves with his cane. I got down, shortly, and walked beside him, holding on to the ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... disappointment, and the silence which had been maintained as the two vessels met was just breaking up in various ways of lamentation at their bad luck, when the broadside was poured in, thundering in their ears, and the ripping and tearing of the beams and planks astonished their senses. Many were carried down below, but it was difficult to say whether indignation at the enemy's ruse, or satisfaction at discovering that they were not called to quarters in vain, most predominated. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... be a long delay while hydraulic jacks were sought and put to work to force her forward. Such a delay had a superstitious meaning. Nobody liked a ship that was afraid of her element. They wanted an eagerness in her get-away. Or suppose she shot out too impetuously and listed on the ways, ripping the scaffolding to pieces like a whale thrashing a raft apart. Suppose she careened and stuck or rolled over in the mud. Such things had happened and might happen again. The Mamise had suffered so many mishaps that the other ship ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... (sea-swallows) are rearing their families, and ever need fresh food in unstinted quantities. The small fry come to an excited and enthusiastic market. Slim, silvery kingfish, grey sharks, and blue bonito, harry the shoals, ripping through them with steel-like flashes, and as the little fish ruffle the surface of sea or emerge therefrom in living silvery spray, in frantic efforts to escape, the terns take all they want, screaming with satisfaction. Then, too, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... leaving a dozen or so staggering posts held together by the wires, tangled and sagging. Cattle frequently pulled loosened posts from the earth by kneeling under the wire and working through, oblivious to the barbs. Again, "stock gone a little loco" would often charge straight through the rigid and ripping wire barriers as though their strands were of thread. Posts would split in the sun, and staples would drop out, leaving sagging spaces which cattle never failed to find and take advantage of. Trees uprooted by the rain ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... once. Nicol saw the look and understood, and, for a moment, his eyes flashed with that ungovernable temper which was part of him. But the danger passed as swiftly as it came. Little One Man had flung the bundle ashore as Keeko stepped from the boat, and, in another moment, Nicol's sheath knife was ripping the thongs ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... of humour. I don't know; Pete was sure being either a humourist or a poet. However, this here lady handed me a new one about my business. She thought it was merely an outdoor sport. I never could get that out of her head. Even when she left she says she knows it's ripping good sport, but it's such a terrific drain on one's income, and I must be quite mad about ranching to keep it up. I said, yes; I got quite mad about it sometimes, and let it go at that. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... time before, so I said to the Captain, "You can't land her too quick to suit me. Put her into the bank as soon as you can." Captain Thorwegon tried to dissuade me, but I was obstinate, and insisted on being landed at once. Dunlap, my partner, was ripping mad at my obstinacy, as it was dark, raining, and in the woods. Out went the gang plank, however, and we on it, armed with some matches, cigars, and a bottle of whisky. A big tree was soon found, a fire started, and after ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... name under it. It seemed almost impossible to tear it open. What had he told her? She pressed the envelope to her lips. Her darling's hands had touched it, his fingers had written her name upon it. Ripping it slowly along the edge, she took out the contents, and there fluttered to the rock a yellow backed bill. Tess picked it up and examined it carefully. Frederick had sent her some money. Tess laid it down again and placed a small stone upon it. Then ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... to consult you about a little business matter, Agnes," he found himself beginning with sudden breathlessness, his perturbation forgotten in the overwhelming charm of her. "The governor's will has just been read to me, and he's plunged me into a ripping mess. His whole fortune is in the hands of a trusteeship, whatever that is, and I'm not even to know the trustees. All I get is just the business, and I'm to carry the John Burnit Store on from its present blue-ribbon standing to still ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... town of Klukwan; and as the day wore away the crowd of Indians had increased so greatly that there was no room for them in the large house. I heard a scrambling upon the roof, and looking up I saw a row of black heads around the great smoke-hole in the center of the roof. After a little a ripping, tearing sound came from the sides of the building. They were prying off the planks in order that those outside might hear. When my voice faltered with long talking Tow-a-att and Kadishan took up the story, telling what they had learned of the white man's ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... heavy impact, a crash, as of ripping wood, and a cry. A canoe near them had been struck by a cannon ball, and practically broken in half. It sank in an instant, and one of the men in it, wounded in the arm, and crippled, was sinking a second time, when Paul ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ripping of you both to come," he said nervously, feeling all hands and feet. "Never saw such a lonely spot in all my life, by George, as this house! It fairly gives ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... the boy. "What rot! I wouldn't mind offering to pay you a shilling for every bank-note that's found in that stupid old chest. But, I say," he added, "fancy having a real live pony! It would be ripping!" ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... there; and, in a great silence of the neighborhood, are busy, in three gangs, upon the dormant Tea Ships; opening their chests, and punctually shaking them out into the sea. 'Listening from the distance, you could hear distinctly the ripping open of the chests, and no other sound.' About 10 P.M. all was finished: 342 chests of tea flung out to infuse in the Atlantic; the fifty Mohawks gone like a dream; and Boston sleeping more silently even than usual." ["Summary of the Advices from America" (in Gentleman's Magazine for 1774, pp. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the pass began under difficulties. Sharp stones and cactus spikes penetrated the front tires, bursting them with ripping reports. It took time to replace them. The planks were called into requisition to cross soft places. A jagged point of projecting rock had to be broken with a sledge. At length a huge stone appeared to hinder any further advance. Madeline caught ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... swung around, with her stern directly toward the Olympia, an 8-inch shell struck her squarely, and the explosive must have travelled directly through the ill-fated craft until it reached the after boiler, where it exploded, ripping up the decks, and vomiting forth showers of iron fragments and portions ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... Half an hour or an hour hence she will be free, and the junk dropping down to sea with the drugs in her. All at once a shriek or yell of "Hard aport!" and a great iron outward-bound steamer from Hong-Kong bursts into the unwieldy Chinaman, goes crunching through her like ripping pasteboard; tears her open; snarls through steamy nostrils and cindery fiery mouth, and growls over her wreck. And the sodden, stupefied merchantman, as if drunk with opium, goes yelling and staggering with her sleepy drugs to the bottom, and stays ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... forward between Sarah and Undershaft] You'll find it awfully interesting. I've been through the Woolwich Arsenal; and it gives you a ripping feeling of security, you know, to think of the lot of beggars we could kill if it came to fighting. [To Undershaft, with sudden solemnity] Still, it must be rather an awful reflection for you, from the religious ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... all right—ripping soup," snorted Freddy, smacking his lips over the recollection. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... a treat to some of us," Lord Robert retorted. "I remember when I was a little chap going to have tea at the Mershire's; and when I wanted to gather some of their most ripping orchids, Lady M. said I might go into the garden and pick mignonette instead. 'Thank you,' I replied in my most dignified manner, 'I can pick mignonette at home; that's no change to me!' Now, that's ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... try and prevent the mater swaggering about it too much, you know. She's such a dear, she's sure to be absurdly proud of it. And it'll be a bit of a score off the governor in a way, too. He never would have thought I could do it, would he? And Raggett will be surprised, too. You must have a ripping new dress for the ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... proposed to make a sail of some frocks and trowsers, but they had got neither needles nor sewing twine, one of the people however, had a needle in his knife, and another several fishing lines in his pockets, which were unlaid by some, and others were employed in ripping the frocks and trowsers. By sunset they had provided a tolerable lug-sail; having split one of the boat's thwarts, (which was of yellow deal,) with a very large knife, which one of the crew had in his pocket, they made a yard and lashed ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... and Roderick Dhu is ripping!" announced Hugh John, and, rising to his feet, he whistled shrill in imitation of the outlaw. It was the time to take the affairs of children at the fulness ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... explosion on the beach. The next instant the atmosphere was incredibly rent asunder. The terrible sound frightened him. It was as if all the gods had caught the envelope of the sky in their hands and were ripping it apart as a woman rips apart a sheet of cotton cloth. But it was such an immense ripping, growing swiftly nearer. Koolau glanced up apprehensively, as if expecting to see the thing. Then high up on the cliff overhead ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... defiance and despair in one. He reined up with violence enough to set his horse rearing. Then, dropping his hold on the leading rope of Ross's mount, he whirled and set off in a wild dash for the trees to the left. A spear lanced across Ross's shoulder, ripping at the blue fabric, but his horse whirled to follow the other, taking him out of danger of a second thrust. Having lost his opportunity, the man who had wielded the spear ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... morning at least the promise could not be kept; for, once having joined forces, it was difficult to separate again, and throughout the exciting chase which followed Norah made herself so agreeable that Harold and Gurth pronounced her "a ripping girl, worth a dozen of that mumpy ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... because I've got a beastly cold, so I asked Jock, and the pig bought this. The satin is simply scrumptious. If you don't come and see me in it some time soon, I shall come and show it to you. I wish I had a moustache, because my top lip feels just like a matchbox, but it's rather ripping having breakfast in bed. Mr. Pillin's taking us to the theatre the day after to-morrow evening. Isn't it nummy! I'm going to have rum and honey for ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that." Having once begun, Barry unburdened himself still further. "You know, although I admire Mrs. Rose immensely, and she's a ripping kid really, I'm not a bit sure that the ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... was then forced to come to the surface, whereupon the Birmingham's gunner fired the second shot of the fight. This shot struck at the base of the conning tower, ripping the whole of the upper structure clean and the U-15 sank ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... rushing scuttle of long bodies running over the baggy cloth. Strickland took a lamp with him, while I tried to make clear the danger of hunting roof snakes between a ceiling cloth and a thatch, apart from the deterioration of property caused by ripping ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the trousers on the table and came back to her seat without a word, and I know that Mrs. White sat up nearly all night ripping them, and cutting them over, and sewing them together again, in season to have them packed in ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... moccasins. It was new and elaborately beaded, the kind a woman fancies for wall decorations, and she had probably bartered with some passing squaw for the pair. But the size looked encouraging, and with a little ripping and cutting, I managed to work it on. Pinned to the toe of the other, I found a note. It ran like this: 'Two Indians are trailing you. I sent them down-stream, but they will come back. They told me about that poor ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... his horse would get a cut of the whip itself for his pains. My uncle and I, however, did all we could to pacify them; and their own bad horsemanship, and the screeching of the women, prevented any strokes at that time. Some of them were ripping up ould sores against one another as they went along; others, particularly the youngsters, with their sweethearts behind them, coorting away for the life of them, and some might be heard miles off, singing and laughing; and ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... ran quivering up the east, and the lake of red coals under them began to heave fiercely in answer. On either side the lightning leaped upward and forward, striking straight and low, sometimes, as though it were ripping up the horizon to let into the conflict the host of dropping stars. Then the artillery of the thunder crashed in earnest through the shaking heavens, and the mists below pitched like smoke belched from gigantic unseen cannon. The coming sun answered with upleaping swords of fire ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... placed the tin object to his lips and puffed out his bulging cheeks. A sound resulted such as the ears of Coldriver had seldom suffered. It was shrill, it was penetrating, it rose and fell with a sort of ripping, tearing slash. The boy stopped in front of Scattergood and stared. Without a word Scattergood held out his hand for his mail, and, receiving it, placed a nickel in the grimy palm that remained extended. Then, apparently oblivious to the boy's ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... "That's ripping!" exclaimed the admiring Dig, as this elegant epistle was carefully folded into the original envelope, and, after being gummed down, was thrust under the string of the counterfeit parcel. "Oh, I wish I could be ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... he expressed it several times, a quart into a pint bottle. He was greatly pleased with the barn. He asked the size of it and did calculations. He could "stick twenty-five men into it—easy." It would go far to solve his problems. He could manage without coming into the house at all. It was a ripping place. "No end." ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... a billet at Coxon & Woodhouse's, of Draper's Gardens, but they were let in early in the spring through the Venezuelan loan, as no doubt you remember, and came a nasty cropper. I had been with them five years, and old Coxon gave me a ripping good testimonial when the smash came, but of course we clerks were all turned adrift, the twenty-seven of us. I tried here and tried there, but there were lots of other chaps on the same lay as myself, and it was a perfect frost for a long time. I had been ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... for everybody else. You realise that a shell which makes a great noise may yet be hundreds of yards away. You learn to distinguish between a gun's report and an overturned water-tank's. You perceive that the most awful noise of all is the throat-ripping cough of your own guns firing over your head at an enemy four miles away. So you leave the matter to Allah, and by the middle of the morning do not even turn your head to see where ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... curses. By sheer weight he bore Hanlon back across the floor, and got in a couple of heavy blows. Hanlon's right cheek was badly bruised, and that eye almost closed. But he was fighting methodically, almost viciously. He was in and out, slashing and ripping ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... stretcher lies behind its wing, passes in front of the rod nearest to it, and behind that at the corner diagonally opposite. (See Fig. 119.) The slits through which it is thrust should be strengthened with patches to prevent ripping ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... you are a ripping good sort and I could take you on for the whole evening if you'd ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... "Looking Glass of London," in three rambling acts, and while Burbage was disposed to take the play and pay for it, he desired that Shakspere should give it such ripping corrections as ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... water. It reached the schooner, filled her sails, and she increased her distance. Again it died away, and we neared her fast. She swept round again, and recommenced firing, and one of her shot passed through the second cutter, in which I was stationed, ripping open three of her planks, and wounding two men beside me. The boat, heavy with the gun, ammunition chests, etcetera, immediately filled and turned over with us, and it was with difficulty that we could escape from the weighty hamper that ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... said no more about the foot. Instead, she said, "Oh, how ripping it is to really and truly find you here! We thought you couldn't be real because we wrote a letter to you at the address it said on that bill you gave us. And the letter came ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... such a head," said her brother, a young Hussar lieutenant, beside her, in the tone of connoisseurship. "By George, she's ripping—she's the best-looking girl I've seen for a good long time. But she's a ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... up out of the long chair in which he was disjointedly lounging, and looked down at her with a smile. "Another couple of love-sick idiots like you and Nick.... I say, before I spend it all let's go out and buy something ripping for Clarissa." ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... every day, and after the bombardment lets up men from the neighborhood come to collect the wood torn up by the shelling. The men of the Tenth East Yorks came up this morning and climbed to the remains of the second story, ripping up the floor boards. The enemy evidently saw them, for the shelling soon started. We have been shelled often here before, but it was nothing compared to this. The shells were carefully placed and came ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... admitted, "they gave us some ripping Burgundy. I got away directly we finished dinner," he continued, "and ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... way, staggering among the stones, and wading in low growth of the calcanthus, where the rattlesnakes lay hissing at his passage. Yet I liked to draw water. It was pleasant to dip the gray metal pail into the clean, colourless, cool water; pleasant to carry it back, with the water ripping at the edge, and a broken sunbeam quivering in ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... see it near without feeling excitement. A long line of fire had extended across the valley. White puffs of smoke arose like innumerable jets of steam. The crackle of the rifles was incessant and at the distance sounded like the ripping of heavy cloth. ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... filtered moonlight, a white blanket of broken-backed volumes spilled across the entire lower floor. Stillman shuddered; he could envision them, shrieking, scrabbling at the shelves, throwing books wildly across the room at one another. Screaming, ripping, destroying. ...
— Small World • William F. Nolan
... is ripping!" echoed Sylvia. "But do you know, I was simply shaking with nervousness when Nealie was harnessing, for I was so afraid that she would make some awful blunder, and that they would refuse to let us have the horse and wagon, for I knew that I could not have ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... and mail. [Sidenote: Their mode of fighting, etc.] The men in their front ranks were often linked together so as to make retreat impossible. Their priestesses cheered them on in battle, and, when prisoners were taken, cut their throats over a great bowl, and then, ripping them up, ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... A sharp, ripping sound was heard, and as Bob's head was pulled up, a long, narrow piece of cloth was exhibited, hanging down from his mouth; and held in ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... p. 109):—'In answer to the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, etc. against showy decorations of the human figure, I once heard him exclaim:—"Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues! ... Alas! Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one."' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Now there came a ripping, tearing sound in the air, and a veritable cloudburst of the damnable whizz bangs broke over us. That settled matters. There were no orders, but everyone turned, just as if it were a meeting, and a motion to adjourn had been put and carried unanimously. We ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder |
