"Smashing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... days the spare British artillery had been cutting the barbed wire of the second line and smashing in the trenches; and the big guns which had been advanced since July 1st were sending their shells far beyond the Ridge into villages and crossroads and other vital points, in order to interfere with ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... and a half of resolute practising makes you not at all sorry for an oasis in the counting, which you inaugurate (or whatever you do when it's an oasis) by smashing the top coal and making a great blaze. And then you go ever so ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... "What a smashing argument really is! You see that you really are not for peace, but for war. But won't you ask Partow to do one thing, if he still insists that he is for peace? I wonder if he will chuckle or laugh at my suggestion, or will he grin or roar? Though you know that he will do them ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... they confessed as 'ow 'twere not thee who set 'em on to smashing Wilson's machinery, but that thou didst thy best to stop them, so, I tell thee this, thou art a sort of hero i' Brunford now. It's all over th' place that thou art a sort of martyr, and that thou suffered ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... from the Park. A dry storm descended on the valley, and Marion lay awake while the wind howled around the corners of the ranch house, of which every timber seemed to be crying out in agony. She knew that high among the rocks the storm was smashing about in fury, and even in its sheltered hollow the house was hammered as if the elements were bent upon its annihilation. When each prodigious outcry had spent itself and died away there was still the moaning and ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... fine long sweep, this time upward, Pretty sent a smashing blow at the third tramp's upraised arm. The force of the stroke was alone strong enough to send the knife flying; but, by the addition of a bit of good luck, Pretty caught the wretch on his crazy bone, ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... fathers had greater possessions. This was terrible. It took long for her to believe that nothing counted so much as money. It made the world a nightmare, but she set to work to become her own heiress.... In this struggle she must at last lose faith. This can be brought about by long years, smashing blows and incredible suffering, but the result must be ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... of her rages, had an ungovernable temper, and, left alone, she vented it by smashing everything she could. She upset the throne, tore down the decorations, and flew around like ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... smash first. He hoped it would not be the window of the car. He hoped he could get her safely indoors before the smashing began. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... of the tree had come straight through the big window of the apartment, crashing down on a bureau and a writing-desk, smashing both flat. Some branches of the tree rested on the side of the bed, pinning Job Haskers against the wall, ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... not agreeable. The pantry presented a beautiful assortment of glass and china; but every tumbler and cup had to be fastened to the wall by hooks, or, in case of rough weather, there would be fatal smashing. The castors, too, looked so droll, suspended over ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... royal serenade; but half a minute had not passed before things took a very different turn, for the party in possession of the street charged the newcomers after a moment's deliberation; the twanging of strings turned into a noise of stout sticks hitting each other violently and smashing an instrument now and then, and steel was clashing too, while the voices that had lately sung so tunefully now ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... the cramped fingers, but the fellow struggled like a demon, clutching at the miner's throat, but unable to confine his arms. Twice Westcott drove his clenched right into the shadowed face, smashing it the last time so hard the man's grip relaxed, and he went staggering back. With a leap forward, the battle-fury on him, Westcott closed before the other could regain position. Again the clenched fist struck and ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... heart, Roarin' Russell opened his fingers wide, judging implicit obedience his greatest safety. Sandy did not move position, he hardly seemed to move wrist or finger as his guns spat fire, left and right, eight shots blending, eight bullets smashing their way through the door between the "V's" of the bully's fingers while the crowd held ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... close to smashing things. So we've had to rush things. We did stop that Bulgarian raid. When you proved too sharp to be fooled, we grew hopeful. Here might be our entering wedge. We hammered at you. We managed to make your people suspicious that ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... illuminated driveway the trees formed a wall of impenetrable blackness. Yet somewhere in that blackness a terrible struggle was going on. There was an infernal outcry of animals, a great snarling and growling, the sound of blows being struck and a smashing and crashing of ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... Eastry had kept the railway-station from Wimblehurst, they stop on the very outskirts of the estates, but from the south, the South Eastern railway had butted its great stupid rusty iron head of Charing Cross station, that great head that came smashing down in 1905—clean across the river, between Somerset House and Whitehall. The south side had no protecting estate. Factory chimneys smoke right over against Westminster with an air of carelessly not having permission, and the whole effect of industrial London and of all London east of Temple ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... the other's jaw by two inches, that catapeltic blow—striking him full in the mouth, breaking his yellow teeth and smashing his thick lips so that the blood sprang out in a spray over his hairy chest, and as his head rocked backward David followed with a swift left-hander, and a second time missed the jaw with his right—but drenched his clenched fist in blood. Out of Brokaw there came a cry that was like the low ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... gentleman, could do more off hand fighting than any other man in the board, and was the fourth of the flabby men. But that distinguished politician and gentleman, who had been seven times sentenced for smashing the skulls of his adversaries, was not at hand, having, while Mr. Blennerhasset was thickening the compliments, winked me down into the cabin, where he drew from his pocket a luminous bottle of old Bourbon whiskey, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... head, as if he understood what was the subject of their conversation, and approved of their opinions. Bungay's opinions, in truth, were pretty simple. He thought the Captain could write the best smashing article in England. He wanted the opposition house of Bacon smashed, and it was his opinion that the Captain could do that business. If the Captain had written a letter of Junius on a sheet of paper, or copied a part of the Church Catechism, Mr. Bungay would ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Old Granite," although this last endearing name, owing to an unfortunate similarity of sound, was seized upon by his opponents, and distorted into "Old Granny." He had been painted on many thousand yards of cotton sheeting, either with a terrific sledge-hammer, smashing the skulls (which figured as paving-stones) of his political opponents, or splitting by gigantic blows a huge rock typical of the opposing party. His opponents in their turn had paraded illuminations ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... that he might acquit himself of smashing Celestina Mary, for no remains appeared in the carriage; but a miserable trunk was discovered in the ruins, which he identified—though surely no one else save the disconsolate parent could have done so. Poor little Anne's private possessions had suffered most severely of all, for her whole nursery ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Anarchists are after her. It's dynamite, not lightning. Podds, Don't let them hurt her. Save her. Oh! save her I Why can't I get to her? Don't try to hold me," he cried, as he came in contact with a chair. He caught it up and hurled it across the room, so that it crashed into the picture-frames, smashing chair and frames into fragments. "I can't be the one to throw it," he cried, in an agonized voice. "She's all I have. For years I've been so lonely. Don't I can't throw it. It kills me to see her suffer. It wouldn't be so horrible if I hadn't done it myself. If I didn't love ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... grotesque, and not to be taken at all seriously as people did take it. And then, maybe—maybe I thought it funny that you should have employed Mr. Harwood to pull the lever that sent the big hammer smashing down on ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... his savagery, the fellow uttered a bellow, then, like a warrior smiting his shield with his spear before the charge, he swung his heavy weapon, smashing at one blow that silver-plated merry-go-round with its ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... you'll forgive me—you'll forgive me, dear lady," he added to Hylda, "for I've been listening to your husband making a smashing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stakes had been battered down and most of the defence had been smashed to smithereens. Bombarding wire entanglements seems to be an artillery pastime; when we smash those of the Germans they reply by smashing ours, then both sides repair the damage only to start the ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... and reinforce the attack. The company at once leapt from the trenches, with the captain and Bon at its head. There was a salvo of artillery; and the bursting of a great shell caught Raymond almost full in the body, smashing his right leg and his chest. The captain was hit in the right hand. Notwithstanding his horrible wounds, Bon did not lose consciousness; he was able to stammer out a few words and to press the hand which the captain gave him. In less than ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... their powder, but at about ten they opened again. They now made a great hole in the wall of the village, through which about a dozen men fired with terrible effect. Others began loopholing the walls. The guns fired case shot at twenty yards' range at these fierce pioneers, smashing the walls to pieces and killing many. The enemy replied with bullets, burning bhoosa and ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... rooms afforded; for owing to the stupidity of that mysterious "somebody" who does all the damage in the world, the windows had been carefully nailed down above, and the lower sashes could only be raised in the mildest weather, for the men lay just below. I had suggested a summary smashing of a few panes here and there, when frequent appeals to headquarters had proved unavailing and daily orders to lazy attendants had come to nothing. No one seconded the motion, however, and the nails were ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... near the mainmast, there was a sudden veer to the craft, a snapping, splintering sound, and the mast, with its gear of sail, boom and gaff crashed over the side, smashing ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... exclaimed Tubby, "I hope there isn't a bunch of those terrible Uhlans in town, smashing things, and threatening to burn every house unless the wine and the ransom money are ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... slept I do not know. But I do know that I was routed suddenly into wakefulness by a jar that almost pitched me out of my berth, and that an instant later there was a tremendous crash as though the whole deck above me was smashing to pieces, and with this a rattle of light woodwork splintering and the sharp tinkling of breaking glass. For a moment there was silence; and then I heard shouts and screams close by me in the cabin, and a little later a great trampling on deck, and then the screw stopped turning and there was a ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... infernal blast, and the smashing report was followed by a hush as of death. Then through the blinding and choking powder-reek came the groans and shrieks of the mutilated wretches whose evil fate had placed them in the path of the horribly despatched treasure. The eye could not ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... London? Ah! You groan! What for? You love their feet on your necks, don't you? [Then as BULGIN elbows his way towards the platform, with calm bathos.] You'd like to break my jaw, John Bulgin. Let me speak, then do your smashing, if it gives you pleasure. [BULGIN Stands motionless and sullen.] Am I a liar, a coward, a traitor? If only I were, ye'd listen to me, I'm sure. [The murmurings cease, and there is now dead silence.] ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... instant Mollie had lifted the wheel, and in the next she had shut of the motor. The Spider with the girl passengers was indeed marooned on an immense cake of ice, while all about were other cakes, grinding and smashing over one another. The river was breaking ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... down the hill madly, with Kate inside rending the Isle of Thanet with her screams. The accident might have been a fearful one, if the pony had not, thank Heaven, on getting to the bottom, pitched over the side; breaking the shaft and cutting her hind legs, but in the most extraordinary manner smashing her own way apart. She tumbled down, a bundle of legs with her head tucked underneath, and left the chaise standing on the bank! A Captain Devaynes and his wife were passing in their carriage at the moment, saw the accident with no power of preventing ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... the children, trembling and dazed, and hugged them close. Merciful God, would it never stop! Now the car was plowing through the earth—now falling end over end, straining, grinding, roaring, smashing into ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... drew up in the drive at Medlicote she could see the tennis courts. She could see Jerrold playing in the men's singles. He stood up to the net, smashing down the ball at the volley; his back was turned to ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... fellows, if we go we can see the Internationals. Jove, I was looking over the entry list in the paper this morning. The best automobile drivers in the world will be there—St. Clare, Dublan, Osterhout, and—and—best of all, Dan Dacy, the American, who has been smashing all of the old records. The papers say Dacy is the favorite. He's going to make a new record in everything from five to fifteen miles and trim the Frenchmen and ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... until the hillside sloped more gently on the one hand, and the teamster flung, himself backwards, dragging at the reins. The wagon, tilting, swung partly round, then there was a horrible lurching, and the lathered beasts were floundering up a slope, smashing down the undergrowth and fern, until the vehicle stopped suddenly with a crash. The man sprang down and Miss Deringham and her father lost no time in following him, while when at last the team stood still trembling, he crawled out from under the wagon ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... large form loomed up in the darkness. There was one grinding, smashing crash, and then came a shock that split the light-built sloop ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... criminal law which the Judges opposed, that excited him, for at the end of dinner, over the wine, he took possession of the table in his old way, and ended with a superb denunciation of the Bench, spoken in his massive manner, as though every word were a hammer, smashing ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... range are not to be despised," murmured Mr. Haydon uneasily. "They fling a heavy ball, and drive it with great smashing power. And again, the bullets may be poisoned. They ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... shaking his fist at him. As they neared the junks the fire of those on board redoubled, and was aided by that of many villagers gathered on the bank of the creek. Suddenly from a bank of rushes four cannons were fired. A ball struck the pinnace, smashing in her side. The other boats gathered hastily round and took her crew on board, and then dashed at the junks, which were but a hundred yards distant. The valor of the Chinese evaporated as they saw the boats approaching, and scores of them leaped ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... in a life and death struggle with a great European enemy, irritated by what seemed captious claims, developed to war, by a minor power[7]. To be sure there were a few obstinate Tories in Britain who saw in the war the opportunity of smashing at one blow Napoleon's dream of empire, and the American "democratic system." The London Times urged the government to "finish with Mr. Bonaparte and then deal with Mr. Madison and democracy," arguing that it should be England's object to subvert "the whole system of the Jeffersonian ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... Father Payne, "on the side of resistance to evil, I admit; but you can fight without banging and smashing things, as the dam fights the reservoir by silent cohesion. There is a temptation, from which some people suffer, to think that one can't be fighting for God at all, unless one is doing it furiously, and all the time, and successfully, and on a large and impressive ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... lost his nerve. Almost as he fell he fired down into the buffalo's shoulder, but the bullet had no effect. Man and horse were fetched smashing to the ground, the man pinned under the horse's body. The bull hesitated a second before hurling himself upon the two; and in that second Hugh jumped from his horse, ran up, stood over the fallen ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... a hundred yards of the low shingly beach when, to our astonishment, the roar of artillery from the island greeted our ears, and at the same instant half a dozen round-shot came flying about our ears. Fortunately no damage was done beyond the smashing of a couple of oars and the incontinent precipitation backwards into the bottom of the boat of the pullers thereof, amidst the uproarious laughter of all hands, and before these unfortunates had fairly picked themselves up, the cutter was sent surging half her length high and ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... beside us, cleaving it asunder till we could nearly see the bottom. We had hardly time to draw a breath of relief before the other rock fell with a mighty crash right in the midst of our luckless vessel, smashing it into a thousand fragments, and crushing, or hurling into the sea, passengers and crew. I myself went down with the rest, but had the good fortune to rise unhurt, and by holding on to a piece of driftwood with one hand and swimming with the other I kept myself afloat and was presently washed up ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... going and coming it, Smashing and dashing, and tipping it prime, Eastward and westward, and sometimes back-slumming it, He's for the scratch, and come up too in time; For the victualling-office no favor he'll ask it, For smeller and ogles he feels just the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... about a little matter. I don't object to a glass of wine myself, almost under any circumstances, and I think this excruciating sensitiveness on the subject is absurd and ridiculous, and all that sort of thing; but at the same time I should be willing to undertake the job of smashing every wine bottle there is in the cellar at this moment, if I thought that Sis' last hours in the body, or at least in the paternal mansion, would be made ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... A few smashing blows which I delivered with my fists served to bring screams of agony from the several creatures immediately about me, and as one or two staggered and crashed to the floor, the others gave way a little. In a moment ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... congratulating himself on the wisdom of the move, a scene occurred which quickly altered his views. He was felled to the ground by a savage visitor who brandished an axe over his head, and he struggled to his feet only to behold his wife's countenance suffused with blood from a smashing blow dealt her by another ruffian. His furniture and tools were carried off, and the poor missionary was glad to return to his colleagues, and to share the protection of the tapu which Ruatara had placed upon their settlement. Barren as Te Puna might be, it was ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... and whipcord, fetching blood at every bound — And above the people's cheering and the cries of 'Ace' and 'Quiver', I could hear the trainer shouting, 'One more run for Snowy River.' Then we struck the jump together and came smashing to the ground. ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... that chap got me in for—scaling a man's walls, smashing in his locks, letting myself down the front of his house like a monkey on a rope! I might have been a dashed school kid again." Resentment and reluctant humor struggled in the young man's speech. "Why, the fellow has the imagination of a detective ... and of course he had some reason." Falconer's ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... wrath, and made haste to hide himself in the throng. But it was with blazing soul that he went; every instant he imagined himself turning back, defying the angry finger, shouting down the imperious voice, even smashing it back into the throat from ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... the breaking. It isn't all strength. I think it is something the same that you do in billiards to get that smooth, long roll without smashing the balls. The mason says it is in the wrist. I asked him if it was the flash of the heat through the stone that ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... the speed increase to such a degree that one loses command over the sledge. If this happens, there is a danger, not only of running over the dogs, but of colliding with the sledge in front and smashing it. This was all the more important in our case, as the sledges carried sledge-meters. We therefore put brakes of rope under our runners when we were to go downhill. This was done very simply by ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... a fighting whale. The annals of whaling do not lack records of such old rogues, as witness the sinking of the Kathleen, of New Bedford on the "12-40 ground" east of the Barbadoes in 1901. A bad whale can do a lot of damage besides smashing whaleboats. Thus far we had suffered no loss from the monsters which the Scarboro was hunting; but as this old bull shot like an arrow for the scarred side of the bark, which was hove to less than half a mile ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... The smashing of the G.O.M. appears to be pretty complete, though he has unfortunately enough left to give him the means of playing an ugly game of obstruction in ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... the broken door is just like the back entrance of your aunt's house opposite Carlton church. It went clean through this; then turned to the right through a thick wall and landed in a cupboard on a shelf, smashing the doors, ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... in the desire lost his deep caution, his rectitude of conscience. He was torn far beyond the emotional possibilities of weak men. The fact that, penniless and without a home, he had nothing to offer was lost in the beat and surge of his feelings. He went with the smashing completeness of a heavy body, broken loose in an elemental turmoil. He wanted her; her fragrant spirit, the essence that was herself, Rosemary Roselle. He couldn't take it; such consummations, he realized, were beyond ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... re-entered the house, the old cook, under the impression that the cat had got into the pantry, and was smashing the crockery, entered the lobby in her nightdress, shrieked "Mercy on us!" on beholding the ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... fellow!" he said, "I wish you had come to the club with me. Atherleigh was there, and is delighted with you. What you told him this morning enabled him to smash up his enemies, and as the smashing lately has been rather the other way he is jubilant. He wants you to go to see him again to-morrow. Oh, by the way, you made your escape all right. I only hope I may be as lucky. Well, what do you ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... madman. He was a thorough believer in the power of guerrilla troops, but he knew that in the end they would go down before the regulars. He hoped, by availing himself of the hot courage of the clansmen, to deal a smashing blow at his old rival, but unless the Lowlands and the regulars joined James's side, there was not the remotest chance of unseating William from his new throne. His words were high, but his heart was anxious, as he hurried with his little army to strike once at least for the king, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... have spent in destroying Junkerism and Militarism in their own country. And I see the Junkers and Militarists of England and Germany jumping at the chance they have longed for in vain for many years of smashing one another and establishing their own oligarchy as the dominant military power in the world. No doubt the heroic remedy for this tragic misunderstanding is that both armies should shoot their officers and go home to gather in their harvests ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... time, Kenny came turbulently into the conversation and abused John Whitaker for his son's defection. Brian, it was plain, had been decoyed by bromidic tales of cub reporters and "record-smashing beats." He contrasted art and journalism and found Brian indifferent ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... Russians as the allies of Great Britain may be found giving a very good account of themselves in this war. Russia is certainly unconquerable from either the Austrian or the German standpoint, and the smashing of Austria between Russia, Roumania, Servia, and Italy may be the real military campaign of ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... not to be moved by tears, even if they are frozen and sharpened to a point," laughed the Hippopotamus, as the Polar Bear did as he was told, smashing the icicle without so much as denting ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... foot, on October 24, at Ramscapelle, near the Yser, recaptured the village from the Germans. Dismounting near by, they charged the enemy lance in hand, driving him from his trenches. Following up their success, they then forced their way into the village, smashing in doors and windows and storming house after house in spite of fierce resistance until, assisted by other troops, they forced the enemy out, capturing guns and many prisoners. The action ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... missus heard him in his sleep conning over something to himself in slow, fearful whisper, "Two on 'em; one ahint t'other. The first big—bull-like; t'ither—" At which point Mrs. Mason smote him a smashing blow in the ribs, and he woke in a sweat, crying terribly, "Who ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... was Craig. Then other people passed by. I heard the shriek of a locomotive. I could see a doctor bending over some bodies. Then it all faded away and came back again. The second time I was nearly free. The man who had been working so hard was just smashing the last bit of timber away, and again I saw his face and that time I was sure that it was Craig. Anyway, he finished the job. I suddenly felt I could move my limbs. The man stood up as though exhausted, looked at me, called to the doctor, and then he seemed to fade away. It might have ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... innocent booby, he knows none of the ways of Lunnun town; and if he has not as merry a life as some folks, mayhap he may have a longer. But a merry one forever for such lads as us, Mr. Pepper! I say, has you heard as how Bill Fang went to Scratchland [Scotland] and was stretched for smashing queer screens [that is, hung for uttering forged notes]? He died 'nation game; for when his father, who was a gray-headed parson, came to see him after the sentence, he says to the governor, say he, 'Give us a tip, old 'un, to pay the expenses, and die dacently.' The parson forks him out ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... against the chart house, smashing it, and a number of sailors were laboring to clear away ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... I do go at it a bit rabidly, and feel a kind of pleasure in smashing anything. So would you if your only pleasure was in cruising about to find some new Cannibal Islands, and you had to stick on this muddy little rockery in a sort of rustic pond. When I remember how I've cut down a mile ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... coming up the garden, amazed at the smashing of glass, and saw her emerge, hauling the inanimate body with red-stained hands. For a moment he ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... was lying up there in the right position to go down-hill, once started. It would be a glorious thing to see that great stone go smashing down a hundred yards or so in front of some peaceful-minded countryman jogging along the road. Quarrymen had been getting out rock not far away and had left their picks and shovels handy. The boys borrowed the tools and went to work to undermine the big stone. They worked at it ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... wardrobes cost him hundreds of dollars. One night at a resort called Cedar Point, he got into a fight and ran amuck like a wild thing. With his fist he broke a large mirror in the wash room of a hotel and later went about smashing windows and breaking chairs in dance halls for the joy of hearing the glass rattle on the floor and seeing the terror in the eyes of clerks who had come from Sandusky to spend the evening at the ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... might, for if ever character resembled that of the iron pot borne down the stream in company with the earthen one, it was the object of her choice. Poor pipkin that Gilbert was, the contact had cost him a smashing blow, and for all clay of the more fragile mould, the best hope was to give the invulnerable material a wide berth. Talk of influence! Mr. Dusautoy might as well hope that a Wedgwood cream-jug would guide a copper cauldron and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the bladder of spirits, and offered some to me; I refused. I had had enough, and by this time she had had too much, and after an attempt to bale she dropped down in the stern sheets, smashing pipes and everything beneath her, and spoke ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... not know that they had already been soiled by a bribe. Levi hastened on board of the yacht as soon as the case had been disposed of, where his crew had made every preparation for the intended cruise—how long it was to be they knew not then. The wind was blowing a smashing breeze when she sailed, and in forty hours she was off Sandy Hook. Mr. Watson and Mr. Gayles arrived a day earlier, but did not deem it prudent to commence the search till the next day, fearful that the Caribbee might slip away ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... the heights, waiting for Menlik to leave the wild scene. Hulagur had dragged out the body of the helmeted man and the Mongols were stripping off his equipment, smashing it with rocks, still howling their war cry. But the shaman came to the dying smudge fire ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... referred to the Council, of course, but this is a case where one is justified in assuming that we take action at once. Warn the Pined and Peshawar brigades. It will disorganize all the summer reliefs, but we can't help that. This comes of not smashing them thoroughly the first time. Eight thousand ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... sent out on a big story—one of the biggest that had broken in many a day. He came back into the office about eight o'clock all afire with his story. He was going to make a reputation on the writing of it. He wanted to start off with a smashing first paragraph—the kind of lead that could not help being read. He knew just what he was going to say; the first half-dozen lines fairly wrote themselves on the typewriter. Then he read them over. They ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... the company has invested a lot of money and started a lot of projects. We bought up practically all the stock of the Westville street car lines, when that municipal ownership talk drove the price so low, because we expected to get a new franchise through your smashing this municipal ownership fallacy. We have counted on big things from the water-works when you got hold of it for us. And we have plans on foot in several other cities of the state, and we've been counting on the failure of municipal ownership in Westville ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... people had made." A native of moderate intelligence can quite appreciate the argument that whereas the continuous warfare between the agents of the Department of Antiquities and the illegal excavators of small graves is what might be called an honourable game, the smashing of public monuments cannot be called fair-play from whatever point of view the matter is approached. Often revenge or spite is the cause of this damage. It is sometimes necessary to act with severity to the peasants who infringe ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... in their class, my dear!" her husband said leniently. "You need some country air. You'll get down to Clark's Hills in a week or two and blow some of these notions away. Meanwhile, why don't you run down to the club every morning, and play a good smashing game of squash, and take a plunge. Put yourself through a little training!" He ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... Then the smoke closed in, but this time another figure was hidden by the smoke. For no sooner did Aladdin see Peter fall than he sprang forward like a hound from the leash. Aladdin kneeled by Manners, and as he kneeled a bullet struck his hat from his head, and a round shot, smashing into the rocky ground a dozen feet away, filled his eyes with dirt and sparks. There was a pungent smell of brimstone from the furious concussions of iron against rock. A bullet struck the handle ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... last few days had been the water supply for the horses. Although the sappers were hard at work in Combles, there was as yet no water within five miles of the batteries. The Boche by smashing all the power-pumps had seen to that; and the waggon lines were too far in rear for moving warfare. "We shall be all right when we get to the canal," had been everybody's consolatory pronouncement. "The horses won't ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... door. Some one was there because smoke was coming out of a chimney. But she refused to be impatient. She had decided to give Gilbert one evening—to be nice to him for one evening. He was terribly humble. Fate had dealt her a smashing blow on the heart, and she had returned to consciousness wistfully eager to make up at least to this man as well as she could for the pain that she had caused. There was only this one evening in which to do so because to-morrow she was going back ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... offering his flask to the woman whom Vandover had heard calling for "August," the Mazatlan lurched heavily once or twice, and then slowly listed to the port side, going over farther and farther every instant. Vandover heard a renewed rumbling and smashing noise far beneath him, and in some way knew that the cargo was shifting. Instead of righting herself, the ship began to heave over more and more. The whole sea on the port side seemed to rise up to meet the rail; under Vandover's feet the incline of the deck grew steeper and steeper. All at once ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... in the cookhouse, sir, when a shell struck it, smashing everything in sight, and I lost complete control o' my nerves and started for the wagon lines wi'out knowing what I was doing or where I was going, and didna' come to mysel' until Grant ran ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... portraits of his lovely wife, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Burke, Walpole, the dictator of Strawberry Hill, and immortalized the hats worn by the smashing, dashing Duchess of Devonshire. One of these pictures of Her Grace comes very close to us Americans, as it was cut from the frame one dark, foggy night in London, sealed up in the false bottom of a trunk and brought to New York. Here it lay for more than twenty years, when Colonel Patricius Sheedy, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... come, you know the reason— They believe, poor mortal children, When they see me tearing, snatching Roughly some old hat away, I am only there to frighten. That would be a pretty business, Breaking chimneys, smashing windows, Scattering through the air some thatchings, Tearing some old woman's clothing Till she signs the cross in praying! But you fir-trees know me better, Me, the fair Spring's thorough cleaner, Who what's mouldy sweeps afar off— Who ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... running up, and the key without seeking the lock, a short, venomous tussle was waged just near the door, till Hogarth, wringing his naked body free, tossed his antagonist by the knees to slide into the path of the two on-comers; at the same time, catching up his battered can, and smashing it into the face of the door-orderly, who now peeped in, he slipped through, and was gone into a yard, small, of irregular shape, and dim, with one wall-lantern, and but one egress (except the egress into the prison-hall), namely a blind-alley between the laundry ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... lying stone dead. He had fallen at least two hundred and fifty feet to the base of the precipice; and the ground being covered with detached fragments of rock, he had broken most of his bones, beside bursting his paunch and smashing in the face. However, we cut him up and cleaned him, and, with the native followers heavily ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... farther out, to take a steadier aim. All was still, not a sound to be heard for some seconds, when the hinges of the gate creaked and the bolt shook in the lock. Walpole fired again, but as he did so, the others poured in a rattling volley, one shot grazing his cheek, and another smashing both bones of his right arm, so that the carbine fell powerless from his hand. The intrepid girl sprang to his side at once, and then passing in front of him, she fired some shots from a revolver in quick succession. A low, confused sound of feet and a scuffling noise followed, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... such words as "capitalism," "proletariat," "class-consciousness"—and he spoke with fluency of "economic determinism" and "syndicalism." It was quite wonderful! And from time to time, he would bring in a smashing quotation from Aristotle, Napoleon, Karl Marx, or Eugene V. Debs, giving them all equal value, and he cited statistics!—oh, marvellous statistics, that never were ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... constitutional despondency ever to give way under any casual elation of success. Success, however, we really had at times; in slight skirmishes pretty often; and once, at least, as the reader will find to his mortification, if he is wicked enough to take the side of the Philistines, a most smashing victory in a pitched battle. But even then, and whilst the hurrahs were yet ascending from our jubilating lips, the freezing remembrance came back to my heart of that deadly depression which, duly at the coming round of the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... always go pecking at him and accusing him of smashing dogs' legs with iron stoking-bars. It wouldn't be a man who would do that; he'd be ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... volley puffed from the side of the rolling Palme. Volley after volley poured its lead and iron into the swaying rigging of the Dutchman, and, with a great roaring, ripping, and smashing, the mizzen topmast came toppling ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... humble truckle-bed, is full of prayers and tears, uneasily listening to the indistinct and noisy talk, and hearing, now and then, some louder oath of Ben's that made her shudder. Yes, she heard, too, the smashing sound, when the poacher flung the money down, and she feared it was a mug or a plate—no slight domestic loss; and she heard her father's strange cry, when he gave that wondering shout of joyous avarice, and she did not know what to fear. Was he ill? or crazed! or worse—fallen ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... ordered the sailors to turn their guns on the dhows and sink as many as possible. These, crowded together in their efforts to escape, offered an easy mark for the gunners, whose shot tore through their sides, smashing and sinking them in ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... violently to them to get out of the way. Unable to stop the oncoming car in time, Dick tried to move aside, failed, and in less than a minute the newcomer, in spite of brakes swiftly adjusted, crashed into them, smashing their lamp, and badly damaging the back near-side wheel of ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... flogging gentlemen, at least, while he is at work on them. No, sir, Ca Ira means neither more nor less than 'That'll Do'; and I fancy, Cuffe, they thought of their own name more than once while the old Greek was hanging on their quarter, smashing their cabin windows for them! A pretty sound it would have been had we got her and put her into our own service—His Majesty's ship 'That'll Do,' 84, ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... fired upon by the Havana batteries. One 10 or 12-inch shell struck the San Francisco's stern as she turned to get out of range, and tore a hole about a foot in diameter, completely wrecking Commodore Howell's quarters, and smashing his book-case to fragments. Nobody was injured, and, being under orders not to attack the batteries, the ships retreated as fast as their ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... "Smashing the handwriting experts," was the reply. "I was calling four myself, on the principle that God is on the side of the big battalions; but now I shall depend entirely ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... and the sixth was standing on the lines, the armoured train came dashing at full speed in our midst. We had had no dynamite to blow up the line, and although we fired on the train, it steamed right up to where we were crossing, smashing a team of mules and splitting us up into two sections. Turning the search-light on us, the enemy opened fire on us with rifles, Maxims and guns firing grape-shot. Commandant Groenwald had to retire along the unconquered blockhouse, and managed somehow to get through. ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... green ferns. It is about as big as a cricket ball—a mere trifle to look at. What a contrast with the immense projectiles thrown by modern guns! Yet it is very heavy—quite out of proportion to its size. Imagine iron cricket balls bounding along the grass and glancing at unexpected angles, smashing human beings instead of wickets. This cannon ball is not a memorial of the Civil War. It was shot at a carter with his waggon. Our grandfathers had no idea of taking care of other people's lives. Every man had to look out for himself; if you got in the way, that was your fault. A battery was ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies |
