"Knock" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there was a violent knock at the door. Rudolf sprang to open it. Sapt and his revolver kept their places. Bernenstein ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... Squire and Mr Milestone were conducting their operations. Their sudden appearance a little dismayed the Squire, who, however, comforted himself with the reflection, that the tower was perfectly safe, or at least was intended to be so, and that his friends were in no probable danger but of a knock on the head from ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... Israelites, when they went among the heathen to procure servants, take money in one hand and ropes in the other? Did they ask one man to engage in their service, and drag along with them the next that they met, in spite of his struggles. Did they knock for admission at one door and break down the next? Did they go through one village with friendly salutations and respectful demeanor, and with the air of those soliciting favors, offer wages to the inhabitants as an inducement to engage in their service—while ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... away with a red-hot spot raging under her blouse. That she, the warden of the form, should have been passed over in favor of a girl whose sole qualification seemed to be that she could offer some of the others a lift in her car, was a very nasty knock. Was Bess to ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... truly astonishing how many ancient spectacles, which to collectors of such things would be veritable treasures, lie neglected and allowed to "knock about" until broken or otherwise damaged. Those mostly discovered are the heavy brass and silver-rimmed spectacles of about one hundred years ago, some very interesting specimens of which are to be seen in several of the larger ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... finish the sentence: the postman's knock came to the door, and she bounded off to see what he had brought, leaving Miss Dasomma in fear lest she should appropriate a letter not addressed to her. She returned with a look of triumph—a look so wildly exultant that her hostess ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... if you say another word to me, I shall knock you down," cried George, furiously; having said which, Mr. Talboys strode out of the room, banging the door after him with a violence that shook the house. Those inky clouds, which had shut in the sultry earth as if with a roof of hot iron, poured out their blackness ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... imagination and exaggeration, and the trouble was confined to certain districts of the county, the centre of disturbance being somewhere about Claremorris, a market town, on the railway to Westport, and not very far from Knock, the last new place of pilgrimage. At Claremorris I accordingly halted to look about me, and was surprised at the extraordinary activity of the little place. Travellers in agricultural England, either Wessex or East Anglia, often wonder who drinks all the beer for the distribution ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... up right nice," he approved, then seeing a red squirrel that sat chattering on a walnut tree far beyond the road he squinted over the sights and questioned musingly, "I wonder now, could I knock thet boomer outen thet thar tree ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... in the corridor until the other girls had gone. Then she made her way slowly to the office of the principal. "Come in," came the answer to her timid knock. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... was beginning to dawn; Herod's men would be after him as soon as daylight disclosed his escape. The one thing needful for him was to be taken in and sheltered. So the praying group and the girl who stops praying when she hears the knock, to which it was her business to attend, were working in the same direction. It is not necessary to insist that no heights or delights of devotion and secret communion are sufficient excuses for neglecting or delaying the doing of the smallest and most menial task which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... very much; and the consequence was, that, not long after he reached his mother's house, a small boat from one of the vessels came to shore. A party of men went to the front door of the house in which they had seen the boy enter, and began loudly to knock upon it. Poor Mrs. Morris was half frightened to death, and she made as much delay as possible in order to compose her features and act as if she had never heard of a refugee who wished to hide himself from his pursuers. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... goods in our shop- windows which nobody wants, and we have so much to do for a limited public which never comes to us to be done for, that we are altogether out of sorts and can't enjoy ourselves with any one." So I go to the Post-office, and knock at the shutter, and I say to the Post-master, "Will YOU come and be idle with me?" To which he rejoins, "No, I really can't, for I live, as you may see, in such a very little Post-office, and pass my life behind such a very little shutter, that my hand, when I put it out, is as the hand of a giant ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... gorgeous stunt," he acknowledged, as he followed his companion into a taxicab. "If we bring it off, it's going to knock the movies silly." ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... as Uncle James was the leader of the expedition he should be the one to do the knocking, or at any rate to tell them when to knock. Nate himself had not thought of this. He was not so refined as Jimmy, either ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... letter written in 1743, gives a curious account of the streets of London through which Johnson wandered. He says;—'London is really dangerous at this time; the pickpockets, formerly content with mere filching, make no scruple to knock people down with bludgeons in Fleet Street and the Strand, and that at no later hour than eight o'clock at night; but in the Piazzas, Covent Garden, they come in large bodies, armed with couteaus, and attack whole parties, so that the danger ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... gentlemen, and will give them but small thanks for their labor, in going about to suppress his word and servants; he hath sat in counsel above these five thousand five hundred years, hath ruled and made laws. Good Sirs! be not so choleric; go further from the wall, lest you knock your pates against it. 'Kiss the Son lest he be angry, &c'. That is, take hold on Christ, or the Devil will ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... them. Suppose we get a lot of boxes. Soap boxes are as good as any. It won't take long to knock up a ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... the door of a room at the front of the house. As the boy lifted his hand to knock at the door, there was a burst of laughter within, plainly heard, as the transom was open, ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... glad to hear he has had a good fight, Mrs. Dr. dear. Perhaps it may knock that poetry nonsense out of him. And I never, no, never could bear that little viper of a Dan Reese. Will you not sit nearer to the fire, Mrs. Marshall Elliott? These November evenings are ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... beast Wraysford," he said, at the very instant that Wraysford, not waiting to knock, flung ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... hand to knock at the door, suddenly it occurred to her as curious that the note she had received had been written upon extremely fine paper and in a handwriting which revealed breeding and education. Yet this peasant's hut suggested neither the one nor ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... time in dressing, for she expected at every moment that her sister-in-law's maid would knock at the door with a message from Giovanni, bidding her come to him before he went out. But no one came, though it was already past the hour at which he usually left the house. All at once she heard his unmistakable ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... effect is a part of his art-effort in its inception. Emerson's substance and even his manner has little to do with a designed effect—his thunderbolts or delicate fragments are flashed out regardless—they may knock us down or just spatter us—it matters little to him—but Hawthorne is more considerate; that is, he is ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... to do, Rodney?" he cried. "I forge a shoe, and I fuller it, and I clip it, and I caulken it, and I knock five holes in it, and there it is finished. Then I do it again and again, and blow up the bellows and feed the forge, and rasp a hoof or two, and there is a day's work done, and every day the same as the other. Was it for ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I knock," he commanded. "And," he added in a vehement whisper, "don't come out at all unless you have ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... to the door, unbolted it, and made his escape into the open beyond the house, just as the knock was repeated. ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... and wheel, And the worter slosh and reel And jest ravel out in froth Flossier'n satin cloth! Rickollect them paddles jest Knock the bubbles galley-west, And plunge under, and come ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... with red light. . . . She ran into the passage in her terror, but, on recovering herself a little, wished to help him; in vain! the door had slammed to behind her so securely that she could not open it. People ran up, and began to knock: they broke in the door, as though there was but one mind among them. The whole cottage was full of smoke; and just in the middle, where Petrus had stood, was a heap of ashes, from which smoke was still rising. They flung themselves upon the sacks: only broken potsherds lay there instead ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... thoughts was suddenly broken by the postman's knock at the door. There was a London letter addressed to herself in the familiar handwriting of Mr. Bernard Falcon. As she opened it she experienced a singular mixture of relief and vexation, tinged by ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... hours before, and too much "upset" to go to bed, was almost frightened into hysterics on hearing the furious knocking at the gate. Though she had herself seen him drive away, she fancied that it must be Dmitri Fyodorovitch knocking again, no one else could knock so savagely. She ran to the house-porter, who had already waked up and gone out to the gate, and began imploring him not to open it. But having questioned Pyotr Ilyitch, and learned that he wanted to see Fenya on very "important business," the man made up his mind at last to open. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... this fashion. Presently the Queen noticed that the damsel was no longer with her at her task. She rose to her feet, and going quickly to the chamber of the prince, entered therein without call or knock, for the door was unfastened on the latch. When the Queen saw these two lovers fondly laced in each other's arms, she knew and was certified of their love. Right wrathful was the Queen. She caught the maiden by the wrist, and shut her fast in her room. She prayed ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... becoming dress, ... I sat on the sofa in my poor little parlor, and there, pale with emotion, scarcely daring to breathe, I listened with burning impatience to the different noises about the house. In a few moments I heard a knock, the door open, a voice exclaim, "You, Monsieur le Comte!" He did not wait to be announced, but came in at once to the parlor where I was. He was so joyous at finding me, and I so delighted at seeing him, that for the first blissful moments of our meeting neither ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... getting down—there's nothing to open the inn for in the mornings—and Ann told me as soon as I got down that the young gentleman had left nearly an hour before. She had taken him up an early cup of tea at seven o'clock, and he opened the door to her knock, and took it from her. He was fully dressed, except for his boots, which he had in his hand, and he asked her to clean them, as he wanted to leave at once. She was walking away with the boots, when he called her back and took them from her, saying that it didn't matter about ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... made no pretence to protect the weak, or to abnegate their natural power. The biggest lad used his thews and sinews to knock over the lesser without mercy, till the lesser by degrees grew strong enough to retaliate. To be thrashed, beaten, and kicked was so universal an experience that no one ever imagined it was not correct, or thought of complaining. ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... A knock at his door interrupted his revery. Miss Susan Posey informed him that a gentleman was waiting below who wished ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... better, Gentleman, I dare not say she is so Sir, because She is yours, Sir, these five years she has firkt A pretty Living, Until she came to serve; I fear he will knock my Brains ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... game by going out of the room, and then giving a double (or postman's) knock at the door; it is the duty of one of the other players to stand at the door inside the room to answer the knocks that are made, and to ask the postman for ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... Ghysbrecht did, and have to go on a mule's legs instead of Martin Wittenhaagen's, and a back like this (striking the wood of his bow), instead of this (striking the string), I'll thank and bless any young fellow who will knock me on the head, as you have done that old shopkeeper; malison on ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Sir John in the process of complacently feeding his glutton fancies with matter raked from the foulest gutters of baseness. The women, burning with anger and shame, knock their wits together for revenge; and the answer which they, in their shrewdly-concerted plan, return to his advances is to him a pledge of entire success: he is so transported, that he leaps clean out of his senses ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... said the father; whereupon Herbert again turned round. His father was endeavouring to stand, but supporting himself by the back of his chair. "Do not disturb me for half an hour; but come to me then, and knock at the door. This gentleman will have done by ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... early spring he was in his sitting room, reading and a little bored. There came a knock at the door. He hoped that it was some one bringing something interesting or coming to propose a search for something interesting. "Come in," he said with welcome in his voice. The door opened. It ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... ice on the door. It's just about the fifty mark, but you'll notice the upper edge is ragged. The time she went seventy the ice climbed a full four inches higher." He picked up his hand, and without ceasing from sorting called "Come in," to a knock on ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... even shoestring, to the middle of the lining, making the loop long enough so that it will reach to the edge of the hat crown when the loop is pulled out. This can be done and passed over hook or nail or peg, and the hat hung over it, and even if the hat gets a hard knock, it's a case of "sure on" ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... should be. You'll always come to Castlewood, won't you? You shall always have your two rooms in the court kept for you; and if anybody slights you, d—— them! let them have a care of me. I shall marry early—'Trix will be a duchess by that time, most likely; for a cannon-ball may knock over his grace ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I cried a little, but I knew that I had done quite right, that it was better for me to regulate my own affairs than to call upon the company commander to do so for me. I returned to the dining room, but soon there was a gentle knock on the door, and opening it, I saw Volmer standing in front of me, cap in hand, looking very meek and humble. Very respectfully he apologized, and expressed his regret at having offended me. That was very pleasant, but knowing the man's violent temper, and thinking of coming days, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... bullies and the prostrate one were all outside the tavern door, which was locked behind them. Peace once more reigned in the hotel, and it was in order for Matt and the Grinstun man to congratulate Coristine on his knock down blow. He showed no desire for their commendation, but, with his friend, whom Timotheus helped to pick up the chessmen, retired to his room. The Crew's brother had disappeared before he had had ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... said Morris, "but we must remember at the same time God's mercy in giving life. He who gave life can preserve it: and this shall be my trust for you all, my dears, when I am far away from you. There is a knock! I must go. Oh! Miss Margaret, who will there be to go to the door when I ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... to a high pitch of anger, stopped his poking and started to knock Friar Rodriguez on the head, believing it to be a more sensitive part. Unfortunately, Friar Rodriguez's head was too hard for anything, and the crosier fell, broken in two pieces. At last! said the poor friar, who, pale and deadly ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... home three hours before they were expected, and she went up at once to her room and her bed, leaving Jock to make the explanations, and receive all Bobus's indignation at having allowed her to knock herself up by such a ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said Brownie, "always cheery, an' workin' 'ard, an' takin' the ups and downs sensibly. Now, it was a real nasty knock to find their nice little 'ome burnt down on New Year's day, but after the first shock they never 'ung their lip at all—just bucked ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... in a moment, unhurt, except for a knock on the eye against his gun, which he was carrying before him; and after a minute's rueful look, he joined heartily in the shouts of laughter of his father and brother at his expense. 'Ah, Charley, brag is a good dog, but holdfast is a better. I never saw a more literal ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... forbidden to catch birds in the royal gardens of Fredericksburg; but your blue uniform betrays where you come from." This fine tirade sounded, however, to the ungodly sailor-boy like a mere "Pippi-pi." He gave the noisy bird a knock on his beak, ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... thought to knock a hole in my skull, as you have done to many a better man than yourself. He is a lucky man who never meets his match, Dirk. I shall give your love to the Enchanted Prince, my faithful serving-man, whom they ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... of Christians of {364} all ages and sexes were banished, beaten, and tortured divers ways, especially by being buffeted on the face with a terrible kind of armed ferula, one blow of which would knock the teeth out, and make the head swell exceedingly. All which torments even the young converts bore with incredible constancy, rather than discover where the priest lay hid, or deliver up the crosses, relics, or sacred books, or do any thing ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... necessary, and not to be helped. Truly, friend, it was my desire to help thee in peace and with a peaceful hand; but, of a truth, there was thee enemies at thee side, with their guns and their knives, ready to start up and knock out thee unfortunate brains. Truly, friend, thee sees it couldn't be helped; and, truly, I don't think thee conscience can ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... dinner one day, and asked me if I had ever read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," which frightened me into an indigestion; and when I told Mr. Combe of it, he gave a sad Scotch laugh, like a postman's knock, "Ha! ha! just like ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the interest at four per cent., and knock a hundred and twenty off my salary, if you like; but I'll stay. It's pretty clear, isn't it? I think, on the whole, it might be as well for you to close with the offer. It seems to me that if I'm worth anything at all, ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... companion, just this, that I am very probably spending a meditative winter in gaol. The charge is that I did aid and abet a peculiarly ingenious gang of desperadoes to blow a jeweller's safe, knock the jeweller on the head and get safely away with the stuff. I am even accused of obstructing the police. An inspector has been round to see me this morning and he tells me there is practically no hope. He advises me, as between friends, to make a clean ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... listened. Then I got up, and went down the stairs quiet like a mouse. I turned on the light quick—like this"—he snapped his fingers. "Two men have broken open my safe, and they have my money, a lot of money, for I keep all my money there; I do not bank—no. They rush at me, they knock me down, they make their escape, but I recognise one of them—it is Mister the young Archman, who I have many times seen at The Sphinx Cafe—yes. Well, and then on the floor I find a letter." He grinned wickedly again. "Have you the ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... perplexities. The green door opened just as he reached it, and Lucy and her elder sister came out in those grey cloaks which the Rector had slandered. They were just going to Wharfside to the service, and of course they were surprised to see Mr Wentworth, who did not knock at that green door more than a dozen times in a week, on the average. The Curate walked between the sisters on their way towards their favourite "district." Such a position would scarcely have been otherwise than agreeable to any young man. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... to fight for it. The proprietor of the hacienda himself answered our none too gentle knock at the door, and he had no sooner caught sight of us than he let out a yell as though he had seen the devil in person, and slammed the door violently in our faces. Indeed, we were ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... interested in seeing the process of tobacco inspection. There were a number of hogsheads of tobacco, with a party of porters, coopers, inspectors, and clerks examining them. It was curious to see how rapidly they would go through the process. The coopers would set a hogshead up upon its end, knock out the head, loosen all the staves at one end, whisk it over upon the platform of the scales, and then lift the hogshead itself entirely off, and set it down on one side, leaving the tobacco alone, in a great round pile, on the platform. Then when it was ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... very night of the young gentleman's departure, late, a telegram had come to Mr. Fulton. She, Hilda, had gone down to the front door, signed for the telegram, and carried it to Mr. Fulton's room. He did not answer to her first light knock; nor to a first or second loud knock. She pushed the door open. The room was full of moonlight. Mr. Fulton's bed was empty. It had ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... not yet forsake you: Let's be merry, Good my Lord Cardinall: I haue halfe a dozen healths, To drinke to these faire Ladies, and a measure To lead 'em once againe, and then let's dreame Who's best in fauour. Let the Musicke knock it. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... me a bit, as she swam around us two or three times, but I squirmed a good deal when that tremendous tail, which was moving so slowly, came opposite me, and I wondered if it was going to mash me as flat as a sheet of paper, or only knock me over the tops of the mangroves. But that scare was nothing to the next one. After Ma Manatee had gone, Baby and I had a quiet hour or so and I was getting pretty tired and beginning to worry a lot about you, when something ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... A knock sounded on the door, which opened without waiting for a response. "Miss Theodora Bartlet," continued Patty, "commonly known as the ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... rule, as he before did reign; If smooth and unperplex'd the seasons were, As when the sweet Maria lived here; I should delight to have my curls half drown'd In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd: And once more yet, ere I am laid out dead, Knock at a star ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... an hour and a half. Come ashore and knock up Dollmann; we must denounce him, and get them both aboard; it's now or never. Holy Saints! man, not as you are!' (He was ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Pedlar knock'd One night at SELL-ALL'S door, The same who saved old SELL-ALL'S life— 'Twas but the year before! And Sell-all rose and let him in, Not utterly unwilling, But first he bargain'd with the man, And took his only shilling! That night he ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... exclaimed Grandpapa; "how could that child have done it even if he had wished? Are these stones only nuts, that that dear boy's little hands could have been able to knock ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... the ironworks. He had prowled around there on many a dark night, had observed what went on within, and had wondered if there would never be any cessation of the work. He had tested the walls with his paws and wished that he were only strong enough to knock down the whole ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... said the fairy quite good-naturedly, "and you'll do it. That's quite fair. Well now, the thing to do is this: go out in the evening with a long pole, and knock up high into the branches of the trees, and glance up and down, holding your ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... through from the library to knock at Mary's door, and in doing so, had to pass the room in which Mrs Baggett had slept tranquilly for fifteen years. There, in the doorway, was a big trunk, and in the lock of the door was a key. A brilliant idea ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... Hearing the knock on the door, her voice swelled louder, and Bedney, the picture of perplexity, stood filling his pipe, when the bolt was turned, and a gentleman holding a whip and wearing a long ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... and refresh themselves, and come again, and know what answer I had: so they away, and I home to dinner, whither by chance comes Mr. Hawley and dined with me. Before I had dined, the bayleys come back again with the constable, and at the office knock for me, but found me not there; and I hearing in what manner they were come, did forbear letting them know where I was; so they stood knocking and enquiring for me. By and by at my parler-window comes Sir W. Batten's Mungo, to tell me that his master and lady would have ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... when it was time for dinner, but carried rocks from a ridge a couple of hundred yards away, and built a cairn four feet high around the sapling, so that storm or wild animals could not knock it down. Then he began a search in the warmest and sunniest parts of the forest, where the green tips of plant life were beginning to reveal themselves. He found snowflowers, redglow, and bakneesh, and dug up root after root, and at last, ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... away, wear out; gnaw, gnaw at the root of; sap, mine, undermine, shake, sap the foundations of, break up; disorganize, dismantle, dismast; destroy &c 162. damnify &c (aggrieve) 649 [Obs.]; do one's worst; knock down; deal a blow to; play havoc with, play sad havoc with, play the mischief with, play the deuce with, play the very devil with, play havoc among, play sad havoc among, play the mischief among, play the deuce among, play the very devil among; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... tired for further effort to-day," Charley agreed, "but we must get an early start in the morning. We will get some boughs for beds, have supper, and knock off for ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... earned his mite by taking daily care of the goats belonging to the whole valley. He was now discussing with his mother the possibility of his ever being able to maintain them both by following his father's trade of making guitars and violins, when a loud knock put the future to flight, and caused Stephan to open the door so suddenly that a very excited old woman came ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... the public door, and found only a lobby, with a boy on guard. "Mr. Goad? Yes, Sir. This way, Sir," cried the boy. "Lady stay? Yes, Sir; waiting-room for ladies. Chair, miss; here, if you please—first right. Mr. Goad, second on the left. Knock twice. Paper, miss? Poker chained at this time of year. Bell A, glass of water. Bell B, cup of tea, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... one at a hotel—when you lived at a hotel? Mamma's admonitions did not cover that. She put the hat on; she took the hat off. She rather liked it on—but she dropped it on the bed at Ruth's sudden knock and felt a sense of escape for ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... yourself, or by your allowing your wife to run into debt, you give another person power over your liberty. You cannot venture to look your creditor in the face. A double knock at the door frightens you: the postman may be delivering a lawyer's letter demanding the amount you owe. You are unable to pay it, and make a sneaking excuse. You invent some pretence for not paying. At length you are driven to downright lying. ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... but hold that, when formed, the members should act in good faith, and treat each other like gentlemen—should form a party, in fact, and take the field against all other parties without. If they quarrel and fight, and knock the coalition to smithereens, then a governor who attempts to compel men who cannot eat together, and are animated by mutual distrust, to serve in the same Cabinet, and bullies them ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... "If you knock the bottom out of her put a jacket on an oar, and I'll try to bring you off," he said. "If you don't signal I'll stand off and on with a thimble-header topsail over the mainsail. You'll start back right away ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... [Turning to FRAYNE.] Chick, what an ass I've been; what fools we old chaps are, all of us! Why, if I had led the life of a saint, it would only be necessary for a man like this Bastling to come along, to knock me out. Good lord, how clear it is, when it's brought home to you in this fashion! It isn't the scamp, the roue, a girl shies at; it's the old scamp, the old roue. She'll take the young one, the blackguard with a smooth skin and a bright eye, directly he raises a hand—take him without ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... concern had one or more "readers," on whose judgment they relied in such matters. She, therefore, paused only long enough at the counting-room to get directed to Mr. Gouger. Her knock on the critic's door brought forth a loud "Come in," and as she entered she saw two men standing with hats in their hand, as if ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... There was a knock at the door. At Lady Winton's "Come in!" a stout, elderly maid appeared. She came up to her mistress, and said in a ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a shambling, knock-kneed, round-shouldered, swollen-paunched apology for a man, with blistered, cracked lips, jaundiced pig eyes, and the skin of a terrapin, looked her all over, grunted his approval, and with a side-lunge of his fat empty head, indicated the divan which was to be hers ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... blooming coward! I wish I'd been there to see his ugly mug! My dear girl, you were quite right. A pin for the coin! When I'M on with a mash I starve for it! You'll come and see me, eh? You promise? It's the left-hand door. Knock three knocks, for there's a whole heap ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... the bulkiness of the fur clothing hampering them. Ross wondered fleetingly why the other had not made sure of him earlier. As it was he fought with all his vigor to keep Kurt immobile, to try and knock him out with a ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... of duty, he would be for giving up Leopold that very moment! Naturally the clergyman was the one to go to—and Mr. Wingfold had himself done wrong. But he had confessed it! No—he was a poor creature, and would not hold his tongue! She shook at every knock at the door, every ring at the bell, lest it should be the police. To be sure, he had been comparatively little there, and naturally they would seek him first at Goldswyre—but where next? At Glaston, of course. Every time a servant entered the room she turned ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... friends rose and went out; Ursula accompanied them to the gate, saw her godfather and the abbe knock at the opposite door, and as soon as Tiennette admitted them she sat down on the outer wall with ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... case, or rather the outline of it, conjecturally to a scientific friend, who shook his head, and thought Clarke getting queer, and on this particular evening Clarke was making an effort to rationalize the story, when a sudden knock at the door ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen
... recounts from hearsay the remarkable conduct of an Indian, who sprang into the midst of the English and killed two of them with his hatchet; then mounted on a log and defied them all. One of the regulars tried to knock him down with the butt of his musket; but though the blow made him bleed, he did not fall, and would have killed his assailant if Rogers had not shot him dead.[643] The firing lasted about two hours. At length ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... Congleton). Once, in travelling by canal near Marseilles, Newman found the level of the canal-boat was "dangerously high, from the arches. Once we had a narrow escape. There was a sudden cry of 'A bas!' We turned and saw we were rapidly nearing an arch which would knock off our heads. The horses kept at a short canter. Old Mrs. C. was sitting quietly on deck, wholly absorbed, and never dreaming that the sailors could be calling to her. Miss C. was sitting on a ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... we had left— from her stem head, and then, leaving Billy aboard, I descended to the ground, removing the ladder by which we had ascended. The wedging-up having already been accomplished, I next took a maul and, shouting to Billy to "stand by", proceeded to knock away the spur shores. There was now a moment's hesitation on the part of the cutter, of which I took advantage to jump clear; and then she began to move, slowly at first but with rapidly increasing velocity, while I dashed the bottle of wine against the craft's cut-water, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... trying to convince his godson, when there came a knock at the door, and the old man, opening ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... man, who had disappeared as if by enchantment. D'Artagnan had run, sword in hand, through all the neighboring streets, but had found nobody resembling the man he sought for. Then he came back to the point where, perhaps, he ought to have begun, and that was to knock at the door against which the stranger had leaned; but this proved useless—for though he knocked ten or twelve times in succession, no one answered, and some of the neighbors, who put their noses out of their windows or were brought to their doors by the noise, had assured him that that house, ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... appeared, by the low railing which guarded the edge of the roof. The railing was of a very desirable height. Dickie could just rest his chin on top of it, which was nice. Suddenly a loud "Maau-w!" resounded from above. Dickie jumped, and gave his poor chin a knock against the railing. It couldn't be the moon, could it? Moons didn't ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... Henriette must go out and come in again, telling Basine Clerget that Mme. Sechard wanted to speak to her at once. Fifteen minutes after Basine's departure she must go upstairs, knock at the door of the inner room, and give David the forged note. That was all. Cerizet looked to chance to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... knock off the fried oysters after the Spanish mackerel for ME," said Demorest gravely. "The fact is, that last bottle of Veuve Clicquot we had for supper wasn't as dry ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the carriages stop or go on, a very violent jolting takes place, from the ends of the carriages jostling together. I have heard many say they prefer a horse-coach, but the majority are in favour of the railroad, and they will, no doubt, knock up ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... bound also to evolve other Terpsichorean figures in respect of door-steps, scrapers, cellar-hatches, church buttresses, and the overhanging angles of walls which, originally unobtrusive, had become bow-legged and knock-kneed. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... of things," Angelica exclaimed, straightening herself energetically, and giving Diavolo's head a knock with her own to make him move it out of the way. "I've been reading, you know, and I want you to explain. I want to know how people can be ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... because they had nothing to do at home; some, because they did what the priests told them; some, because they liked to see foreign countries; some, because they were fond of knocking men about, and would as soon knock a Turk about as a Christian. Robert of Normandy may have been influenced by all these motives; and by a kind desire, besides, to save the Christian Pilgrims from bad treatment in future. He wanted to raise a ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... A knock at her door roused her from half-sleep and meditation to full wakening. Kate Waddington had entered—Kate, transformed into a picturesque imitation of a nurse. She was all in grass linen, the collar rolled away to show ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... right way." That was the time I was sleeping and living in the Young Men's Christian Association rooms, where I was then President, Secretary, janitor, and everything else. Well one night, after midnight I heard a knock at the door. And there on the step leading into the street stood this stranger I had made so mad at the lamp-post, and said he wanted to talk to me about his soul's salvation. He said: "Do you remember the man you met about three months ago ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... my breakfast over, I opened my door to a knock, and Follet's bloodshot eyes raked me eagerly. He came in with a rush, as if my hit-or-miss bungalow were sanctuary. I fancied he wanted a drink, but I did not offer him one. He sat down heavily—for all his lightness—like ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... I had thrown myself down on coming in; and, with a strange contrariety, my mind, broken rudely from its hope, had flown to my far away home, oblivious of the benumbed links that lay between. A knock at my door completed the return to my despair, for with a look at the walls of my little chamber, in the bright beam of moonlight that streamed in at the narrow window, I was, by recognition, again at Vallambrosa, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... wonderfully well—so well, indeed, that none would ever have suspected the agitation seething under the cold placidity. Its only evidence was in the gentle swing of her narrow foot, and the nervous play of her slender fingers. And even these indications disappeared at the knock on the corridor door; and she went almost blithely and flung it back—to Harleston ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... afternoon, Mrs. King was with Alfred while Ellen was at church. He was lying on his couch, very uncomfortable and fretful, when to the surprise of both, a knock was heard at the door. Mrs. King looked out of the window, and a smart, hard-looking, pigeon's-neck silk bonnet at once nodded to her, and a voice said, 'I've come over to see you, Cousin King, if you'll come down and let me in. I knew I should ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hall, to discover, if they could, the motive for Paredes's stealthy presence there. Bobby accepted greedily this opportunity to find Katherine, to learn from her, undisturbed, what had happened in the house that morning, the meaning, perhaps, of her despairing gesture. When, in response to his knock, she opened her door and stepped into the corridor he guessed her despair had been an expression of the increased strain, of her helplessness in face of ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... yer science, doctor! They's no power in a pullet. The older the black hen the better. And you know the cure fer rheumatiz?" And here the old woman got down a bottle of grease. "That's ile from a black dog. Ef it's rendered right, it'll knock the hind sights off of any rheumatiz you ever see. But it must be rendered in the dark of the moon. Else a black dog's ile a'n't worth no more ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... wanted to see more of the world, he thanked them warmly for their hospitality, and set out once more on his wanderings. All day he walked, and in the evening he came to a peasant's house. While he was wondering whether he should knock and demand shelter for the night, he heard a great croaking of frogs in a ditch behind the house. Stepping to the back he saw a very strange sight. Four frogs were throwing a small bottle about from one to the ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... oars, and the party, as they disembarked from the boat, were treated with especial deference. Even the donkeys were respected. In Egypt the donkeys of a man are respected, ay, and even his donkey-boys, when he shows himself able and willing to knock down ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... silly. Everybody appears to be in love with somebody else's wife. Then the people are all divided so strictly into two classes, the good and the bad! As for the other man's wife, prairie-life would soon knock that nonsense out of people. There isn't much room for the Triangle in a two-by-four shack. Life's so normal and natural and big out here that a Pierre Loti would be kicked into a sheep-dip before he could use ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal, and knock off half-a-crown." ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... Runnet, stir it, and cover it close; and when it comes like a Cheese, wet the Baskets, and set them hollow; lay the Cheese into them without breaking the Curd; as it wheys and sinks, fill them up 'till all is in. When you send it up, turn the Baskets on the Plates, and give it a Knock with your Hand, they will come out like a Fish: Whip Cream and lay about them. They will look well in any little Basket that is shallow, if you have no ...
— Mrs. Mary Eales's receipts. (1733) • Mary Eales
... his brother outlaws, William made his way unobserved into the town and came to his wife's dwelling. It was closely shut, with doors strongly bolted, and he was forced to knock long on the window before his wife opened the shutter to see who ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt |
