"Knuckle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as I gripped him from behind. My hand on his mouth stifled his outcry. His black knife blade waved blindly. Then my clenched knuckle caught his temple, and dug with the twisting Santus blow. I was expert at it, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... stooped several times as if looking for something under her petticoats. She hesitated a second, looked at her neighbors and the straightened herself up quietly. Faces were pale and drawn. Loiseau said that he would pay one thousand francs for a knuckle of ham. His wife made a gesture as if to protest, then she became calm. She always suffered when she heard of money being squandered, and did not even understand jokes on that subject. "As a matter of fact, I ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... sized hands and feet. The head is of the marked dolichocephalic type, flattened at the sides, face is oval more or less, with thick eyebrows, eyes rather prominent, nose broadish and long, lower jaw prominent and firm. Prominent bony points like the cheek bones, the elbows and the knees, the knuckle joints of the hands and feet. The teeth are large, especially the upper middle incisors, and they are usually spaced. The arms and legs are hairy. High grade brains, the ability to learn, and the ability to control, self-mastery in the sense of domination of the lower instincts and the automatic ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... Alice Weston bared her round young arms and enjoyed a real, old-fashioned wash in a real, old-fashioned washbowl. Who could be unhappy in this glorious country? But mother seemed so unimpressed! "And I hope that steering-knuckle doesn't come for a month," the girl told a framed lithograph of "Custer's Last Fight," which, contrary to all precedent, was free ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... uncle, "I think this will be a good place for you, by this trickling rill; you see the place is roughly in the shape of a ham, so you shall have the place of honour, my boy, by the knuckle-bone, while I and Ebo go round the fat sides and see if we can find ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... and nursing had to be kept up for weeks?—with all the rest there was to do. Dolly felt very blue for a little while; then she shook it off again and took hold of her work. Nelly had returned by this time, with a knuckle of veal from the butcher's. Dolly put it on, to make the nicest possible delicate stew for her mother; and even for her father she thought the broth might, do. She gathered herbs and vegetables in the garden again, and a messenger ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... slackened for want of breath. He held up one brown little hand. She inspected it. Dirty, of course, unspeakably, but otherwise—Oh, there was a bunch on one knuckle, a bunch that was swelling. "Is that where it ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... little English sparrow seems to be ubiquitous, and as pugnacious here as on Boston Common, or the Central Park of New York. Boyish games are very similar the world over: young Cuba was playing marbles after the orthodox fashion, knuckle-down. It was very pitiful to behold the army of beggars in so small a city, but begging is synonymous with the Spanish name, both in her European and colonial possessions. Here the maimed, halt, and blind meet one at every turn. Saturday is the harvest day for ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... attention. It may be made of beef alone, but, if desired very rich for a special dinner, requires the addition of either a chicken or a knuckle of veal. Allow, then, for the best soup, a soup-bone,—the shin of beef being most desirable,—weighing from two to three pounds; a chicken; a slice of fat ham; two onions, each stuck with three cloves; one small carrot ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... cat talk together just as easy as you and me could talk, and I say that if it's come to this, that we're going to allow an idiot of a man and a devil of a cat to take away the characters of respectable gentlemen, we'd better knuckle down and beg Monty to take charge of this camp and to treat us like so many ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... and shut his fingers with spasmodic malice, and glared round the room. "He's going to lock us out if we strike," he added. "He's going to take the bread out of our mouths; he's going to put his heel on Manitou, and grind her down till he makes her knuckle to Lebanon—to a lot of infidels, Protes'ants, and thieves. Who's going to stand it? I say-bagosh, I say, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... room and the men glared accusingly at Walters. But the commander refused to knuckle down to any show of arrogance. He fixed a cold, stony eye on the short man. "Mr. Brett," he snapped in a biting voice, "you have been invited to this meeting as a guest, not by any right you think ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... be, miss. So I be doing to the best of the power granted me. Well, I were in this little knuckle of a squat, where old Sally used to say as I went to sleep, and charged the parish for it—a spiteful old ooman, and I done her grave with pleasure, only wishing her had to pay for it; and to prove to her mind that I never goed asleep here, I was just making ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... knees and chin on fists joined knuckle to knuckle, Carew turned and smiled blandly down at ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... boy. Then from fifteen to twenty I did not practise anything like what I ought to have done. That is the period when the bones grow, muscles develop—everything grows. Another thing against me is the length of my fingers. When the fingers are longer than the width of the hand across the knuckle joint, it is not an advantage but a detriment. The extra length of finger is only so much dead weight that the hand has to lift. This is another disadvantage I have had to work against. Yes, as you say, it is a rather remarkable hand in regard to size and suppleness. But ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... forgotten, and the strongest affection in his life had been for Parsons. An only child of sociable tendencies necessarily turns his back a good deal upon home, and the aunt who had succeeded his mother was an economist and furniture polisher, a knuckle rapper and sharp silencer, no friend for a slovenly little boy. He had loved other little boys and girls transitorily, none had been frequent and familiar enough to strike deep roots in his heart, ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... the author mentions Big Ben, but this is not the clock tower bell in London, which at the time of writing had not yet been rung; instead this is Benjamin Caunt, the bare-knuckle boxer who defeated William Thompson in 75 rounds to become Heavyweight Champion of England in 1838. The bell may possibly have been named ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... nero," when I am in Italy, for they know that in the main I think as they do. "These people," they say, "make themselves very agreeable to you, and show you their smooth side; we, who see more of them, know their rough one. Knuckle under to them, and they will perhaps condescend to patronise you; have any individuality of your own, and they know neither scruple nor remorse in their attempts to get you out of their way. 'Il prete' they say, with a significant look, 'e sempre prete.' For the future let us have professors ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... scratches. "Confound the little brute!" he exclaimed, feeling as if an altar had been desecrated. He was reminded, however, of the observation this outrage had led him to make, and, for further assurance, he knocked on the wood with his knuckle. It sounded from that position commonplace enough, but his suspicion was strongly confirmed when, again standing beside the desk, he put his head beneath the lifted lid and gave ear while with ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... easy of explanation. I had known, as every prisoner in San Quentin knew, that the two men in solitary were Ed Morrell and Jake Oppenheimer. And I knew that these were the two men who tapped knuckle- talk to each other and ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the unhappy suicide dangling from a beam. A farthing candle, stuck in a bottle neck, shed its feeble light upon the table, which, owing to the provident kindness of Mr. Wood, was much better furnished with eatables than might have been expected, and boasted a loaf, a knuckle of ham, a meat-pie, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... at the door of the world's treasure-house guarded by a child—an idle irresponsible child playing knuckle-bones—on whose favor depends the gift of the key, and you will imagine one-half my torment. Till that evening Charlie had spoken nothing that might not lie within the experiences of a Greek galley-slave. But ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a knuckle, but saw no way to escape putting up some government money. Soaking the company would just make ...
— A Transmutation of Muddles • Horace Brown Fyfe
... the fillet about three inches thick will be required, and weighing from two to three pounds. It should be cut from one side of the leg, without bone; but sometimes butchers object to give it, as cutting in this manner interferes with cutlets. In such a case a piece must be chosen near the knuckle, and the bone be taken out before cooking. For a larger party, a thick slice of the fillet, weighing about four ...
— Nelson's Home Comforts - Thirteenth Edition • Mary Hooper
... a long, outstretched finger, seems to fold back into itself, knuckle-fashion, and presently is but a part of the oddly foreshortened shoreline, distinguishable only by the black dot of watchers clustered under a battery of lights, like a swarm of hiving bees. Out in midstream the tugs, which have been convoying ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... four inches, for in the speed and fury of a charge they will always drive it in right up to the hilt, and while we retain this out-of-date weapon we should certainly put a guard on it not further than six inches from the point. I have used a hand-bayonet which sticks out from the fist like a knuckle-duster and is about six inches long. The shock of the blow is taken on the forearm which also has an iron plate running down it on which to receive the thrust of one's opponent. This is the natural weapon for the Anglo-Saxon, as ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... going," said Jennka. "Don't you knuckle down too much before her, and Simeon too. Abuse them for all you're worth. It's daytime now, and they won't dare do anything to you. If anything happens, tell them straight that, now, you're going to the governor immediately and are going to tell on them. Tell 'em, that they'll be closed ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... equality had seemed very pretty to me. Your fine gentleman may talk as nobly as he pleases over his Madeira, and yet would patronize Monsieur Rousseau if he met him; and he takes never a thought of those who knuckle to him every day, and clean his boots and collect his rents. But when he is tried in the fire, and told suddenly to collect some one else's rents and curse another's negroes, he is fainthearted for the experiment. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... night. That they might possibly have to endure a siege of some weeks, he was quite well aware, and his first thought, after she had gone to sleep before the fire, had been to make inventory of such provisions as the prospector had left in his cabin. A knuckle of ham, part of a sack of flour, some navy beans, and some tea siftings at the bottom of a tin can; these constituted the contents of the larder which the miner had gone to replenish. But though the man knew ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... mortified that I ever had a desire to "knuckle up" with any but kings' sons, or sultans' little boys. I longed to be among my equals in the urchin line, and fly my kite with only ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... letters and gave up our identification discs and were served with persuader sticks or knuckle knives, and ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... lamp seemed centred on that pudgy hand, in its inevitable glove, that had fixed so firm a gripe on the back of the mahogany chair as to strain open one of the fingers of the tight, tawny kid-glove worn by Dr. Englehart. This had parted slightly just above the knuckle of the front-finger, and revealed the cotton stuffing within. Nay, more, the ruby ring with its peculiar device was thus exposed, which graced the slender finger of the charlatan! I do not apply this term as concerned the profession ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... clothing, feeding, educating it. But Mrs. Verstage was deaf to such solicitations. She would take charge of the child, but paid she must be. Eventually the parochial authorities, after having called a vestry, and sat three hours in consultation, and to "knuckle under," as the hostess expressed it, and allow a trifle for the entertainment of the ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... every way, and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wetted the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the vial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all the other electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... banishes all selfish thoughts from mind, and gives the voice of conscience a chance to be heard. I pray for a higher moral sense, that which lifts man above beasts, and when my answer comes and I feel morally right, then all hell can't make me knuckle under. For civilization is built on man's morals not on brute force (as Germany learned to her sorrow), and I fight for the moral law as long as there is ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... Take a Knuckle of Veal and two Calves Feet, lay them in water all night, then boil them in Spring water, till you perceive it to be a thick Jelly, then take them out, and let your Jelly stand till it be cold, then take the clearest, and put it into a Skillet, and sweeten ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... plan ahead in this country," said Smith. "You must know to a skinned knuckle just what you'll need a year, or five years, ahead here, if you ever make it go worth havin'. It ain't like it is back where you come from. There you can go it more or less hit-or-miss, and hit about as often as you miss. Here you've got ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... gales at W. and W.S.W.; and at half an hour past three we tacked and stood to the northward. Soon after, a small island lying off Knuckle Point bore S. 1/2 W. distant half a league. In the evening, having split the fore and mizen topsails, we brought the ship under her courses; and at midnight we wore, and stood to the southward till five ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... lad who will give way to his temper if made to take off his hat to one perhaps below him in social station, or if he sulks when tossed in a blanket—such a lad, in after life, is very apt to do the same thing when he has to knuckle under to a business rival, or to go into a passion when he receives the hard knocks of life. So, then, hazing, if not carried to extremes, has its uses in adversity, and Andy had sense enough to realize this. So he was ready for ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... are you, Ben?" that young person answered respectfully,—"Very well, thank you," though his nod was as condescending as his new master's; because he felt that a boy who could ride bareback and turn a double somersault in the air ought not to "knuckle under" to a fellow who had not ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... shop window or showcase, but Lil soon put a stop to that. She had her own ideas on clothes. He turned to jewellery. On Lil's silken bosom reposed a diamond-and-platinum pin the size and general contour of a fish-knife. She had a dinner ring that crowded the second knuckle, and on her plump wrist sparkled an oblong so encrusted with diamonds that its ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... biting the knuckle of a forefinger, undecided as to what path of action to enter, to reach a satisfactory end. My very rudeness convinced her more than anything else that ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... down with this big manuscript book. Weird schemes of numeration rioted over the pages, from the Zuni finger and the Chinese knuckle systems to the latest groups of symbols, used in modern higher mathematics, of which the boy had not even heard. It was noon before he realized with a start that the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... about English wateringplaces? Brighton, Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely seaside girls. Against John Long's a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Handy man wants job. Small wages. Will ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... some time, and through necessity, which he said a deal about, we were driven out of every place we had sought shelter in. And English did something they sent him up for a twelve-month for, and I was left to get on as I could. I was took in by 'Hard-Fisted Sall,' who always wore a knuckle-duster, and used to knock everybody down she met, and threatened a dozen times to whip Mr. Fitzgerald, the detective, and used to rob every one she took in tow, and said if she could only knock down and rob the whole pumpkin-headed corporation she should die ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... down to facts," he rapped the headlines with a knuckle. "You have played hell with our schedule and I've got to have the answers soon before I have the full atomic commission and a congressional investigation ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... The cuts are the neck, shoulders, rack, breast, loin and leg. The shoulders, breast and loin are used for roasting, the neck and end of the leg for stewing, the leg for cutlets and the rack for chops. The knuckle from the leg of veal may be used for stews, soups, stock ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... long exiled from feminine society which had superseded the legitimate drama. "There are three ingredients essential to the success of such an entertainment," Thessaly pronounced: "fat legs, thin legs, and legs." They witnessed a knuckle-fight in Whitechapel between a sailorman and a Jewish pugilist. The referee was a member of a famous sporting club, and the purse was put up by a young peer on leave from the bloody shambles before Ypres. "Our trans-Tiber evenings," Paul ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... 'None of your business.'" Cronin shook his head. "I never seen a man with a squarer look, and yet he has me guessing. I goes back to the garage, over past Eighth Avenue, you know, where two johns come up along side o' me. One rubs me with his elbow and the other applies that brass knuckle,—then they gets pinched. I got dressed up in a drug store, got the chauffeur's license number, and goes on down to my office to see this girl. She's hysterical about his family using all their money to put her in jail. I looks at her, and says, 'You won't need their money to ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... all round carefully, holding the instrument meanwhile firmly at parts that are least likely to have become disconnected or that are known to be perfectly sound. The tapping or sounding can be done in the way usual with dealers and repairers, that is, by the knuckle joints of the hand rapping round the instrument, but this is sometimes deceptive, the tendons over the bones of the hand interfering and occasionally causing a double sound, and so defeating the efforts at discovery. A more delicate ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... Peter, jest reach me my snuff-box, will 'ee? —'ere it be—in my back 'ind pocket—thankee! thankee!" Hereupon he knocked upon the lid with a bony knuckle. "I du be that full o' noos this marnin' that my innards be all of a quake, Peter, all of a quake!" he nodded, saying which, he ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... three, syllables. Toutou is in it. He gets tremendously wrought up; cannot keep two feet on the ground at once; spells fast when the word is his; smiles in response to the visitor's smile, the only one who dares; leans out and looks down the line with a knuckle in his mouth as the spelling passes down; wrings one hand as his turn approaches again; catches his word in mid-air and tosses it off, and marks with ecstasy the triumph and pride written on the ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... strove with himself as he rode. "They cannot put it over me unless I knuckle under," he thought. "They're afraid of me. No Indian that ever lived can face out a white man when the white man ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... show. Put me up the flat bottle, Tilly, and the knuckle of pork that was left last night. Goodness knows when I shall be back; and I never like to rack my mind ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... a moment and then walked across to a window, outside of which was a hen-coop with two knuckle-bones lying beside it. These he picked up, and taking the hen from the coop, he tucked it under ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... black enamelling removed after American occupation of the town; and the only thing about her that would have attracted attention at an American gathering was the fact that several finger-nails on her very small hands were long, almost as long again as from the first knuckle of the finger to the finger-tip, indicating that she was a Moro of high caste and did no manual labour of any kind. Her clumsy Spanish slippers covered feet small as a child's, and her manner, while shy, was quite ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... on the pleasant Sunday afternoons, when we had disposed of our small, but often sumptuous dinner; perhaps a gigot de mouton with a clove of garlic in the knuckle; a fricassee de lapins with onions, or a fricandeau, Panpan himself would tell me part of his history; and in the course of our salad; of our little dessert of fresh fruit, or currant jelly; or perhaps, stimulated by the tiniest glass of brandy, would grow ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... neck by a plaited gold chain of native Trichinopoly-work, with a neat sliding clasp of two cannons and an empty asumamma, or talisman-case. The bracelets were of Popo-beads and thick gold-wire curiously twisted into wreath-knots. Each finger bore a ring resembling a knuckle-duster, three mushroom-like projections springing from each ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... fight," announced the referee, "is to be to a finish. The rounds will last two minutes each, with a minute's rest between. Queensbury rules will be followed as far as they can be made to apply. This being a bare-knuckle fight for a matter of principle, the combatants will ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... of Mutton, and a Knuckle of Veal, put them a boiling in a Pipkin of a Gallon, with some fair water, and when it boils, scum it, and put to it some salt, two or three blades of large Mace, and a Clove or two; boil it to three pints, and strain ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... keep close to me for the rest of the night, and we'll say no more about it. There's no great damage done—nothing but a sore knuckle." I was feeling now the return effects of my blow on the coolie's chin. I felt too much in fault myself to call my attendants very sharply to task. It was through me that Luella had come into danger, and I had to confess ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... different, somehow,' I says. 'We're not goin' to kneel down or knuckle under to him, but he don't look like any one else in ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... met her dark, stormy ones quietly and steadily. "I'm telling you the truth. Can't you see he's been leading Phil into deviltry? You're afraid of him, afraid of his influence over the boy. That's why you knuckle ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... Ischia in exchange for it, and chose it as his favourite refuge from the excessive heat. Suetonius gives a pleasant gossiping picture of the old man's life in his short holidays there, his delight in idly listening to the prattle of his Moorish and Syrian slave-boys as they played knuckle-bones on the beach, his enjoyment of the cool breeze which swept through his villa even in summer or of the cool plash of water from the fountain in the peristyle, his curiosity about the big fossil bones dug up in the island ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... narrowly into the hollow trunk of a fallen tree near by, "N-o-h. Den whar can my little man a-went to?"—now quite desperate, taking a general survey of the neighboring country, and scratching his back with the knuckle of his thumb. "'Pon my honor, I b'lieve he's plowin' on tudder side de fiel'; thought I heerd him a-whistlin ober dar"—feigning to listen for a moment. "N-o-h; jes' Bob White a-whistlin' ober dar. Den sholey he's tuck his gun an' went ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... thing that struck you was his extreme readiness in conversation. He gave the electric spark whenever you put your knuckle to him. The first time I called on him in his house at Putney, I found him sipping claret. We talked of a certain dull fellow whose wealth made him prominent at that time. "Yes," said Jerrold, drawing his finger round the edge of his wineglass, "that's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... his horse, holding his sides with laughter, and shouted: "Aha! My old men are not to your taste! I thought so! This isn't like playing knuckle-bones with children and old women! Well, then, my honorable Messrs. Dead Men, I have never yet felt pity for any one, and you needn't show mercy to my enemies. Deal with them after ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... English "Brasso" from a pocket-flap, and began to rub a lamp. At the far, far end of the long shed four men were standing with their backs to her, round a car. The globed lamp was tricky, and the chamois-leather would slip and let her bark her knuckle on the bracket. But the glow, born in the brass, grew clearer and clearer, till suddenly, stooping to it, she looked into a mirror and saw all the garage behind her and the long rows of cars bent in a yellow curve, and little men and oily women walking incredibly upon the ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... for the maid had forgotten to light the lamp. Without pausing to take off his greatcoat, he hung up his hat, ran nimbly upstairs, and knocked with a light knuckle on his bedroom door. It was closed, but no answer came. He opened it, shut it, locked it, and sat down on the bedside for a moment, in the darkness, so that he could scarcely hear any other sound, as he sat erect and still, like some night ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... help the obstinate old fellow; this time he must knuckle under. I cannot go back on my word; that he must see himself. And by this time he also may have come to his senses. But in order that he may see that I am ready to do whatever I can toward a reconciliation, without losing my dignity—how would it be, parson, if you went ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... the great X-bar-X ranch, not so very far distant from the Haywood home place, Peg had adopted the same tactics that had carried the day for him in the past. The cowboys belonging to his father's estate seemed to knuckle under to him from the first. However much they might ridicule Peg behind his back, they cringed when he gave orders; because he was a liberal paymaster, and no one wished to incur ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... hedged about with so much dignity that he could quell turbulent inferiors with a glance. The idea of one of the august body lowering himself to the extent of emphasising his authority with the bare knuckle would scandalise ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... he panted to his wife, "I've got him. Silly of me to mislay him, but he's so confoundedly shy." He held out his finger as the judges approached, and introduced them to the small green pet perching on the knuckle. "A blight," he said. "Hereward, the Chief Blight. Been in the family for years. A dear ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... the hard, green stems from two bunches of asparagus and put them in 2 quarts and a pint of water, with 2 pounds of veal (the knuckle is the best). Boil in a closely covered pot three hours, till the meat is in rags and the asparagus dissolved. Strain the liquor and return to the pot with the remaining half of the asparagus heads. Let this boil ...
— The Cookery Blue Book • Society for Christian Work of the First Unitarian Church, San
... stock pot a knuckle of veal and two pounds of shoulder of mutton chopped up; cover with one gallon of cold water; season with salt, whole peppers, and a blade of mace; boil for three hours, removing the scum as fast as it rises. Wash ...
— Fifty Soups • Thomas J. Murrey
... conscience that I robbed my master for the best bone in the world," continued the pedlar, and as he said this he took up a little silver horn belonging to the lord of the castle, and, having tapped it with his knuckle to see whether the metal was pure, folded it up in cotton, and put it in his pack with the rest of ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... idiotic slavery of dingy offices and dirty workshops? If we do I trust that we shall be disappointed. These men who have fought so nobly for their land, and who have tasted, even under the most trying conditions, something of the largeness and gladness of a free open-air life, will, I hope, refuse to knuckle down again to the old commercialism. Now at last arises the opportunity for our outworn Civilization to make a fresh start. Now comes the chance to establish great self-supporting Colonies in our own countrysides and co-operative ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... from mass, she saw Iwan Ignatiitch busy clearing the cannon of the rags, small stones, bits of wood, knuckle-bones, and all kinds of rubbish that the little boys ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... there's no think like breakin' off short, there's nothink like turnin' the corner sharp, and fightin' the devil tooth and nail. It's an awful tussle at first, an' I thought I was goin' to knuckle under more'n once. So I would ef it hadn't 'a ben fer you, but you give me this little ban', Miss Amy, an' looked at me as if I wa'n't a beast, an' it's ben a liftin' me up ever sence. Oh, I've had good folks talk at me an' ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... think not, Ellen—would you? I'd rather err on the safe side, seems to me. Do let's be polite, at least! Yes, I'll knock," and a timid rat-tat-tat, made by a small kid-covered knuckle, announced the first visit of the present owner of ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... his actual uncle even such a foil and counterfeit and perverse and prosperous parody as the son of Hortense Beauharnais of Saint-Leu to the son of Letizia Buonaparte of Ajaccio. For Shakespeare too, like Landor, had watched his "sweet Octavius" smilingly and frowningly "draw under nose the knuckle of forefinger" as he looked out upon the trail of innocent blood after the bright receding figure of his brave young kinsman. The fair-faced false "present God" of his poetic parasites, the smooth triumphant patron and preserver with the heart ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... will let you know. I know the signs. When a Great One rises up in the midst of a Republic and puts her hands on her hips and says 'What are you going to do about it?' and there isn't anything to do about it, you have a dictator, and all that you can do is knuckle down and ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... I was a-saying, the Brownie at Hilton Hall would play at mischief, but if the servants laid out for it a bowl of cream, or a knuckle cake spread with honey, it would clear away things for them, and make everything tidy in the kitchen. One night, however, when the servants had stopped up late, they heard a noise in the kitchen, ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... in this very kitchen, an' eggin' me on! Wa'n't she goin' to turn you out o' your own daughter's home? Wa'n't that what I turned her out fer? I didn't turn her out, anyhow! I only told Orville this house wa'n't big enough fer his mother an' me, an' that neither o' us 'u'd knuckle down, so he'd best take his choice. You'd ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... splendid blood horse, and—a liver That it jars into torture to trot; My row-boat's the gem of the river,— Gout makes every knuckle a knot! I can buy boundless credits on Paris and Rome, But no palate for menus,—no eyes for a dome,— Those belonged to the youth who must tarry at home, When no home but an ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the rings with which she had once tried to dim the sparkle of the sapphire, and, dropping them into his pocket like so much dross, slipped on the Idol that covered her third finger in a splendid bar from knuckle to joint. Holding her by just the tip of that finger, leaning back a little, he looked into her eyes, and she, looking back, knew that it wedded them once ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... the butt of his. It got me mad, because it is a new gun and I am taking fine care of it; so I clanched him'—that's what Squat says, clanched. 'And, first, he run his finger into my right eye, clear up to the knuckle it felt like; so I didn't say a word, but hauled off quick and landed a hard right on the side of his jaw and dropped him just like that. It was one peach I handed him and he slumped down like a sack of mush. I am here ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... simply impossible to meet up with a more valuable fellow: he'd make you a fish out of a sow's coynte, if that's what you wanted, a pigeon out of her lard, a turtle-dove out of her ham, and a hen out of a knuckle of pork: that's why I named him Daedalus, in a happy moment. I brought him a present of knives, from Rome, because he's so smart; they're made of Noric steel, too." He ordered them brought in immediately, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... elbow form the only points of rest or contact on desk or paper. The pen should point over the shoulder, and should be so held that it may pass the root of the nail on the second finger, and about opposite the knuckle of the hand. An unnatural or cramped position of the hand, like such a position of the body, is opposed to good writing, and after many years of observation and study, all teachers concur in the one position above described, as being the most natural, easy and graceful for the writer, ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... kitchen to Cambrian Terrace. As he crossed the gusty street between them, the harpies of the storm swept the dinner from dish, and rolled a prime joint over and over in the dust. A leg of mutton was following, but he caught it dexterously by the knuckle-end as it fell, and rescued so much from the wreck. Such incidents are significant: trifles light as air, no doubt, but at least they showed which way the wind blew. And did it not blow? for three days the sou'-wester had been heaping up the sea-water against ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... I take them without flinching. Umpire, don't I? I'll do my duty to my Team and County As long as I've a knuckle in its place; I have not many—look! And see my face! No, when the game's renewed, JOKIM must try To keep the wicket clearly in his eye, Not the poor wicket-keeper, or you'll see "Retired, hurt" will be the end ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various
... to eat, Tender for old teeth, Gristle for young teeth, Big deer and fat deer, Lean meat and fat meat, Haunch-meat and knuckle-bone, Liver and heart. Food for the old men, Life for all men, For women and babes. Easement of hunger-pangs, Sorrow destroying, Laughter provoking, Joy invoking, In the smell of its smoking And its sweet in ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London
... see now what you are hitting at," Bob observed; "the old Indian must have had money, as all his kind have, what with the tips given by tourists day after day. He could have come to Grand View on the train. Frank, once more I knuckle down to your superior wisdom. That's what Havasupai must ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... presently a soft patter of drops on the leaves. The lightning grew brilliant. The nurse dreamed and waked by turns. At length she was aroused by steps along the corridor. They sounded like Dr. Dudley's. S She was at the door as the physician's knuckle touched it. In response to his voice she stepped outside, that they ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... in the following manner:—A circle should be drawn about four feet in diameter, and an inner circle of about six inches being also marked out in its centre, into this each boy puts a marble. "Now then, boys, knuckle down at the offing, which is in any part of the outer circle. Now, whoever shoots a marble out of the ring is entitled to go on again: so mind your shots; a good shot may clear the ring. After the first shot, the players do not shoot from the offing, but from the place where the ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... There are a lot of things in this life, I remembered, which woman is able to squirm out of. But here, Mistress Tabbie, was one you couldn't escape. Here was a situation that had to be faced. Here was a time I had to knuckle down, had to grin and bear it, had to go through with it to the bitter end. For other folks, whatever they may be able to do for you, aren't able to ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... really understood to be engaged?" Miss Ramsey is a dark-eyed, dark-haired girl of nearly the length of two lady's umbrellas and the bulk of one closely folded in its sheath. She stands with her elbow supported on the corner of the mantel, her temple resting on the knuckle of a thin, nervous hand, in an effect of thoughtful absent-mindedness. Miss Garnett, more or less Merovingian in a costume that lends itself somewhat reluctantly to a low, thick figure, is apparently poising for departure, as she stands before the chair ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... afterwards he was struck down when directing the fire of his men on the Russian gunners to keep down their fire and cover our attack on the Redan. By chance he heard us warned for guard, and at once went to his tent and returned with a ham knuckle. 'It is all I have,' he said, 'but those going on duty must have the first chance of some food on Christmas Day. Sit down on your rug and make the best of it.' He was in earnest, so we ate up his dinner and polished the ham bone; but I had determined to keep ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... night or the dim, wavering lines on the horizon at daytime; things near or far or roundabout. His brow was high, his nose large and bridged; a face of more angles than contours, bristling with gray spikes, like one who has gone unshaven several days. His hands, folded over the round, polished knuckle of his staff, were tanned and soiled, but they were long and slender, and the callouses were pink, a certain indication ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... of heroics is to be of your own choosing. When they are not that, they are nothing. And I assure you, as I walked back to my own room, I was in no very complaisant humour: thought my uncle and Mr. Romaine to have played knuckle-bones with my life and prospects; cursed them for it roundly; had no wish more urgent than to avoid the pair of them; and was quite knocked out of time, as they say in the ring, to find myself confronted ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... him was another Shimerda son. Even from a distance one could see that there was something strange about this boy. As he approached us, he began to make uncouth noises, and held up his hands to show us his fingers, which were webbed to the first knuckle, like a duck's foot. When he saw me draw back, he began to crow delightedly, 'Hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo!' like a rooster. His mother scowled and said sternly, 'Marek!' then spoke rapidly to Krajiek ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... visible, and afterwards by mining, as now. And when smelted it was made up into those peculiar ingots which still meet the eye in Cornwall, and whose shape seems never to have varied from the earliest times. Posidonius, who visited Cornwall, compares them to knuckle-bones[19] [Greek: astrhagaloi] ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... and the loose filaments of the twine will stand out every way and be attracted by an approaching finger. And when the rain has wet the kite and twine, so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the key on the approach of your knuckle. At this key the phial may be charged; and from electric fire thus obtained, spirits may be kindled, and all the electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... while he held his knuckle to the key. A tiny spark flashed between the key and his knuckle. It was a little ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... not too clean, was laid, and on it, with much parade of knife and fork, appeared a very dry knuckle of ham, a plate of yellow soda biscuit, and a pallid and flabby pie. Spite of himself, Calvin's cheery face fell as he looked on this banquet; but he sat down, and ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... treachery or Kurchuk's stupidity, in either case, it was natural for the archers to come off easiest and the Hulgun spearmen to pay the butcher's bill. But try and tell these knuckle-heads anything like that! Muz-Azin protected the Chulduns, and Yat-Zar let the Hulguns down, and that was all there was to it. The Zurb temple started losing worshipers, particularly the families of the men who didn't make it ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper
... West-Floridian and the Creole out upon the bank below the village. Upon the parson's arm hung a pair of antique saddle-bags. Baptiste limped wearily behind; both his eyes were encircled with broad, blue rings, and one cheek-bone bore the official impress of every knuckle of Colossus's left hand. The "beautiful to take care of somebody" had lost his charge. At mention of the negro he became wild, and, half in English, half in the "gumbo" dialect, said murderous things. ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... as the finest silk, and when unloosened it hung straightly down, shining about her ivory face. Her lips were thin and scarcely colored at all, and her hands were sharp, quick hands, seeming all knuckle when she closed them and all fingers ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... put into my arms a parcel that she had ready. 'I had bought a knuckle of ham—it was for supper—for us—for us two—and a liter of good wine. But, ma foi! when I saw there were five of you, I didn't want to divide it out so much, and I want still less now. There's the ham, the bread, and the wine. I give them ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... with the supreme wisdom of the initiate into mysteries, things changed but little through eons on the surface of the world, where men loved and hated, bred and slew, triumphed and failed, lorded and cringed as had been the way since the beginning, when the cave man that handled the heavier knuckle-bone ruled the roost. But to the unphilosophic eye of the majority of mankind things seemed to change greatly in a very little while; and it seemed, therefore, to the superficial, that many things had happened in France and ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... very slow, owing either to want of, or adverse wind. On 10th December they discovered two bays separated by a low neck of land, Knuckle Point; one bay was named Doubtless Bay and the other Sandy Bay; the country is described as nothing but irregular white sandhills, and Cook concluded from its appearance that the island was here very narrow and exposed to the open sea on the west. This he soon proved to be correct. Foster, ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... demanded Mr. Ellis. "We give them their money's worth, don't we? They'd pay two dollars for a theater seat without half the thrills—no chances of seeing a car turn turtle or break its steering-knuckle and dash into the side-lines. Two dollars' ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... how to turn the rush of the American into a disastrous fall. He knew how to prod with his bony knuckle the angry man's solar plexus—how to step swiftly aside and bring the horny edge of his hand against sensitive vertebrae. He could seize Orme by the arm and, dropping backward to the ground, land Orme where he wished him. Yes, Arima had every reason to feel confident. Many a time had he got the ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... happy a place as his own home, much less a paradise. A number of little boys were playing a game of ring-taw in a corner of the yard. Ernest walked up to them. No one took any notice of him, but went on with their game. "Knuckle down," was the cry. A sturdy little fellow, with a well-bronzed hand, was peppering away, knocking marble after marble out of the ring with his taw, and bid fair to win all that remained. Ernest had long ago given ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... actually moving their mouths, to laugh and speak and munch their crusts, all at once) the scene in the Lysis of the dice-players. There the boys are! in full dress, to take part in a religious ceremony. It is scarcely over; but they are already busy with the knuckle-bones, some just outside the door, others in a corner. Though Plato never tells one without due motive, yet he loves a story for its own sake, can make one of fact or fancy at a moment's notice, or re-tell ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... that these people have not the pleasure of paying for their portraits. What is done for nothing is seldom appreciated. Suzette, not wishing to hurt my feelings, soon wiped out her eyes with her largest knuckle, and, having composed her countenance, thanked me for having photographed her. She had had a rough life, but as she had known little else but hardship and privation, she was contented with what ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... our friend Audley Egerton. You have just had a glimpse of the real being that struggles under the huge copper; you have heard the hollow sound of the rich man's coffers under the tap of Baron Levy's friendly knuckle, heard the strong man's heart give out its dull warning sound to the scientific ear of Dr. F——-. And away once more vanishes the separate existence, lost again in the flame that heats the boiler, and the smoke that curls into air from ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... woman was put out. Hard times, and hard weather, and hard work, make it trying now and then. I see, bless your soul! No wonder! Dolf, my man," continued Mr. Tetterby, exploring the basin with a fork, "here's your mother been and bought, at the cook's shop, besides pease pudding, a whole knuckle of a lovely roast leg of pork, with lots of crackling left upon it, and with seasoning gravy and mustard quite unlimited. Hand in your plate, my boy, and begin ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... engineering studies in the mountains about Pebbly Pit. And Tom decided to make one last stand for Polly, and should she still refuse him on the basis that she must finish a business experience first, then he would knuckle down to hard work and ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy |
