"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was that he never wasted time—he used every spare minute for something. He "would even get in ten minutes of work between river and Hall." He not only became a prize scholar and oarsman, but won walking races; he joined the Volunteers and became a crack rifle shot, and ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... the very same. I see him break Skogan's head at the court-gate, when a' was a crack not thus high: and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent! and to see how many of my ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... a rifle along with them and they were glad they had done so, for as they made their way through a patch of brush a beautiful deer sprang out and dashed off. Jack had the rifle at his shoulder in a minute and the creature bounded into the air, as the crack of the report sounded, ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... ignored its setting of the common and the ridiculous. He looked at her and smiled. Ellen smiled back tremulously, then she cast down her eyes. The fire was roaring, but the room was freezing. The sitting-room door was opened a crack, and remained so for a second, then it was widened, and Andrew peeped in. Then he entered, tiptoeing gingerly, as if he were afraid of disturbing a meeting. He brought a blue knitted shawl, which he put over ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... get her—or crack a cylinder!" and he tried to get a few more revolutions out of the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... singing—Thus far I did come laden with my sin; Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in Till I came hither: What a place is this! Must here be the beginning of my bliss? Must here the burden fall from off my back Must here the strings that bound it to me crack? Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be The man that there was put ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... family, who sat round him on their podgy haunches in a respectfully wide circle, and marvelled fearfully at his robust prowess. They had all yapped before, but this deep, resonant bark—fully one in three had no crack in it—this was an achievement indeed. After a while the grey bitch pup came and tentatively chewed Finn's backbone, with a vague idea that the sound ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... queerly. An official letter was put into the hands of Sir George Grey, as he stood on the seashore at Wanganui, watching a skirmish in progress with the Maoris. He seated himself, opened the envelope, and forgot the crack of muskets in the document it contained. This was the first constitution for New Zealand, and he was instructed to introduce the same. He didn't; only that is a very red-letter tale. It should be told simply, as Sir George Grey ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... been a dark cellar, filled to overflowing with shadows. Down into this cellar he had gone with a beating heart, and had forced himself to search out every crack and cranny, even to the coal-bin. Of course he found nothing to fear, and now it was Philemon who was always ready to go down for apples in the winter evenings, and that too ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... ourselves, so we just kinder managed it, so's without inconveniencin' the nation any or addin' undooly to its expenses, it would do our celebratin' for us. You ain't no notion how grand it makes a body feel to be woke up at the crack o' dawn on one's weddin' mornin' with the noise o' the bombardin' in honor o' the day! I'm like to miss it this year, with only my own four young Yankees spoilin' my sleep settin' off ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... often had I beheld him sit by the hour with his eye on the door behind which his one darling lay ill! Even now, it was easy for me to recall his face as I had sometimes caught a glimpse of it through the crack of the suddenly opened door, and I felt my breast heave and my hand falter as I drew forth the stiletto and moved to place it where his eye would fall upon it on ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... very much if anybody was creeping about outside the fence. The boards were close together, with scarcely a crack half an inch wide anywhere. A light ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... scoundrel," shouted Anthony, and raising his cane, brought it down with a crack on Doyle's head. The chauffeur was half-way up the walk by that time, and broke into a run. He saw Doyle, against the light, reel, recover and raise his fist, but he did not ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and that there we should see the whole English bar, and hosts of distingues besides. So, though I was tired, I hurried to dress in all the glee of meeting an adventure, as Mr. and Mrs. B. and the rest of the party were ready. Crack went the whip, round went the wheels, and ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... If glass be held in one hand under water, and a pair of scissors in the other, it may be cut like brown paper; or if a red hot tobacco pipe be brought in contact with the edge of the glass, and afterwards traced on any part of it, the crack will follow the edge of ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... watching them through a crack in the door, and seeing the girls disappear he gave a joyful ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... had walked on a bit, he came to a smithy, and he turned in and asked the smith if he'd be good enough to crack that ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... His feet slip a little, then catch, and once more Gudruda swings. The sweat bursts out upon his forehead and his blood drums through him. Now it must be, or not at all. Again he lifts and his muscles strain and crack, and she lies beside him on ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... delectable scorching enveloped them as they opened the door. And there beside the stove, all deliciously sticky and comfortable, lay Yassuh, fast asleep and half melted; while little wisps of smoke curled out of the crack between the oven and the door. The stove was almost as big as the tin one Jimmy had given Sara for Christmas, but much more massive and efficient-looking. On the table, looking so delicious that they made your mouth water, were the ingredients with which Yassuh had been ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... intensity of subterranean heat. Needless to say, it was an extremely hazardous undertaking, despite the very careful surveys that had been made, for the little parties of workmen could never tell when they would strike a crack or an unexpected crevice that would let down upon them with a terrible rush, the waters of the Atlantic. But hazard is adventure, and as the two little groups of laborers dug toward each other, the eyes of the press followed them with more persistent interest than it has ever followed ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... for happier times, had had the bad grace to place a skylight, and discussed the time and means of getting away. The intelligence officer, not wishing to be made a prisoner, was for getting a boat of some sort at the first crack of dawn, and the photographers, who had had the roof blown off over their heads, heartily agreed with him. I did not like to leave without at least a glimpse of those spiked helmets nor to desert my friends in the Rue Nerviens, and yet there was ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... cima, or a squall from up-river, was upon us. We took down our hammocks, and then all hands were required to save the vessel from being dashed to pieces. The moon set, and a black pall of clouds spread itself over the dark forests and river; a frightful crack of thunder now burst over our heads, and down fell the drenching rain. Joaquim leapt ashore through the drowning spray with a strong pole, and tried to pass the cuberta round a small projecting point, while ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... in the London Times, "that the Americans have some superior mode of firing." But when Broke with his crack crew in the Shannon beat the Chesapeake fresh out of port, he demonstrated, as had the Americans in other actions, that the superiority was primarily a matter ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... over the fourth and fifth neck and neck. Then I saw Violet stand up, out of the corner of my left eye; and Smedley began to look at us too. After that it was all right. At the sixth hurdle we both rose together, and then I heard a crack and a grunt behind me, and knew poor old Dig had come a cropper. Of course I had no time to grin, as I had my time to beat. But it was very lonely doing those next three hurdles. I didn't know how I was going, ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... With the iron age came a chopper, called in Western India a "koita," with which he can hack his way through most of the obstructions of life. When, with this, he has slashed off the tough outer rind and the inch-thick packing of agglutinated fibres, like metal wires, he has only to crack the hard shell which ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... it out for four months, an' that ain't so rotten for a guy who just grew up on printer's ink ever since he was old enough to hold a bunch of papers under his arm. Well, one day mother an' me was sittin' out on one of them veranda cafes they run to over there, w'en somebody hits me a crack on the shoulder, an' there stands old Ryan who used t' do A. P. here. He was foreign correspondent for some big New York ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the section of the wall that turned and the silver dollar the section of the floor. Both were so nicely fitted into the adjacent portions of the floor and wall that no crack had been noticeable in the dim ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... much time to think," guessed Billy, "and to tell the truth, I don't think he's done much thinking since. That revolver must have hit him a fearful crack." ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... that's your sort!" roared a purple-faced ruffian with a hang-lip. "A right proper gal is that. Give her a huzza and crack yer ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... bread-pans; two ladles, of different sizes; a skimmer; iron skewers; a toasting-iron; two teakettles, one small and one large one; two brass kettles, of different sizes, for soap-boiling, &c. Iron kettles, lined with porcelain, are better for preserves. The German are the best. Too hot a fire will crack them, but with care in this respect, they will last ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... the clamour died away, ceased, began again irregularly, then abruptly stilled. Here and there a bid was called, an offer made, like the intermittent crack of small arms after the stopping ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... storm curtain it was traveling eastward at the rate of sixty miles an hour. In one minute we were all as wet as if we had fallen off the dock at home. We abandoned the car and ran for the shelter of a big tree near-by. We were no sooner under its spreading branches when, with a sound like the crack of doom, lightning struck it and it went crashing to earth in the opposite direction from us. We didn't stop to reflect what would have happened to us if it had fallen in our direction, but made for the open road where there was nothing ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... crack down on career criminals, organized crime, drugpushers, and to enforce tougher sentences and paroles are having effect. In 1982 the crime rate dropped by 4.3 percent, the biggest decline since 1972. Protecting ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... sister aside that she might take a peep at the unconscious Mr. Peabody. As she put her eye to the crack between the curtains she uttered a little shriek that she tried to stifle with ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... difficult to reach as Mars. However, he approached warily, taking a close look at the ground to make sure there were no hindrances to footwork, and rather humorously whispering: "Brent, if I didn't actually know better, I'd take you for as big an idiot as this boob who'll probably crack your nut." He had as whimsical a way of going into dangers as of going into pleasures, and now there was no ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... declared Pan, in cool contempt. "I'll bet a hundred he elected himself town marshal, as he calls it. I'll bet he hasn't any law papers from the territory, or government, either.... Jard Hardman will be the hard nut to crack. Now, Dad, back in Littleton I learned what he did to you. And Lucy's story gave me another angle on that. It's pretty hard to overlook. I'm not swearing I can do so. But I'd like to know ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... German soldier was able to arouse himself, the Englishman dealt him a heavy blow over the head with his rifle butt. But the noise had brought another to the scene. There was the sharp crack of a rifle, and the English soldier who had caused all the trouble pitched to the ground. To the right Hal and Chester saw another sentry, a smoking rifle ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... disappeared in a moment. But Peter Rugg did not reach home that night, nor the next; nor, when he became a missing man, could he ever be traced beyond Mr. Cutter's in Menotomy. For a long time after, on every dark and stormy night, the wife of Peter Rugg would fancy she heard the crack of a whip, and the fleet tread of a horse, and the rattling of a carriage, passing her door. The neighbours, too, heard the same noises, and some said they knew it was Rugg's horse; the tread on the pavement ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... was the first occasion that he had done so, and she blushed. His hand was cold and thin, and she heard one of the bones in it give a little crack as he held her palm within his own for the briefest space of time. Then, as usual, the moment after he had said "good-by," he appeared to become absolutely unconscious of her presence, and ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... indisputable landslips, a doubtful crack, and one slight periodic change of colour, and ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... rushed on to the cow and bore it to the ground; there was a violent struggle, and in the dusky light I could not tell whether he used his mouth or paws in wrenching back the head, which went with a crack. The thing was done in a minute, when he sprang once more to his feet, and the second cow was hurled to the ground in like manner. As his back was turned to me I fired somewhat hastily, thinking to save the cow, but only wounded the tiger, which I lost. Both the cows, however, had their ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... of no use to try to look in through the wall; every joint and crack of the stones was plastered. I ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... beautiful!" Then she whirled about on the men of the reserve squad: "You, Conners," she said, "run up to my room and get the milk out of my ice-chest; and Moore, put on your coat and go around and tell the surgeon I want to see him. And one of you crack some ice up fine in a towel. Take it out of ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... come the sharp crack of the drivers' whips followed by the squealing cry of quivering flesh (a cry wherein was none of the human) the which, dying to a whine, was lost in the stir and bustle of the great galleass. But ever and always, beneath the hoarse voices of the mariners, beneath ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... in the place is intense. Not a murmur of distant life from the surrounding city disturbs the silence. At rare intervals a strong breath of icy wind stirs the dead branches and makes them crack and rattle against the gravestones and against each other as in a dance of death. It is a wild and dreary place. In the summer, indeed, the thick leafage lends it a transitory colour and softness, but in the depth of winter, when there is nothing to hide the nakedness of truth, when the snow ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... consisted entirely of lodging houses, and it being the month of November, and the "season" of the little watering- place having closed, bills with "Apartments to Let" were exposed in the windows of almost all; almost, but not quite all, for my crack-voiced friend when he arrived about the middle of the row stopped in front of one of the most unprepossessing habitations of the lot, without any notice displayed like the others. Here, putting down my box on the steps, he rang a side-bell that gave out a melancholy clang for a moment, and ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... dim light from above had lain on the last step and made it appear as if the floor were near; but there was a gap between the stairway and the bottom of the cellar. The lower steps had been hewn away—perhaps in a quest for the ever-elusive treasure. Maybe a crack had appeared, and people, always searching, had suspected a secret opening and tried to find it. Anyway, there was the gap, and there was a rough pile of broken stone not far off, which had once been the end ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... listened to them and followed them about; nay, I even ventured so far as to go with the attendants to those who were raving mad. A long passage led to their cells. On one occasion, when the attendants were out of the way, I lay down upon the floor, and peeped through the crack of the door into one of these cells. I saw within a lady almost naked, lying on her straw bed; her hair hung down over her shoulders, and she sang with a very beautiful voice. All at once she sprang up, and threw ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... speaking, Colonel Conger, slipping around to the rear, drew some loose straws through a crack, and lit a match upon them. They were dry and blazed up in an instant, carrying a sheet of smoke and flame through the parted planks, and heaving in a twinkling a world of light and heat upon the magazine within. The blaze lit up the black recesses of the great barn till every wasp's ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... exposition of his distresses. He was often a talkative, facetious fellow, prompt at repartee, and not withheld from exercising his powers that way by any respect of persons, his patched cloak giving him the privilege of the ancient jester. To be a gude crack, that is, to possess talents for conversation, was essential to the trade of a "puir body" of the more esteemed class; and Burns, who delighted in the amusement their discourse afforded, seems to have looked forward with ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... The proper place to read about the coaches would be in Doctor Lyon's Pony Express Museum, out from Pasadena, California. May it never perish! Old Monte drives up now and then in Alfred Henry Lewis' Wolfville tales, and Bret Harte made Yuba Bill crack the Whip; but, somehow, considering all the excellent expositions and reminiscing of stage-coaching in western America, the proud, insolent, glorious figure of the driver has ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... I made my aim, and still more hurriedly did I give fire. Again came the bang and flash; again the gun clattered over; but, to my joy, a smacking crack showed that the shot went home. The shock made the old Snail roll. A piece of her bow was knocked off. Two or three bullets ripped through her sail. One bored a groove along her, and the rest went ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... unteachable to tie any of the orthodox knots in the gut; it takes me half an hour to get the gut through one of these newfangled iron eyes, and, when it is through, I knot it any way. The "jam" knot is a name to me, and no more. That, perhaps, is why the hooks crack off so merrily. Then, if I do spot a rising trout, and if he does not spot me as I crawl like the serpent towards him, my fly always fixes in a nettle, a haycock, a rose-bush, or whatnot, behind me. I undo it, or break it, and put up another, make a cast, and, "plop," all the line falls in with ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... age of thirteen, holding a puppy in his arms. He had given it to Anne on the last day of the midsummer holidays, nineteen hundred. Also he found a pair of Anne's slippers under the bed, and, caught in a crack of the dressing-table, one long black hair. This room leading out of Colin's was ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... shall be supplied with these when I enter an inn. How much the man does for us who props our house when it is about to fall, and who, with a skill beyond belief, suspends in the air a block of building which has begun to crack at the foundation; yet we can contract for underpinning at a fixed and cheap rate. The city wall keeps us safe from our enemies, and from sudden inroads of brigands; yet it is, well known how much ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... choice. You can start in by kicking over the traces— with the mischief to pay; or you can let the vanished Footes take a crack at you to see what that can make of you. I advise no boy to run against his father's wishes. But everybody starts out with something in him that's his own—individual—peculiar to him. Maybe it's what the preachers call his soul. Anyhow, it's HIS. Whatever they do ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... solicitudes, put on no gilt smiles, wore no reproaches: spoke to him as if so it happened—he had necessarily a journey to perform. One could see all the while big drops falling from the wound within. One could hear it in her voice. Imagine a crack of the string at the bow's deep stress. Or imagine the bow paralyzed at the moment of the deepest sounding. And yet the voice did not waver. She had now the richness of tone carrying on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... at work until seven o'clock; not to very much purpose, but executing with great labour and hardship the day's work. Then I went to dine with Dr. Hall, the crack doctor here, a literate man, a traveller, and otherwise a kind bigwig. After dinner we went to hear Mr. Sortain lecture, of whom you may perhaps have heard me speak, as a great, remarkable orator and preacher of the Lady Huntingdon Connexion. (The paper ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... ludicrous little thing; for, you see, the whole story turns upon nothing but a crack ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... he turned his head sharply on the pillow, as an alien might turn at the sound of a familiar voice, but always, after listening intently, it came back to its old position, and the man's restless eyes returned to the crack high up in the tent canvas through which the sun shone upon him like ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... visit, as Frank stood well in the sunshine admiring the old house, that Quantrelle, peering from his box, saw him, and with an oath fell back into the shadow as though hiding from an enemy. Peering from a crack in the door, he waited Frank's departure, and after the carriage had driven away, seized a hat and ran at a mad pace down the narrow street, upsetting children ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... is like the glassy bubble, Which costs philosophers such trouble; Where, one part crack'd, the whole does fly, And wits are crack'd to find ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... bush had! She pulled again with all her might, and the earth round the roots began to stir and crack, so she gave another big pull, and then she let go. She thought there was a rumbling noise right below her feet, and she wondered if the roots went down to some dragon's cave. Then she tried once again, and up came the bush so quickly that Proserpina nearly fell backwards. There she ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... entered. Now, you and I, grownup, walk along the sidewalks of San Francisco and all we see under our calloused old feet is a sidewalk. But to children even a sidewalk blossoms with possibilities. Who but a child invented: "Step on a crack, you break your mother's back." Only the other day I saw a kiddie avoiding every crack and muttering some incantation as he ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... the next ten years are going to do it. Do you know what I did last Saturday? I got fifteen hundred pounds' worth of advertising for our people, from a chap that's never yet put a penny into the hands of an agent. I went down and talked to him like a father. He was the hardest nut I ever had to crack, but in thirty-five minutes I'd got him—like a roach on a hook. And it'll be to his advantage, mind you. That fifteen hundred 'll bring him in more business than he's had for ten years past. I got ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... records that were cracked in shipment but the parts were held together with the paper label. As these were single-faced disk records, I used the following method to stick them together: I covered the back of one with shellac and laid the two back to back centering the holes with the crack in one running at right angles to the crack in the other. These were placed on a flat surface and a weight set on them. After several hours' drying, I cleaned the surplus shellac out of ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... well as they could between the tent flaps. They dared not make the crack any wider for fear the man in front might see them. They saw gypsy men, women and children hurrying to and fro, and loading wagons. Some ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... you really think so, Jack?" cried the sad one, his face lighting up with a new hope. "It's awful good of you to crack your brain thinking up such a bully idea for me. And how silly that I never once jumped on that plan. I'm going to try it the very next time our engine kicks up a shindy, ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... briskly; "Mother wouldn't have taken the man up into Jim's bedroom. Why should she? Listen—the door's opening. Now they'll come down. I'll open the door a crack." ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... happy in our nice deep trench, where we contentedly crouched. The waste of good and valuable shrapnel shell by the enemy was the cause of much amusement to the men, who were in great spirits, and, as one of them remarked, were "as cosy as cockroaches in a crack." At the expenditure of many shells two men only ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... was the mate," said one. And another, "I know what I'll say—that I heered a row, jumped out of my bunk, got a jolly good crack on the jaw for my pains, and sailed in myself. Couldn't tell who or what it was in the dark and ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... AEschylus[175] as he says, "Eager to find my lady, I have scoured the whole house with the glances of my eyes—in vain," dwell in the memory as softer touches. And for the sterner, nothing can beat the last fight of Olaf Trygveson, where with the crack of Einar Tamberskelvir's bow Norway breaks from Olaf's hands, and the king himself, the last man with Kolbiorn his marshal to fight on the deck of the Long Serpent, springs, gold-helmed, mail-coated, and ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... aside; he brought the hammer back to full cock and fixed a cap upon the nipple. He stood the gun upright upon the floor and leaned forward, the muzzle against his upper chest, the stock braced against the edge of a crack in the planking. With the great toe of his bare right foot he pressed ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... where it was, and very soon he saw a hole in the wood-work through which the water was coming pretty freely. Examining it more carefully he saw that the pressure was threatening to open up a wide crack in the gate; and, child as he was, he knew that if it were not stopped that little stream would soon become a cascade, a great sheet of water, a torrent, and then a terrible inundation which would end in desolation and death. So the little fellow did not hesitate. He determined ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... there be any inclination, it must tend to the tailpiece, and very slightly, thus checking the certain tendency of the strings to pull it forward, which must be always closely watched, as if it fall on the belly of the violin, it is most liable to break—not only so, but to crack that same soundboard. The outer edges may be either filed to an angle of one-sixteenth of an inch ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... rock making, by the deposit of clay, limestone, etc., this vast plain was lifted seven thousand feet above the sea and rimmed round with mountains. Perhaps in being afterward volcanically tossed in one of this old world's spasms an irregular crack ripped its way along a few hundred miles. Into this crack rushed a great river, perhaps also an inland ocean or vast Lake Superior, of which Salt Lake may be a little remnant puddle. These tumultuous waters proceeded to pulverize, dissolve, and carry away ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... Crack-crack! At this point the Dialogue is cut short by sudden musket-shots from the woody fields to right; crackle of about twelve shots in all; which hurt nothing but some horse's feet,—had been aimed at the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... encouragement, I went to school in spite of my bare feet. Often the ground would be frozen, and often there would be snow. My feet would crack and bleed freely, but when I reached home Mother would have a tub full of hot water ready to plunge me into and thaw me out. Although this caused my feet and legs to swell, it usually got me into shape ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... not English: we can be sentimental, tender, witty, pretty, pompous, and glorious in our songs; but we ever want the essential quality of gaiety—gaiety of heart—the dancing life of the spirit, that makes the voice hum, the fingers crack merrily, and the feet fidget restlessly on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... which was never gay, was now more sombre than ever. When the further news was told to Lady Sarah it almost crushed her. "A child!" she said in a horror-stricken whisper, turning quite pale, and looking as though the crack of doom were coming at once. "Do you believe it?" Then her brother explained the grounds he had for believing it. "And that it was born in wedlock twelve months before the fact was announced ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... our deck be swept And masts and timber crack— We can make good all loss except The loss of turning back. So, 'twixt these Devils and our deep Let courteous trumpets sound, To welcome Fate's discourtesy Whereby it will be ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... no doubt. Well (brightening), anyhow, we may as well step over to the "Crown and Thistle," and crack a bottle of champagne. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890 • Various
... winelike kick, it made us vow never to taste another American imitation. Only a smooth-cheeked, thick slab cut from a pedigreed Italian Provolone of medium girth, all in one piece and with no sign of a crack, satisfy ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... head of the accused had flared up, and begun to smoke, causing the chimney to crack with a sharp report. This diversion effected a momentary silence among the crowd, and the Public Prosecutor was able to ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Admiralty want to make a further "exhibition" of themselves, they won't have to go very far a-field for material. Here are one or two exhibits that come to hand at once. First, there's those big guns which it ain't safe to fire nohow, and which, if you do load with half a charge, crack, bend, and get sent back to be "ringed" up, whatever that means, and are not safe, even for a salute, ever afterwards. Then, in another case, they might show a foot or two of that blessed boiler-piping which is always leaking, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 2, 1890. • Various
... was not interested in the dimly defined shapes about him; his attention had been attracted by a crevice in the smooth rock ledge at his feet. This ledge, barren of vegetation, and as level as a slab of rough marble, showed a long black line like a crack in a stone pavement. At the man's feet the crevice was perhaps two feet wide, but as it stretched toward the west it narrowed gradually, and disappeared under a mass of disorganized stones, as a mere slit in ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... of the mahogany ornament in the back of one of them fell off. On the next day, another showed the same evidence of imperfect workmanship. A few evenings afterwards, as we sat at the centre table, one of our children leaned on it rather heavily, when there was a sudden crack, and the side upon which he was bearing his weight, swayed down the distance of half an inch or more. The next untoward event was the dropping of one of its feet by the sofa, and the warping up of a ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... repealed, the blockaded ports are thrown open, and the ringers in Briarfield belfry crack a bell that remains dissonant to this day. Caroline Helstone is in the garden listening to this call to be gay when a hand steals ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... something more. Black and opaque as ordinary coal is, slices of it become transparent if they are cemented in Canada balsam, and rubbed down very thin, in the ordinary way of making thin sections of non-transparent bodies. But as the thin slices, made in this way, are very apt to crack and break into fragments, it is better to employ marine glue as the cementing material. By the use of this substance, slices of considerable size and of extreme thinness ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... nimbly spins about, The grain deep-piercing till it scoops it out: In his broad eye he whirls the fiery wood; From the pierced pupil spouts the boiling blood; Singed are his brows; the scorching lids grow black; The jelly bubbles, and the fibres crack. And as when armourers temper in the ford The keen-edged pole-axe, or the shining sword, The red-hot metal hisses in the lake, Thus in his eye-ball hiss'd the plunging stake. He sends a dreadful groan, the rocks around Through all their ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... proving favourable, the camp was struck, the canoes loaded, and they all proceeded on the way to Montreal Point once more. They only stopped for an hour or so at Spider Islands to melt some pitch, and mend a crack which had opened in the bottom of one ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... whilst some Capuchin friars—European ecclesiastics of the meanest type—were sent there to compete with the American Protestant missionaries in the salvation of natives' souls. A collision naturally took place, and the Governor—well known to all of us in Manila as crack-brained and tactless—sent the chief Protestant missionary, Mr. E. T. Doane, a prisoner to Manila on June 16, 1887. [20] He was sent back free to Ponape by the Gov.-General, but, during his absence, the eccentric ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... were entirely filled with Koorshid's troops; that is to say, with our enemies. Just as my mother was on the point of pushing open a small door, we heard the voice of the pasha sounding in a loud and threatening tone. My mother applied her eye to the crack between the boards; I luckily found a small opening which afforded me a view of the apartment and what was passing within. 'What do you want?' said my father to some people who were holding a paper inscribed with characters of gold. 'What we want,' replied one, 'is to communicate ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I could be one of them!" thought a little boy peeping through the crack of the door, by permission of the cook for whom he had been turning the spit. But no, his parents had not even a penny to spare, and his name ended ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... intervening rails, and landed, with brandished sword, upon their fore-deck. A dozen more, with a wild yell, were in the act of following, when they were met by a full volley from the guns of the defenders, poured into their very faces. There was a pause,—a lurch,—a crack of breaking fixtures; and the next moment the schooner, torn away from her fastenings by the force of a monstrous upheaving wave, and thrown around at right angles to the unharmed prey so nearly within her clutches, was seen rolling and reeling on the top of a billow, fifty yards ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... occurred. A Russian detective "wanted" Vera, who, to be sure, was a Nihilist. To catch Vera he made an alliance with "The Whiteley of Crime." He was a man who would destroy a parish register, or forge a will, or crack a crib, or break up a Pro-Boer meeting, or burn a house, or kidnap a rightful heir, or manage a personation, or issue amateur bank-notes, or what you please. Thinking to kill two birds with one stone, he carried off Rose for her diamonds and Vera for his friend, the Muscovite ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... pleased him so well as to ascend to the belfry on moonlight nights, scribbling disparagement on the bells of Eulogius and Eucherius, which had ceased to be rung, and patting and caressing his own, which now did duty for all three. With alarm he noticed one night an incipient crack, which threatened ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... of filthy-tongued creatures!" Hsi Jen laughed, "when you've got nothing to do, you make me the scapegoat to crack your jokes, and poke your fun at! But what kind of death will, I wonder, each ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the point of stepping out into the road again when a horseman rode into sight between the two rocks. In the same instant of his appearance she heard the unmistakable crack of a gun, saw the rider jerk backward in the saddle, throw up one hand—and then ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... highly approved of this idea, and encouraged the children by every means in his power; so that, for more than three weeks, the beans went in regularly and the halfpence in Tuttu's store, which he kept like a magpie hidden away in a crack of ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... to a black walnut like this (showing picture), where you can crack out anywhere from fifty to seventy-five per cent of whole halves, and many entirely whole kernels, the most important problem is solved, and the black walnut has come into ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... limitless as the sea and like the sea mutable, ever-changing, restless—bending to every breath of the summer breeze, full of strange, sweet sounds, of moanings and of sighs, as the emerald sheaths tremble in the wind, or down below the bright yellow carcases of the pumpkins crack and shiver ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... on some clothes and went downstairs. A crack of light showed under the kitchen door, and, pushing it open with some force, he gazed spellbound ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... though I'm so light (oh, the thought makes me shiver), Crack! Bang! And from shore unto shore The water jumped out; I was half in the river, And don't ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... kneeling on the stone floor. Her ear was close to the crack of the door which led into the boat-house. Her face, half turned from it, was set in a strange, concentrated passion of listening; her lips were parted, her eyes half closed. She took no more notice of Hamel or his arrival than if he had been some useless piece of furniture. Every ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... perceived, almost instantly, to my great relief, two fine deer, who appeared not at all disturbed by a man on horseback, though ready enough to fly from a gun, and began to suspect that the robber I was dreading was, after all, only a hunter in the honest pursuit of his living. The crack of the rifle soon proved that the deer, and not my saddle-bags, were the game aimed at, and I found my imagination had for twelve hours been converting very harmless huntsmen into highwaymen of a ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Crack! Bang! went a rifle and a shotgun almost simultaneously, but the aim of the two marksmen was poor, and only a few scattering shots went through the tail of the wolf. Then, with a wild yelp, he disappeared behind the rocks, and that was the last seen of him. In the meantime, the wounded ...
— The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island - or, The Old Lumberman's Treasure Box • Edward Stratemeyer
... an air mail pilot, one of the crack fliers of the Transcontinental Airmail Corporation. Let me tell you the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... old friend with whom I had revelled in the halcyon days at Stag Racket Bungalow, Honolulu. He was then on the U. S. man-of-war, Alaska of jolly memory; and he, with his companions, constituted the crack mess of the navy. But the Alaska is a sheer hulk, and her once jovial crew scattered hither and yon; he alone, in the solitude of these unfreighted waters, remains to tell the tale. I thought it a happy coincidence that, having met him first under Old ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... been fully worked out yet," replied Hughson. "I know we're going to play the Denver nine and some of the crack California teams." ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, So sovereignly being honourable. Leo. I have lov'd thee—Make that ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... know Boston, then. And as for that crack-brained demagogue cousin of yours, he calls the Constitution a compact with hell! I hope I'll live to see him ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel: They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... the damage and avenge the outrage. In their lead ran the ticket seller, armed with a pistol and keen for evening up things with the man who had hit him, dashing straight for Circuit. Circuit did not see him, but Lee did; and thus in the very instant Circuit staggered and dropped to the crack of his pistol, down beside Circuit pitched the ticket man with a ball through his head. Then for two minutes, perhaps, a hell of fierce hand-to-hand battle raged, cowboy skulls crunching beneath fierce ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and Abraham, with a rifle gun, standing inside, shot through a crack and killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... night, from a man who has just returned from sick leave at Lisbon, that there are thousands of peasants employed under our engineers in getting up some tremendous works some fifteen miles this side of Lisbon. I should not be surprised yet if Massena finds the chief a nut too hard to crack, with all ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... will withstand a gradually applied, evenly distributed, and constant pressure, one thousandth part of which, acting at one spot, as a blow, would rend its way through, or establish a crack. This slight rent, giving partial relief to the sudden but comparatively small force that causes it, would be nothing very serious in itself,—no more so than a rent produced by the hydraulic press,—if the whole force, equal, perhaps, to that of a thousand wild horses imprisoned within, did not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him, 'Come in, Lord and Master!' The rats were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch wide, just as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... he bid them. At the third landing Barney felt for the latch he knew was there—he was on familiar ground now. Finding it he pushed open the door it held in place, and through a tiny crack surveyed the room beyond. It was vacant. The American threw the door wide and stepped within. Directly behind him was Butzow, his eyes wide in wonderment. After him filed the troopers until seventeen of them stood behind their lieutenant and ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... precipitate method gives brilliancy to their compositions at the very moment of their being finished; but their lustre is temporary and of short duration. It renders it impossible for them to clean their paintings, which are, besides, liable to crack and to lose their colour. In a word, it is not uncommon to see an artist survive his works, and to have nothing to expect from posterity." But lest it should be said, as M. Merimee did say, that Tingry, the author of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... not be spanned; Fell thunderbolts often on every hand, And verily the earth quaked in answer back From Saint Michael of Peril unto Sanz, From Besencun to the harbour of Guitsand; No house stood there but straight its walls must crack: In full mid-day the darkness was so grand, Save the sky split, no light was in the land. Beheld these things with terror every man, And many said: "We in the Judgement stand; The end of time is presently at hand." They spake no truth; they did not understand; 'Twas the ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... low over the deep bay formed by the two huge tentacles that run south and south-east from the crab-like body of the island, when suddenly, above the noise of the engine, they heard the sharp crack of a shot, then two or three more. Glancing up the bay to his left, Smith saw a large junk, its sails hanging limp, surrounded by a number of small craft which from their appearance he guessed to be praus. He had read many a time of the fierce Malayan pirates that used ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel: They reel, they roll in changing lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... am gaul'd already, yet I will pray, may London wayes from henceforth be full of holes, and Coaches crack their wheels, may zealous Smiths so housel all our Hackneys, that they may feel compunction in their feet, and tire at High-gate, may it rain above all Almanacks till Carriers sail, and the Kings Fish-monger ride like Bike Arion ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... brave itself—being only militia; but certain it was, that Stubbs was considered a most terrible fellow, and I swore so much, and looked so fierce, that you would have fancied I had made half a hundred campaigns. I was second in several duels; the umpire in all disputes; and such a crack-shot myself, that fellows were shy of insulting me. As for Dobble, I took him under my protection; and he became so attached to me, that we ate, drank, and rode together every day; his father didn't care for money, so long as his son was in good company—and what so ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have had a nice crack of some kind or other on the head," he said, "and he still feels the effects of it, as now and then ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the steersman lost his nerve, and shrank from the coming shock. The galley's helm went up to port, and her beak slid all but harmless along Amyas' bow; a long dull grind, and then loud crack on crack, as the Rose sawed slowly through the bank of oars from stem to stern, hurling the wretched slaves in heaps upon each other; and ere her mate on the other side could swing round, to strike him ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the corral—an acre of grass enclosed by stout post-and-rail fences seven feet high—and by much patience and some subtlety lodged the whole herd within its shelter, without a blow, a shout, or even a crack of a whip, wild as the cattle were. It was fearfully cold. We galloped the last mile and a half in four and a half minutes, reached the cabin just as the snow began to fall, and found ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... down to gather up her treasure, searching for the hair and replacing it, and then mournfully examining the crack that disfigures the once-loved image. Alas! there is no glass now to guard either the hair or the portrait; but see how carefully she wraps delicate paper round it, and locks it up again in its old place. Poor child! ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... me she were dead, they had to set me in the jacket, buckled so tight ye could hear my bones crack. The warden ain't got no blame comin' from me, 'cause I smashed his face afore he'd done tellin' me. And I felled the keeper like that!" He raised a knotty fist and thrust it forth. "But it were all 'cause I wanted to be with her so, 'cause I couldn't stand the knowin' that ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... roads that lead to the city of Rubens. It was full midsummer, and very warm. His cart was very heavy, piled high with goods in metal and in earthenware. His owner sauntered on without noticing him otherwise than by the crack of the whip as it curled round his quivering loins. The Brabantois had paused to drink beer himself at every wayside house, but he had forbidden Patrasche to stop a moment for a draught from the canal. Going along thus, in the full sun, on a scorching highway, having eaten ...
— A Dog of Flanders • Louisa de la Rame)
... had named him. It was Jim Kendric's way to fight in silence, but now he shouted as he struck, defying them, cursing them, striking as hard as God had given him strength, recking not in the least of blows received, heart and mind centered alone on the pulsing, throbbing prayer to feel a bone crack before him, to see a head snap back, to feel blood gush forth from a battered face. A man tripped him cunningly from the side and he all but fell. But he struck back with his boot and steadied himself by hurling his toppling body against ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... that brief period of horrible suspense appeared to stretch out almost to the crack of doom. I roared lustily for help, but no aid came. The bear continued its course through the thicket; in another instant ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the poor folk of the neighbourhood. The old chairmaker was sitting by the fire when we went in; and opposite to him sat "Old John," the hero of the broken windows in Nile Street. He had come up to have a crack with his blind crony. The chairmaker was seventy years of age, and he had benefited by the advantage of good fundamental instruction in his youth. He was very communicative. He said he should have been educated for the priesthood, ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... as appalled agitators saw how much worse things could be if the monsters took over the world to rule. But the driver insisted that the United States was calm. Us Americans, he assured Lockley, weren't scared. We were educated and we knew that them scientists would crack this nut somehow. Like only yesterday a broadcast said this Belgian guy had come up with calculations that said this poison beam had to be something like a radar beam or a laser beam or something like that. And the American scientists were right out there ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... "drill on" toward Denver, that me, the boys and the sheep were going to Montana. He said, "Alright, Mr. Ryus, we will drill on, as you say, but we will take possession of those sheep before you get into Denver." I told him to "crack his whip," and to go to that warm place from which no "hoss trader" returned if he wanted to, but for him not to interfere with me or the sheep. Away he went. My temper was at its best and thoroughly under control, so I told the boys to not feel the least alarm, no "yaller backed ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... The crack regiments of Europe, noted for their form, have for years been the object of jests in those new worlds where brawn and muscle, with mental acumen, have converted primeval forests into congested commercial centers. But that form, so derided by the pioneer spirit, has proved its worth during ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... renowned in the congregation for this imperturbable veracity. The Abbe Sicard speaks of Sister Simplice in a letter to the deaf-mute Massieu. However pure and sincere we may be, we all bear upon our candor the crack of the little, innocent lie. She did not. Little lie, innocent lie—does such a thing exist? To lie is the absolute form of evil. To lie a little is not possible: he who lies, lies the whole lie. To lie is the very face of the demon. Satan has two names; he is called ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... could withstand me, then?" he was thinking. "What clergyman could raise his voice against my rule? Ah! Their 'high principles' they prate of so eloquently, their crack-brained economics, their rebellions and their strikes—the dogs!—would soon bow down before that power! Men have starved for stiff-necked opposition's sake, and still may do so—but with my hand at the throat of the world, with the world's very life-breath in my grip, what then? Submission, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... government. Parliament, of course, was dissolved, and a new election took place. The Whigs lost thereby much of their power, but still were a majority in the House, and the new Tory government found that the Irish difficulties were a very hard nut to crack. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... a broken knee that wasn't got by striking the manger, nor a sand-crack that didn't ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... already scattered and were nibbling tufts of wet grass, when the two children crawled out from under the rock. Leneli's dress was quite muddy where the rain had come through the crack and poured down her neck, and she was twisting herself round, trying to see the extent of the damage, when suddenly there was a terrific roar and rumble as if the thunder had begun all over again, though the sky was blue and clear. Crash followed crash, and there was a sound ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... I said, when I saw that, "get to arms; for here they come to speak with us. Maybe we shall have to fight—and these are no easy nuts to crack!" ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... insultin' me into the bargain,' says she, thinkin' how he called her a shkeleton, an' her a load fur a waggin. 'Yer impidince bates owld Nick, so it does,' says she; so she up an' hits him a power av a crack on the head wid a bottle; an' the other felly's, a-thinkin' sure that it was a lie he was afther tellin' them, an' he laving thim to pay fur the dhrink he'd had, got on him an' belted him out av the face till it was nigh ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... know, I gave one teeny weeny peek through the crack in the door after I left him, and he was thrown down across his cot like a long, graceful tomcat or leopard or something, and he pulled a little green leather book out of his pocket and went to reading it on the spot. 'Pervigilium Veneris,' its ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... nights and a day, sir, and every one of us with the ulcers right up the arms. It was warm business, I can tell you, sir. My ulcers are all going away now, with this warm cabin, but they were throbbing all night before. When I come down such a crack I was makin' a run for the taickle, for fear we might let the gear drop, and I saw a flash in my eyes, and nothing more till I was ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... Pair sleeps till the crack of doom Where the great ocean-rollers plunge and boom: The other waits and wonders what his Friend, Dead now, and deaf, and silent, were the end Revealed to his rare spirit, would find to say If you, his lovers, loved him for ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... has been a long time coming, but somehow I always seem to have something to do. There are two noises I can hear now, one the squeak of a rat, but I know he won't come in (at least, I hope not), and two, the crack of a sniper's bullet, which I know has no chance of coming in. As the papers would say, "Situation normal on the Western Front." We get absolutely no news, you know more of what is going on in France than I do. We heard that the division on our right were in action the other ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... At court were sore distressed; The queen and all her maidens Were bitten by the pest, And yet they dared not scratch them, Or chase the fleas away. If we are bit, we catch them, And crack without delay. ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... immediately dashes off in all haste, whips crack, wheels fly, and shouting, racing and singing along all the roads, the country-folk rattle away to their homes. Our two turn their wheels ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... the shore a gentle sound of splashing came to his ears, and an occasional crack as of oars in their locks. Was it possible that a boat was there between the schooner and the land? What boat, and ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris |
