"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bereft—stricken down by the blow— is still in a state of syncope, the faithful negress doing what she can to restore her, there are sounds outside unheard by either. A dull rumble of wheels, as of some heavy vehicle coming along the main road, with the occasional crack of a whip, and the sonorous "wo-ha" ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the old man. We hid your revolver and money- belt under the seventh palm, on the beach to the right of this shack. If I'd known you had twenty double eagles on you all this time, I'd have cracked your skull myself. The crack you've got is healing, and if you pull through the fever you'll be all right. If you do, give this woman twenty pesos I borrowed from her. Get her to hire a boat, and men, and row it to Amapala. This island is only fifteen miles out, and the Pacific Mail boat touches there Thursdays and Sundays. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... know, gentlemen, that if the negro had never had the right to vote until the majority of the rank and file of white men, particularly foreign-born men, had voted "Yes," he would have gone without it till the crack of doom. It was because of the prejudice of the unthinking majority that Congress submitted the question of the negro's enfranchisement to the Legislatures of the several States, to be adjudicated by the educated, broadened ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... are not going to crack up the same people as the other papers," said De Haan; "otherwise we should not supply a want. We must dole out our praise and blame quite differently, and we must be very scrupulous to give only a little praise so that it shall be valued ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... his walk, the type so by itself—his wide observation quite suggested—among those of the peacemakers of the earth. The pair stepped straight in—no word was said; but as he closed the door behind them Mark heard the infallible crack of a discharged pistol and, so nearly with it as to make all one violence, the sound of a great fall; things the effect of which was to lift him, as it were, with his company, across the threshold of the room in a shorter ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... observe what was transacting in the city. As he was passing through a street in that part of the town inhabited only by the meaner sort, he heard some people talking very loud; and going close to the house whence the noise proceeded, and looking through a crack in the door, perceived a light, and three sisters sitting on a sofa, conversing together after supper. By what the eldest said, he presently understood the subject of their conversation was wishes: ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... in the office that Pevensey was too quiet ever to make a crack reporter. On a big story full of human interest he was no good. It was not that he failed to realize the possibilities of such stories; he had as sure an eye for the picturesque and affecting as Dicky Chatworth himself, the city editor's especial favourite; ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... is done these same bees set themselves to work to carefully close up every opening which is round about the lower part of the hive. Finally when every crack has been carefully looked over, filled up and covered with propolis, they begin to varnish the whole of the interior sides. By this time guardians are placed at the entrance of the hive, and very soon a number of the working bees start on their ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... barefoot. He did not have to turn out at every mud-puddle, and he could plash into the mill-pond and give the frogs a crack over the head without stopping to take off stockings and shoes. Paul did not often have a dinner of roast beef, but he had an abundance of bean porridge, brown ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... is his disposition to "do murder." This may account for his love of "sport," or it may only be an hereditary trait derived from the period when he had not yet concerned himself with agriculture, but slew wild beasts and used his implements of stone to crack their bones and get the marrow out. The instinct to slay birds, beasts and fishes is certainly strong within us, whatever be its remote origin, and it is very little affected by what we are pleased to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... the hungry wolves eat up his nicely browned fat ducks. His foot pained him more and more. He heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long teeth and eat out the oily marrow. Now severe pains shot up from his foot through his whole body. "Hin-hin-hin!" sobbed Iktomi. Real tears washed brown streaks ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom." Ikki ducked quickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling his nose-bristles, and Mowgli told Baloo what Ikki had said. Baloo looked very grave, and mumbled half to himself: "If I were alone I would change my hunting-grounds now, before the others began to think. ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... week Mis' Sally wuz feedin' de chickens when she heard somethin' in de polk berry bushes behin' de hen house. She didn' go 'roun' de house but she went inside house an' looked through de crack. Dare wuz Burrus layin' down in de bushes. He wuz near 'bout starved kaze he hadn' had nothin' to eat since ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... acceptivity of the audience, which is more noticeable in the Law Courts than in any other London theatre, and the willingness of his fellow-performers to "feed" him, as stage-folk have it; that is to say, provide him with materials upon which (again resorting to stage language) he may "crack his wheezes." The other day, for example, that excellent comedian, JOHN SIMON, was his principal ally in this way, and nothing could have been better than the sympathy between the two funny men. To CHARLES DARLING naturally fell the fat of the dialogue, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... knowledge, either by sight, by hearsay or by actual acquaintance. They sat stolidly in their little chairs, eyes roving to the windows, the blackboard, the pictures; they clubbed together and fished a pin from a crack in the floor during one of Mary's most thrilling appeals; finally they appeared so bored by the whole proceeding that she felt a certain sense of embarrassment in the midst of her despair. She took ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... figure disappeared from view, to be replaced by that of the President, his supporters exchanged sidelong glances and meaning smiles. They had chosen their champion well, a nasty fighter, to crack the whip over the class from ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... reach Lyons. Lyons? No; that's going a little fast—say Valence or Montelimar. Pass me the time-table again. Let us settle everything, and leave nothing to chance. Oh, look at her! She has nibbled nuts for the last fifteen minutes, and how she cracks them—crack! one little bite—and what pretty little teeth! She is very pretty even while eating—an important thing. It's very rare to find women who remain pretty while eating and sleeping, very rare. Little Adelaide, the red-headed one, you remember, ate stupidly. And this one over ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... ancestors, saying, "It is well, it is well!" Corn and bacon are granted: not a very sublime boon, on such conditions; a boon moreover which, on such conditions, cannot last!—No: America too will have to strain its energies, in quite other fashion than this; to crack its sinews, and all but break its heart, as the rest of us have had to do, in thousand-fold wrestle with the Pythons and mud-demons, before it can become a habitation for the gods. America's battle is yet ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... now rejoice,— Now—for the holidays of life are few; Nor let the rustic minstrel tune, in vain, The crack'd church-viol, resonant to-day, Of mirth, though humble! Let the fiddle scrape Its merriment, and let the joyous group Dance, in a round, for soon the ills of life Will come! Enough, if one day in the year, If one brief day, of this brief life, be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... of lightning lit up the scene, accompanied by a crack of thunder that made some of the boys crouch down for a second. Then came more wind ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... 'you are a happy man, and in all your afflictions you can console yourself with a joke, let it be ever so bad, provided you crack it yourself. I should be very happy to laugh with you, if it would give you any satisfaction; but, really, at present, my heart is so sad, that I find it impossible to levy a contribution ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... consulted no stockbroker on this weighty point; he did not even buy a shilling book of advice such as we have seen advertised for those who do not know what to do with their money. The question was answered in a moment by the young worldling of sixteen: he would enter a crack regiment and invest his guineas in the thousand per cents. of ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... lightning flashes, could not hope for success. It was the old and still active Hikozaemon, the oyaji (old chap), the hardened warrior of Iyeyasu, who scented out the threatening move. He sprang off into the dark wood, almost as the crack of the musket was heard. They would seek the life of the himegimi with deadly missiles! How contemptible; for great as yet was the scorn of such use. Vigorous was the old man's pursuit of a foe, seeking to ascertain his success and reluctant to flee. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... moment when I have not loved her! To see her once was all that I had craved,—as a lost soul might covet, ere the Pit take him, one splendid glimpse of Heaven and the Nine Blessed Orders at their fiddling. And I find that she loves me—me! Fate must have her jest, I perceive, though the firmament crack for it. She would have been content enough with Noel, thinking me dead. And with me?" Contemplatively he spat out of the window. "Eh, if I dared hope that this last flicker of life left in my crazy carcass might burn clear! ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... limit to the marvellous things animals do. Elephants, for example, carry leafy palms in their trunks to shade themselves from the hot sun. The ape or baboon who puts a stone in the open oyster to prevent it from closing, or lifts stones to crack nuts, or beats his fellows with sticks, or throws heavy cocoanuts from trees upon his enemies, or builds a fire in the forest, shows more than a glimmer of intelligence. In the sly fox that puts out fish heads to bait hawks, or suddenly plunges in the water and immerses himself ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... obeisant children, wisdom, and a fair-voiced wife— Thus, great King! are counted up the five felicities of life. For the son the sire is honored; though the bow-cane bendeth true, Let the strained string crack in using, and what service shall ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... crouching down, we crept on till we reached the rock. For an instant we waited to recover breath, then we lifted up our rifles and rested them on a ledge of the rock. It would be impossible to have got a better aim. Crack— crack—we both fired. Off scampered the herd up ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... Prothero, "I don't see the money coming through that crack, I'll begin shooting through this door, and ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... horse. Two or three bounds on foot, with the sword clutched in both hands, and he was close behind the elephant. A bright glance shone like lightning as the sun struck upon the descending steel; this was followed by a dull crack, as the sword cut through skin and sinews, and settled deep in the bone, about twelve inches above the foot. At the next stride the elephant halted dead short in the midst of its tremendous charge. Taher had jumped ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... Hall at that early hour, and what it would be like there in the dead of night, and how soon it would be proper for him to go and leave a card on Mr St Aubyn, and what Lubin would think of it all, and how it was he had never before noticed that great crack in the ceiling just above his head. At last he slipped carefully out of bed without waiting for Martha to bring him his hot water, and hopped as best he could to the open window and looked out. There was Lubin, mowing vigorously away, and the air was full of sweet garden scents and the early twittering ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... rather too bad when these great singers marry themselves into silence before they have a crack in their voices. And the husband is a public robber. I remember Leroux saying, 'A man might as well take down a fine peal of church bells and carry them off to the steppes," said Sir Hugo, setting down his cup and turning away, while Deronda, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... called her father, through the crack of the door. "You two had better stop that love-feast and get ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... my dear, you may spend as much time as you like at it; but if I peep over the transom, or listen through a crack in the door, you mustn't scold. I don't know that I can wait much longer to find ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... came to offer five pounds reward to anybody as could 'elp 'im to become a teetotaler. He went off 'ome one night as usual, and arter stopping a few seconds in the parlour to pull hisself together, crept quietly upstairs for fear of waking 'is wife. He saw by the crack under the door that she'd left a candle burning, so he pulled hisself together agin and then turned the 'andle and went in and began to try ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... the "cire perdu" process, Benvenuto Cellini warns you to beware lest you break your crucible—"just as you've got your silver nicely molten," he says, "and are pouring it into the mould, crack goes your crucible, and all your work and time and pains are lost!" He advises wrapping it in ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... Already our efforts to crack down on career criminals, organized crime, drugpushers, and to enforce tougher sentences and paroles are having effect. In 1982 the crime rate dropped by 4.3 percent, the biggest decline since 1972. Protecting victims is just as important as safeguarding the rights ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... the weight in grams of the kernel recovered on first crack, secured without the aid of nut pick, is recorded. In this comparison the Duke, because of large size, might be expected to be an easy winner and it was in 1946 and in 1950; but in 1948, though second in average weight of nut for that year, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... Craggs, 'everything is. Everything appears to me to be made too easy, now-a-days. It's the vice of these times. If the world is a joke (I am not prepared to say it isn't), it ought to be made a very difficult joke to crack. It ought to be as hard a struggle, sir, as possible. That's the intention. But, it's being made far too easy. We are oiling the gates of life. They ought to be rusty. We shall have them beginning to turn, soon, with a smooth sound. Whereas ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... to eliminate the renegade Indian, and long before the Security scuttlebug, now on its way from Earth loaded with crack troops, should arrive, Security would be in complete command not only of the Space Lab, but of the weapon, which would by then be ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... other than a nation of mere lovers and would-be imitators of Charles Lamb. The moralistic type of humor, the crack of Juvenal's whip, as well as the delicate Horatian playing around the heart-strings, has characterized our humor and satire from the beginning. At bottom the American is serious. Beneath the surface of his jokes there is moral ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... should be afraid to trust it, if it were not for the dogs. He can't crawl out between the logs, that much is certain; but the door is almost ready to drop from its hinges, and has a good deal of play back and forth behind the bar. If he had a thin, stout stick he could slip it through the crack, lift the bar and take ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... shooting crackers on the banquette instead of peering into the crack, as was his wont, his big, round, black eyes would have grown saucer-wide to see little Miss Sophie kiss and fondle a ring, an ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... drew back slightly, the captain cried "Fire!" and with a heavy, sharp crack a puff of white smoke darted from the muzzle and began to expand forward like a grey balloon, obscuring everything from the sight of the lookers-on for about a minute, before it rose clear, and then the darkening sea ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... interrupt your music lessons long enough to listen to an idea that some of us have been talking over?" called Dick. "Now, fellows, you know this is the time when the crack Gridley High School football team is hard at work. We're all proud of the Gridley High School eleven. A lot of you fellows expect to go to High School, and I know you'd all like a chance to play ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... the war-makers we shall never end war, any more than a country can end crime and robbery without a police. Specialist must watch specialist in either case. Mere expressions of a virtuous abhorrence of war will never end war until the crack of doom. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... dropped to the bottom!" thought Ned. "He knew the Shark couldn't get a good crack at the Sea Lion when she lay on the bottom. Wonder if the ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... manners of the age) fairly well alive, forces me to perpetual and almost endless transcriptions. On the back of all this, any correspondence hangs like a thundercloud, and just when I think I am getting through my troubles, crack, down goes my health, I have a long, costly sickness, and begin the world again. It is fortunate for me I have a father, or I should long ago have died; but the opportunity of the aid makes the necessity none the more welcome. My father has presented ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... somehow or other persuaded him at last to go into the tent and lie quiet. The remainder of the affair, indeed, was witnessed by him from behind the canvas, his white and terrified face peeping through the crack ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... with great dragon-adorned roofs. Further towards the centre of the Fu is Prince Su's own palace and his retainers' quarters; to the south of this is an ornamental garden full of trees, a vast and mournful enclosure, standing in which the crack of outpost rifles can only be distantly heard. Moving across to the southern side—that is, the side near the French Legation and the protected Legation Street—the Christian refugees are found gathered ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... women, whose husban's an' brudders had gone to de wah. Ted,—dat's de boy on de "Hatty" long ago,—went to de wah wid a great flourish, promisin' Mandy Ann he'd shoot the Colonel shu' ef he got a chance. An' what do you think? At de fust crack of de cannon in de fust battle he seen, he cut an' run, an' kep' on runnin' till he got hyar, beggin' me an' Mandy Ann to hide him, 'case he was a deserter. I held my tongue, an' let Mandy Ann do as she pleased, an' she hid him till de Federals come, when he jined them, an' did get hit, ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... the deep bay formed by the two huge tentacles that run south and south-east from the crab-like body of the island, when suddenly, above the noise of the engine, they heard the sharp crack of a shot, then two or three more. Glancing up the bay to his left, Smith saw a large junk, its sails hanging limp, surrounded by a number of small craft which from their appearance he guessed to be praus. He ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... scouted around the wreck, looking for signs of its former structure while Scotty attacked the stern with a crowbar. Under Scotty's prying, a timber suddenly gave with an audible crack, and a huge grouper that must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds rushed past Rick, startling him half to death until he saw what ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... of their standing there, hand clasped in hand, the current of life between them rushed to mingle—humble adoration in her, a triumphant certainty in him. But scarcely had the impetuous forces met before they were dissolved and lost. The sharp crack of a gun broke the stillness outside, and Tira tore her hand from his and screamed piercingly. She threw herself upon Raven, holding him ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... of this chapter. I can write no other. Sometimes the broad smooth levels of life are crossed by a black-edged jagged crack, rent, as it seems, by an outburst of the fiery force below. We find ourselves suddenly close upon it; it opens right ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... remember I've established a quarantine. I'll crack your head if you break over the line ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... did we miss it. On that occasion it had passed a few minutes before we arrived, but, knowing it stopped for breakfast at Griffin's Corners, four or five miles beyond, I hastened on afoot, running most of the way, and arrived in sight of it just as the driver had let off the first crack from his whip to start his reluctant horses. My shouting was quickly passed to him by the onlookers, he pulled up, and I won the ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... Lord; but let me tell you a story. In a sea fight in the reign of Charles the Second, there was a very bloody engagement between the English and Dutch fleets, in the heat of which a Scotch sea-man was very severely bit by a louse on his neck, which he caught; and stooping down to crack it between his nails, many of the sailors near him had their heads taken off by a chain-shot from the enemy, which dashed their blood and brains about him; on which he had compassion upon the poor louse, returned him to his place ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... unsullied freshness of flower-strewn valley and bountiful woodland, the native fauna of the land browse in fearless joy and wander wild and free, unfretted by sound of huntsman's horn, the long-drawn bay of the hound, and the sharp crack of ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... the other in a whisper, closing the front door with infinite softness. "He won't let me go in, the doctor won't; I—I ain't seen him in four days. Ask the doctor if I can't just have a blink at him—just a little blink through the crack of the door. Just think, Miss, I ain't seen him in four days! Just think of that! And look here, they ain't giving him enough to eat—nothing but milk and chicken soup with rice in it. He never did like rice; that's ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... was clear and cloudless, the sun unusually warm. So warm, indeed, that long clefts, caused by the unequal expansion of the ice, appeared here and there. The man from the plane had not gone more than fifty yards when he halted sharply. With a crack like thunder, a cleft had opened at his very feet—a rift ten feet deep in places, apparently bottomless in others, and very long. Not wanting to go around it, he slid down one side and, with an ice pick, started to hack a ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... pox confound your similitudes, sir. Speak to be understood, and tell me in plain terms what the matter is with him, or I'll crack your fool's skull. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... "you have sworn your lamb to that hyena, have you? Well, look out that he does not crack your bones as well as hers, and perhaps some others also. Why does God give some men a worm in their brains, as He does to the wildebeeste, a worm that always makes them run the wrong way? I don't know, I am sure; but you who are very ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... yourself of what I came here on purpose to tell you—not to disturb you, as I have been so unfortunate as to do. You are perfectly safe from him. I will not let the enemy know your sentiments, or how decided you are on the subject. I will perhaps, if you will let me, crack the whip a little over their heads, and keep them in a pleasing uncertainty. But as long as he is afraid that she will take proceedings against him, he will take none, you may be sure, against her. So you may throw aside all your precautions and be ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... happily, "safe and sound in the corn-crib, and it's hotter than all get out in there. He can't escape unless he slips through a crack in the floor. I just caught him red handed as he was bending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tried to tell me, Miss Kit? He said he was looking for caterpillars." Shad laughed riotously at the recollection. "Did you call ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... she had shown to many a larger craft. Surely it was but yesterday that I rowed out to her where she was moored a hundred feet from shore, climbed aboard, hoisted sail, and, with my pipe drawing sweetly, sat down beside the tiller and played out the sheet till the sail filled; there was a crack and snaffle of straining tackle, the boat leaped forward, the tiller batted my ribs, the Idler heeled over, and then quietly, softly, as rhythmic as a song, the water raced hissing along her rail, the little waves slapped beneath her bow—and the world ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... out of this, ma'am, or I'll make you!—you and your cowardly man-pup there, as is afraid to look me in the face through the crack o' the door! Get out, I say, ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... deep thought, and stared into the fire. Mr. Buxton was about to speak, but Buck held up his hand for silence, and the quiet remained unbroken till the American slapped his knee with a crack like a pistol-shot, looked round ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... evident that the cleft must continue much farther down than we thought, and that it must be extremely narrow at the bottom. It is certainly a splendid guide, and there can be no mistaking it. Unless I had been standing on the exact line, I should not have noticed the star till later, and the crack is so much wider towards the top that it could probably be seen on a line half a mile across. It will be strange if we cannot find the place in the morning. Certainly we searched in the stream just where I was standing, and found nothing. ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... Shaken by his fall, he could make no effective resistance, and he was dragged a few yards through the bush and flung into a wagon. He tried to pull the jacket from his face, and failed; somebody brutally beat him down against the side of the vehicle when he struggled to get up. He heard a whip crack, the wagon swayed and jolted, and he knew the team was starting ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... supported by the Forty-first Honved Division, against Ivaniska; they moved along roads converging on Opatow. The Twenty-fifth Austrian Division, commanded by the Archduke Peter Ferdinand, was composed of crack regiments, the Fourth Hoch and Deutschmeisters of Vienna, and the Twenty-fifth, Seventeenth, and Tenth Jaeger battalions. The Russians were outnumbered about 40 per cent. The supposedly demoralized Russians were not expected to give any battle short of their fortified ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... peeping from the crack of the kitchen door, and felt mortally offended when the company went out by the front way. "Was it not enough that the folks were too far removed from the kitchen to permit Sary to overhear what was said at table, but now they have to walk out at ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... could note; but no more. He saw the glance of recognition pass over Elsley's face, and that an ugly one. He saw him draw something from his bosom, and spring like a cat almost upon the table. A flash—a crack. He had fired a pistol full ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... bench, the end of which was near a door leading to the corridor of the building. A door opposite led into the dock. A number of prisoners were seated there and two men in uniform formed a guard. One of them spent practically all his time glancing through the door, which he held on a crack, ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... greaser a back-handed crack in the mouth. Sure it was a crack! Lorenzo went over the counter backward an' landed like a pack load of wood. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... was desired to lay myself down amongst them. Then, as many of them as could get round me, began to squeeze me with both hands, from head to foot, but more particularly on the parts where the pain was lodged, till they made my bones crack, and my flesh became a perfect mummy. In short, after undergoing this discipline about a quarter of an hour, I was glad to get away from them. However, the operation gave me immediate relief, which encouraged me to submit to another rubbing-down before I went to bed; and it was so effectual, that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... can't! I'll split your skull against the—" and he made a wild run backwards at the balcony. Giles saw his danger, seized the balcony in time with both hands, and whipped over it just as the giant's head came against it with a stunning crack. The people roared with laughter and exultation at the address of their little champion. The indignant giant seized two of the laughers, knocked them together like dumb-bells, shook them and strewed them flat—Catherine shrieked and threw her apron ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... back, and says she, in a whisper, 'You go in first, Jane; I'm afraid.' So I went in first and Mary follered. For a minute we couldn't see a thing. There was two windows to the cabin, but they'd been boarded up from the outside, and there was jest one big crack at the top of one of the windows that let in a long streak of light, and you could see the dust dancin' in it. The door opened jest enough to let us in, and we both stood there peerin' around and tryin' to see what sort of a place we'd got into. The first thing I made out ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... relieve mild depression, increase energy and activity, and include cocaine (coke, snow, crack), amphetamines (Desoxyn, Dexedrine), ephedrine, ecstasy (clarity, essence, doctor, Adam), phenmetrazine (Preludin), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and others ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... small pail. Cootie, leg-plumed. Corbies, ravens, crows. Core, corps. Corn mou, corn heap. Corn't, fed with corn. Corse, corpse. Corss, cross. Cou'dna, couldna, couldn't. Countra, country. Coup, to capsize. Couthie, couthy, loving, affable, cosy, comfortable. Cowe, to scare, to daunt. Cowe, to lop. Crack, tale; a chat; talk. Crack, to chat, to talk. Craft, croft. Craft-rig, croft-ridge. Craig, the throat. Craig, a crag. Craigie, dim. of craig, the throat. Craigy, craggy. Craik, the corn-crake, the land-rail. Crambo-clink, rhyme. Crambo-jingle, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... forget; but someway I gradually reconstructed the life-history of this trudger of the lanes. It was much the same, no doubt, as that of many others who are from time to time pointed out to one as having been aforetime in crack cavalry regiments and noted performers in the saddle; men who have breathed into their lungs the wonder of the East, have romped through life as through a cotillon, have had a thrust perhaps at the Viceroy's Cup, and done fantastic horsefleshy things around the Gulf of Aden. And then ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... Sir (my Lord) I could doe this, and that with no rash Potion, But with a lingring Dram, that should not worke Maliciously, like Poyson: But I cannot Beleeue this Crack to be in my dread Mistresse (So soueraignely being Honorable.) I haue lou'd thee, Leo. Make that thy question, and goe rot: Do'st thinke I am so muddy, so vnsetled, To appoint my selfe in this vexation? Sully the puritie and whitenesse of my Sheetes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... style of the passage—it is perfectly pellucid in meaning, rings on the ear like the crack of a rifle, is sonorous, rich, and swift. One can fancy the whole passage spoken by an orator; indeed it is difficult to resist the illusion that it was "declaimed" before it was written. We catch the oratorial tags and devices, the repeated phrase, the incessant antithesis, the alternate rise and ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... Sez she, a-squinting them venomous eyes of her'n, till they looked like knitting needles red hot: 'I leave the sarching to be done by the cunstable—when you are 'rested and handcuffed for 'betting of murder.' Then my dander riz. Sez I, 'Crack your whip and go ahead! You know how, seeing you is the offspring of a Yankee overseer, what my marster, Gin'l Darrington, had 'rested for beating one of our wimen, on our 'Bend' plantation. You and your pa is as much alike, as two shrivelled ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... every one of the senators, for he has already come openly to detest them. It will suffice if he so much as offers his hand to be saluted. Caligula, being a "god," had sometimes offered his foot, but only that crack-brained emperor had ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... we were about ten yards past the shack, standing all in a group. The person inside couldn't see us through the opening in front of the shack but for all we knew he might be peeking at us through some little crack or hole. It made me feel funny to think that he was in there staring at us and we not able to ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... fired first and who didn't; but I think it was Stepp's shot that killed the Klamath chief; for it was at the crack of Stepp's gun that he fell. He had an English half-axe slung to his wrist by a cord, and there were forty arrows left in his quiver; the most beautiful and warlike arrows I ever saw. He must have been the bravest man among them, from the way he was armed, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... looked at the sergeant, and dropped back. The latter could see that he had him located, for he slowly poked his rifle up without showing his head. Johnson rolled swiftly to one side, aiming with his deadly revolver. Up popped the Indian's head, crack went the six-shooter; the head turned slowly, leaving the top exposed. Crack again went the alert gun of the soldier, the ball striking the head just below the scalp-lock and instantly jerking the ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... cried the athlete. "Why, I was first reserve for England against Wales, and I've skippered the 'Varsity all this year. But that's nothing! I didn't think there was a soul in England who didn't know Godfrey Staunton, the crack three-quarter, Cambridge, Blackheath, and five Internationals. Good Lord! Mr. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tortures, or, rather, children playing at frightening one another. Lily, for instance, in India: two eyes glaring at her in the dark, gee! And, in New York, a fall into a mirror; all over blood; half dead. She grew excited, in her desire to outdo Laurence and Crack-o'-Whip: the steel-buckled belt, the kicks in the ribs! Stories of brutal treatment picked up on every side—from the Gilson girl, from Ave Maria, from all the boys and all the girls and all the monkeys who had been through the mill—she made every one ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... and have a bite if you don't keep me too long. You see I mean to make a roundabout trip into that stretch of woods you told us about I'd like the worst kind to get a crack at a deer. That ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... waters of the rapid, swirling twenty feet below in the deep bed of the river, which was slowly rising each day, for the time of its inundation was near at hand. For a moment I saw a woman's horror-stricken face in the moonlight and heard her agonizing cry, then the sharp crack of Denviers' rifle rang out, and one of her assailants relaxed his grasp. Before Denviers could take a shot at the second mountaineer, he seized the captive woman and deliberately thrust her over the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... equipment and inadequate makeshifts of every kind to hold the Company system together that the pioneers might have the water, without which the work of reclamation could not be done. He knew every stake and pile and plank and crack and patch in the whole system. He had learned the tricks of the river and was familiar with the conditions peculiar to the desert country. He knew the terrible danger of the flood season that was only two months away. He had planned and prepared to meet emergencies ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... victim collapsed, Palus would leap back from him, sheath his sword, and saw the air with his empty left hand, fingers extended and pressed together, thumb flat against the crack between the roots of the index finger and big finger, twisting his hand about and varying the angle at which he sawed the air, so that all might see that he wished his fallen adversary spared and was suggesting that the spectators nearest him imitate his gesture and give the signal ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... or cut off bottles, lamp chimneys, etc., first make a scratch as before; then heat the handle of a file, or a blunt iron—in a blast-lamp flame by preference—till it is red-hot, and at once press it against the scratch till the glass begins to crack. The fracture can be led in any direction by keeping the iron just in front of it. Re-heat the iron as ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... to sob as he goes 60 Groping down to the sea 'neath his mountainous snows; Where the lake's frore Sahara of never-tracked white, When the crack shoots across it, complains to the night With a long, lonely moan, that leagues northward is lost, As the ice shrinks away from the tread of the frost; Where the lumberers sit by the log-fires that throw Their own threatening shadows far round o'er the snow, When the wolf howls aloof, and the wavering ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... him, and as he seemed to be one of those quarrelsome fellows that are the bane of every community, I took him suddenly by the throat and the shoulder, and bent his neck with the old, quick turn till I heard it crack, and had unhanded him before any of his neighbours had seen what had befallen. The fierce press of the crowd held him from slipping to the ground, and so he stood on there where he was, with his head nodded forward, as though he had fallen asleep through heaviness, or had fainted through ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... Black Sunday. We were all seated at dinner and the Hut was quivering in the tornado-like gusts which followed a heavy "blow" reaching a maximum hourly average of ninety-one miles. One mighty blast was followed by a crack and the sound of a heavy falling body. For a moment it was thought that something had happened to the Hut. Then the messman ran out to the trap-door and saw that the northern wireless ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... it's her vanity that has beautifully done it—putting her years ago in a plate-glass case and closing up the receptacle against every breath of air. How shouldn't she be preserved when you might smash your knuckles on this transparency before you could crack it? And she is—oh amazingly! Preservation is scarce the word for the rare condition of her surface. She looks naturally new, as if she took out every night her large lovely varnished eyes and put them in water. The thing ...
— The Beldonald Holbein • Henry James
... dungeons and the scowl of night. (Love's Labour's Lost, IV. iii. 254-5). To look like her are chimney-sweepers black, And since her time are colliers counted bright, And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack. Dark needs no candle now, for ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... the heavy one worked with brush and paint marking some barrels. If Billy applied an eye to a crack in his hiding place he could watch every stroke of the fat black brush, and see the muscles in the swarthy cheeks move as the man mouthed a big black cigar. But Billy was not interested in the new freight agent, and remained in his retreat, watching the ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... the darkness. O'Reilly had the uncomfortable feeling that the cavalcade bulked monstrous big and must be visible at a great distance; he experienced much the sensations of a man crossing a sheet of thin ice with nerves painfully strained, awaiting the first menacing crack. In spite of all precautions the animals made a tremendous racket, or so it seemed, and, despite Hilario's twistings and turnings, it was impossible to avoid an occasional loop of barbed wire, therefore flesh and clothing suffered grievously. But at length the party brought up under the railroad ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... the simplest of words, affected no solicitudes, put on no gilt smiles, wore no reproaches: spoke to him as if so it happened—he had necessarily a journey to perform. One could see all the while big drops falling from the wound within. One could hear it in her voice. Imagine a crack of the string at the bow's deep stress. Or imagine the bow paralyzed at the moment of the deepest sounding. And yet the voice did not waver. She had now the richness of tone carrying on a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Even Henry VIII. himself, then one of the most brilliant and graceful gentlemen of his time, would sometimes arrive in his royal barge, and talk theology or astronomy with Sir Thomas; or, it might be, crack jests with him and his daughters, or listen to the music in which all were skilled, even Lady More having been persuaded in her old age to learn to play on various instruments, including the flute. The daughters were early given in marriage, and with their husbands, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of news for you and your father. If I waited for him to take the initiative I'd wait until the crack ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... bright-colored insects, the prairie dogs in their curious towns, sitting on their haunches at the doors of their little dugouts, so similar to his own, and barking, then running at whistle or crack of whip into the holes to their odd companions, the owls and the rattlesnakes; the herds of antelope emerging from the skyline and brought down to equally diminutive size by the infinite distance, disappearing into the skyline mysteriously as ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... reward and the lest of the reward for whoso exceedeth in talk and vexeth the folk and turneth their joy to annoy.' This is what I wish, and no more." Said the Caliph, "Allah grant thee that thou seekest! Let us crack one last cup and rise ere the dawn draw near, and to-morrow night I will be with thee again." Said Abu al-Hasan, "Far be it!" Then the Caliph crowned a cup, and putting therein a piece of Cretan Bhang,[FN20] gave ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... the woman's clothes, and laid the child's bones, which he had not yet devoured, in her basket. After that he went to the woman's home, where her two daughters were, and called in at the door: "Open the door, daughters! Mother has come home!" But they looked out through a crack and said: "Our mother's eyes are not ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... that the whole question is not worth the poorest thought which the scholar has lost in listening to the controversy. Let him not quit his belief that a popgun is a popgun, though the ancient and honorable[64] of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom. In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach, and bide his own time,—happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone that ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... mathematics and architectural drawing at the Lakeview Hall school that the girls were attending. "You can be sure that neither Dr. Prescott nor I would take any chances on that score. A heavy logging team went over it yesterday, and the ice didn't even creak, let alone crack. And every day that passes of this kind of weather makes it thicker ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... auld Scotland's light, And Douglas bright, and Scrymgeour's might, And Murray Bothwell's gallant knight, And Ruthven light and trim— Kirkpatrick black, wha in a crack Laid Cressingham upon his back, Garr'd Edward gather up his pack, And ply his spurs and rin, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... not 'spin his brains' but something much better." He "has got hold of another clue—that of Nature and history—and long may he spin it, 'even to the crack of doom!'" Scott's success lies in not thinking of himself. "And then again the catch that blind Willie and his wife and the boy sing in the hollow of the heath—there is more mirth and heart's ease in it than in all Lord Byron's Don ...
— Sir Walter Scott - A Lecture at the Sorbonne • William Paton Ker
... "under the thumb" means unhappiness; Mary North desired only her mother's welfare, and lived fiercely for that single purpose. From morning until night (and, indeed, until morning again, for she rose often from her bed to see that there was no draught from the crack of the open window), all through the twenty-four hours she was ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... carefully at the glass door and said no, the marble had not been able to crack the ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... (putting her fingers in her ears) "you crack my tympanums with your rude Anglicisms. But, how is our well-beloved John? Do tell me about him. The poor man must be in a sad way. What did he say to my behaviour the other night? ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... greedy ears to every word which fell from my lips, as, seated directly fronting him, my back supported by the binnacle, I read in a clear and distinct voice, and with due emphasis, the crude absurdities of a crack-brained ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack- crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children, crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charite pour l'amour ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... With Franklin, and Mangles, and six dozen more, The first to spring forth at Britannia's call! And long may we live with all peaceably here— For olive, not laurel, is Glory's true wreath— But if the wolf comes, he had better keep clear Of a Club of crack shots ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... himself is without any mixture of malice towards others; he will only not be disturbed in the pleasant repose of his sensuality, and this he obtains through the activity of his understanding. Always on the alert, and good-humoured, ever ready to crack jokes on others, and to enter into those of which he is himself the subject, so that he justly boasts he is not only witty himself, but the cause of wit in others, he is an admirable companion for youthful idleness and levity. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... had occurred. A Russian detective "wanted" Vera, who, to be sure, was a Nihilist. To catch Vera he made an alliance with "The Whiteley of Crime." He was a man who would destroy a parish register, or forge a will, or crack a crib, or break up a Pro-Boer meeting, or burn a house, or kidnap a rightful heir, or manage a personation, or issue amateur bank-notes, or what you please. Thinking to kill two birds with one stone, he carried off Rose for her diamonds and ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with obvious relief the appearance of ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... his special meanings. But the beauty of the work is for us all-important. We may expect him to mark his scenes. We may not care to crack that kind of a nut.[A] It is really not good eating. Rather must we be satisfied with the pure beauty of the fruit, without a further hidden kernel. There is no doubt, however, of the ingenuity of these ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... old man left the room, while Mary Darrell, who had been anxiously watching his movements through a crack of the opposite ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe |
