"Crank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the telephone orderly's elbow. After a day or two it will percolate through to the varlet's intelligence that you are a desperate dog in urgent need of something, and he will bestir himself, and mayhap in a further two or three days' time he will wind a crank, pull some strings, and announce that you are "on," and you will find yourself in animated conversation with an inspector of cemeteries, a jam expert at the Base, or the Dalai Lama. If you want to give back-chat ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... years of age. He looked thirty. A serious faced, cadaverous individual, whom, given three guesses you would have judged to be a Scotch free kirk minister in mufti; an actor in the melodramatic line; a food crank. These being the three most serious occupations in ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... is to be frozen into the tin can, put the beater in this, and put on the cover. Place in the tub, being careful to have the point on the bottom fit into the socket in the tub. Put on the cross-piece, and turn the crank to see if everything is in the right place. Next comes the packing. Ice should be broken in large pieces, and put in a canvas bag, and pounded fine with a mallet. Put a thick layer of it in the tub (about five inches ...
— Miss Parloa's New Cook Book • Maria Parloa
... driven to the very verge of distraction by the sense of Tommy's danger and the necessity she was under of suppressing her feelings while this woman, crank or impostor, held possession of the child and of her house. Not to disturb Tommy, she affected a peaceful attitude toward the professor of Christian sorcery, whom, in the anguish of her spirit, she would have liked to project out ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... Tubby, "you know they say a good action is never thrown away. That's why I'm always watching for my opportunities. Some day I hope to win the admiration of a crank millionaire who should, of ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... case coming on—to the usual well-ventilated disgust of the local religious crank, who was on the jury; but the case differed in no essential point from other cases which were always coming on and going off in my time. It was not at all romantic. The local youth was not even ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... To crank the motor (for the self-starter had not yet arrived) was a task of magnitude, but he accomplished it and pulled himself into the seat. For a moment he lay upon the steering wheel, panting, fighting ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... R, which causes the crank K to revolve. At the point where the two rods meet there is a "crosshead," H, running to and fro in a guide to prevent the piston rod being broken or bent by the oblique thrusts and pulls which it imparts through C R to the crank K. The latter is keyed to a shaft S carrying the fly-wheel, or, in the case of a locomotive, the driving-wheels. The crank shaft revolves in bearings. The internal diameter of a cylinder is called its bore. The travel of the piston is called its stroke. The distance from the centre of ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... crank, you know. It's his hobby. He knows more about these things than any man in England. But I wish he wouldn't! Ah, he's beginning to ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... prescribed dietary regimen, subject her to some form of activity which will constantly increase in violence. Find some means by which her sum of force which inconveniences you may be carried off, by some occupation which shall entirely absorb her strength. Without setting your wife to work the crank of a machine, there are a thousand ways of tiring her out under the load ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... with which LOUIS NAPOLEON has already commenced to astonish the Prussians, suggests congenial work for the numerous performers on the barrel-organ with which our large cities are at all times infested. It is worked with a crank, exactly after the manner of the too-familiar street instrument; and might easily be fitted with a musical cylinder arranged for the performance of the most inspiriting and patriotic French airs. Should Italy, at present neutral, take side with France hereafter, ...
— Punchinello Vol. 1, No. 21, August 20, 1870 • Various
... the knots could penetrate the paper. The paper was next sanded by permitting its lower surface to pass over dry sand in a box standing on the floor. A workman rolled off the paper, and with his hand he strews sand on the upper surface. The rolling taking place on the edge of a table, by means of a crank, the excess of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... A sand crank is a fissure in the horn of the wall of the foot. These fissures are quite narrow, and, as a general rule, they follow the direction of the horny fibers. They may occur on any part of the wall, but ordinarily are only seen directly in front, when they are called toe cracks; or on ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... light of moderate power and, with the assistance of the illumination thus furnished, peered about him as he satisfied himself that everything was in perfect order. Then he laid his hand upon the crank of a large wheel within reach, and gave the wheel three or four turns, directing his gaze, meanwhile, upon two large dials which were attached, side by side, to the wall of the pilot-house. Each of these dials was provided with an index hand, both of which ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... positively nothing about it, and wish I did. If I could only get Helen out once more, I should be the happiest fellow on earth," said Mr. Jerrold, with a sad and puzzled expression on his fine face. "I suspected all along that perhaps some religious crank had got into Helle's head, from the circumstances of her allowing no picture but that Mater Dolorosa to come into her room. It was a queer fancy in one so devoted to paintings as she is. I have been wishing ever since she got it to buy a pendant for it. I found a splendid ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... matter he knows of?" and he handed her an envelope. "And this keep," he added, giving her one addressed to his father. "Don't let him have it till it's all over. You know." Then he took up a pen and a sheet of paper, and got as far, with a shaking hand, as 'Dear Crank—' but there he broke down, and laid his head on the ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boys called to him. He was a genial soul, not in the least like the evil-tempered crank who had held the route the ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... looking glass. I have seen exactly the same thing myself on the Continent applied to the taking of larks. A cylinder of wood, inlaid with pieces of looking-glass, is fixed 'between two uprights, and made to revolve by means of a small crank and wheel, to which a line is attached. The netsman, retiring to some little distance, keeps the cylinder in constant motion by pulling the line, at the same time keeping up a soft whistling noise with his mouth. The larks ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... could be plainly seen now, for they were exactly in the path of the strong light. There was some laughter in the audience, and then the man who was turning the crank of the moving picture machine began to understand ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue • Laura Lee Hope
... my mind, the spell of their singing raised the fragrant freight, and not the crank. Madagascar and Ceylon appeared at the mystic bidding of the song. The placid sunshine of the docks was perfumed with India. The universal calm of southern seas poured from the bosom of the ship over the quiet, decaying old ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... out and moved to Charlottetown. His farm had been bought by a certain Mr. J. A. Harrison, whose name, and the fact that he was a New Brunswick man, were all that was known about him. But before he had been a month in Avonlea he had won the reputation of being an odd person . . . "a crank," Mrs. Rachel Lynde said. Mrs. Rachel was an outspoken lady, as those of you who may have already made her acquaintance will remember. Mr. Harrison was certainly different from other people . . . and that is the essential characteristic of a crank, ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the boy his own, was proud of his cleverness, would have him go to college, and left him all he had. There was no talk of Martin being anything but a Joliffe till Oxford puffed him up, and then he got this crank, and spent the rest of his life trying to find out who his father was. It was a forty-years' wandering in the wilderness; he found this clue and that, and thought at last he had climbed Pisgah and could see the promised ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... ran a restaurant in rue Froidmanteau, Paris, in 1830-31. He had established, so he said, three restaurants in Italy: at Naples, Parma and Rome. In the first years of Louis Philippe's reign, his peculiar cookery was the fare of Paolo Gambara. In 1837 this crank on the subject of special dishes had fallen to the calling of broken food huckster ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... sneaks especially for making prints on wooden ties he could scarcely have done better. In order to get at the main bearings of the engine he had, with characteristic disregard, stood plunk in the copper drain basin under the crank-case. The oil had undoubtedly softened the rubber sole of his sneakers so that it held the clinging substance, and in some cases it was possible to distinguish on the ties the half-obliterated crisscross design of the ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... the subject, and said that every opportunity was taken in that gaol to wrong and torture the men incarcerated there on political charges. Every petty breach of discipline was availed of to punish them, by sending them down to work the crank, and reducing their scanty rations. For the crime of not saluting Mr. Governor Price, they were placed upon a dietary of seven ounces of what was called brown bread and a pint of Anna Liffey, in the twenty-four hours. ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... of distress, and though I am no dreamer and I think no crank, I could not get away from the idea that she was crying to me ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... three black boxes. They seemed to have an opening in front, while at one side was a little crank, which, as nearly as I could make out, was operated by clockwork released by an electric contact. His first problem seemed to be to dispose the boxes to the best advantage at various angles about the counter where the Kimberley Queen was on exhibition. With so ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... was an idea! Now, then, Jeekes," he ordered, "crank up that car. And be quick about it! We want to ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... as well as the attributes of one, for she proved a death-trap for successive crews on three trial trips. As there were no electric motors or gasoline engines in those days, she was run by hand, eight men crowded together turning a crank-shaft which operated her propeller. After repeated sinkings, she was raised, manned by new men, and sent forth again. Finally, in Charleston harbor she succeeded in destroying the United States man-o'-war Housatonic, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... bitterly. "He's too old and peevish—that's whut ails him! Fur one, I'm certainly not never goin' to vote fur him again. Why, it's gettin' to be ez much ez a man's life is worth to stop that there spiteful old crank on the street and put a civil question to him—that's ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... and thoroughly demoralising," was the verdict of Aunt Jane, overheard by Roy, who was not supposed to understand. "They will grow up without an inch of moral backbone. And you can't say I didn't warn you. Lady Despard's a crank, of course; but Nevil is a fool to allow it. Goodness knows he was bad enough, though he was reared on the good old lines. And you are not giving his son a chance. The sooner the boy's packed off to school the better. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... of carrying a load of a thousand pounds at thirty miles an hour over even the softest snow, as its cylindrical supports did not sink into the snow as ordinary wheels would have done. The motor was a forty-horse power automobile machine with a crank-case enclosed in an outer case in which a vacuum had been created—on the principle of the bottles which keep liquids cold or warm. In this instance the vacuum served to keep the oil in the crank-case, which was poured in warm, at an even temperature. The gasolene tank, which held ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... engine. The situation, horribly humiliating for Lucas and also for George, provided pleasure for half the chauffeurs and drivers in Piccadilly Circus, and was the origin of much jocularity of a kind then fairly new. Lucas cursed the innocent engine, and George leapt down to wield the crank. But the engine, apparently resenting curses, refused to start again. No, it would not start. Lucas leapt down too. "Get out of the way," he muttered savagely to George, and scowled at the bonnet as if saying to the engine: "I'm not going to stand any of your infernal nonsense!" But still ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... recognized that Roberts was not, as he had at first believed, a mere mouthpiece of Hutchings, but he could not fathom his motives; besides, as he said to himself, he had no need to; Roberts was plainly a "crank," book-mad, and the species did not interest him. But Hutchings he knew well; knew that like himself Hutchings, while despising ordinary prejudices, was ruled by ordinary greeds and ambitions. In intellect they were both above the average, but not in morals. So, by putting himself ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... unpractical save himself alone. There was the fervid man, who always wanted to dash into the middle of every other man's speech. There was the practical man, who came with papers of figures and desired to make it all a question of statistics. There was the 'crank,' who disagreed with everything that everybody else said or suggested or could possibly have said or suggested on that or any other subject. The first trouble of the Dictator was to get at any commonly admitted appreciation of facts. More than once—many times indeed—he had ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... some kind in the hands of the medical profession. When further told that they have to help themselves by living so that they will not put any obstacles in the way of normal functioning of their bodies, they think that the physician who thinks and talks that way must be a crank, and many seek help where they are told that they can obtain health from pills, powders and potions or from various ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... be deadly earnest, she thought. It was so exactly like some movie thrill, planned carefully in advance, rehearsed perhaps under the critical eye of the director, and done now with the camera man turning calmly the little crank and counting the number of film feet the scene would take. A little farther and she would be out of the scene, and men stationed ahead would ride up and stop her horse for her and tell her how well she ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... weight. There is a fixed spindle (24) supported on the bracket (23)—which is fixed to the tank or one of the guide-rods—having centred on it a curved bar or quadrant (25) running loose on the spindle (24) and having a crank arm (26) to which is connected one end of a rod (27) which, at the other end, is connected to the arm (28) of the escapement. The quadrant bears at both extremities against the flat bar (29) when the bell (22) is ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... rifle from the belt and stepped in through the doorway after the father and daughter. His first glance inside the cliff house showed him Elsie labouring at the windlass. He hastened to take the crank out of her plump little hands. His one-armed winding soon hoisted the saddles to the crane. The moment the load was safe, Elsie tremblingly lifted his hand to look at the blackening bruises left by ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... about denying it in toto," rejoined the Idiot, "but I'd deny it in print if I were you. I know plenty of people who think it was a burlesque, and I overheard one man say—he is a Rossetti crank—that you ought to be ashamed ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... imagined in mine. In some of the society papers, paragraphs of a surprising scurrility appeared, attacking me as an impostor, and aspersing the motives of Eveleth in her former marriage, and treating her as a foolish crank or an audacious flirt. The goodness of her life, her self-sacrifice and works of benevolence, counted for no more against these wanton attacks than the absolute inoffensiveness of my own; the writers knew no harm of her, and they knew nothing ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... miss a little. Then, after a while, the left started to skip, too. I stopped under a tree to look for the trouble and pulled up the bonnet. The spark-plugs were badly carbonized, and when I had seen to them and had put the captain on the crank, we could only get explosions at intervals. There was good compression; everything was lubricating nicely; no heating or sticking anywhere—but the engine had lain down on us. The captain was so angry he wouldn't speak a word to me, and mumbled red-hot things to himself ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... from different parts of our auditorium has brought me to the conclusion that the public there may be loosely divided into three classes—leaving out reporters of fashionable intelligence, dressmakers in search of ideas, and the lady inhabitants of “Crank Alley” (as a certain corner of the orchestra is called), who sit in perpetual adoration before ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... awful crank. She just loves them Injuns, they say. But I, fer one, draw the line at holdin' 'em in my lap. I don't b'lieve in mixin' folks up that way. Preach to 'em if you like, but let 'em keep ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... be able to do anything right. One night after supper we had all assembled in the bunk-house, when Parsons said: 'I tell you boys, hell went pop this morning. Plaisted gave the boss hell because he commenced to growl at him for the way he held the lines. Plaisted told him he was the greatest old crank that ever run a ranch, and that the devil himself couldn't suit him. He left the team right in the field and called for his money. I tell you the boss's face was as red as a beet. He had to give Simmons six dollars a month more to take ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... I thought so. I see now why you got mad. Wonder you didn't throw that chap into the river." I am a crank on the happiness one gets from the giving of tips—and a half-penny man is the rock bottom ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... us who haven't automobiles, life is pleasant and without responsibilities. We ride in every new automobile, and, what is more, we go over it as carefully as a farmer does a new horse. We open its hood and pry into its internal economy. We crank it to test its compression—half the Homeburg men who have achieved broken wrists by the crank route haven't autos at all. We denounce the owner's judgment on oils and take his machine violently away from him in order to prove that it will pull better uphill ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... outfit. We suddenly looked into the most intimate life of the African wilderness. There the elephants and giraffes and monkeys passed to the waterhole, not knowing that the moving picture man was turning his crank in the top of a tree. We followed Scott and Shackleton into the regions of eternal ice, we climbed the Himalayas, we saw the world from the height of the aeroplane, and every child in Europe knows now the ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... to the front of the house, and, emerging on the platform, saw a sight which filled his heart with joy. On the track stood one of those little flat cars, employed by section-men, which is propelled by means of a wheel and crank in the centre turned by hand, on the same principle ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... prehistoric races, Professor!" he growled. "A whole car-load o' rubbish like this wouldn't be worth a nickel t' anybody but a scientific crank like you. If this is th' sort o' stuff that that old king o' yours thought was worth hidin', I guess he must 'a' been off his head. But that pot may 'a' got in by mistake. Before I get too much down on ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... father, and if any of us poor mortals want a glimpse of her between seasons, we must come where she is. She's a dear, and you must know her, even if you do hold yourself superior to us women. She's almost as much a crank on athletics as you are; you ought to see her on the links, once! That's why I can't understand her running away off here every summer. And, by the way, Ellie, what are you doing ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... delightful. Such bright, bracing airs as come from the sea on one side, and from the snow-capped mountains of the mainland on the other, are seldom met with on either hemisphere. Given a July day, a pleasant companion or two in a crank little boat, whose oars we use to make silvery interludes in our talk, and I should not envy your ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... when, by the light of a held-up lantern, he had made the necessary adjustment. "We will see if it won't go. Of course you can't use the self-starter, since your storage battery is out of order, but we can crank ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... the old crank that, after working hard at the problem for nine years, he one day, at nine o'clock on the morning of the ninth day of the ninth month, fell down nine steps, knocked out nine teeth, and expired in nine minutes. It will be remembered ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... into the village store as soon as the train stopped and had bought the first toy she happened to see. It was a black dancing bear, worked by a tiny crank hidden under the bar on which it stood. Robin's pleasure was unbounded, and his shrieks of delight brought all the children ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... prove to be of the most vital importance. Dick went to the telephone. It was one of the old-fashioned sort, still in almost universal use in the rural parts of England, that require the use of a bell to call the central office. Dick turned the crank, then took down the receiver. At once he heard a confused ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... met with, I sailed in the Cadogan, Captain John Hall, in company with the Francis, Captain Newsham; and as the latter ship sailed much better than the Cadogan, she left us immediately after getting out to sea. Finding his ship very tender, or crank, Captain Hill put in at Batavia, to get her into better trim. We continued here about ten days; but I can say little about that place, being all the time unable to stand on my legs, and was only twice out in a coach to take the air, two or three miles out of the city, in which little excursion ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... to the ground. "Thank God!" he said again. "The two men who were to have come with me didn't show up. I waited as long as I dared, and then came on with only the chauffeur. He's waiting outside by the car ready to crank up when I give the word. The car's just a few yards away, headed out for the road. How are we to get back over ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... ungraciously toward the sounder, which seemed to be repeating something over and over with a good deal of insistence. "That's Shoshone calling," she said, frowning attentively. "They've got an old crank up there in the office—I'd know his touch among a million—and when he calls he means business. I'll have to speak up, I suppose." She sighed, tucked a chocolate into her cheek, and went scowling to the table. "Can't the idiot ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... few months I have been wearing the Cluthe Truss I have done almost everything that would rupture a man or cause a ruptured man agony or to be operated on. I ride horseback and I am now a chauffeur. Ask any man what it means to crank an engine of high compression. This needs an extraordinary truss to hold a bad rupture under such conditions, but the Cluthe Truss does it. I hardly know I ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons
... see one again, and envied the perspiring chamberlain, who looked bored to extinction having to turn the crank, instead of joining the dance and turning the heads of the ladies. It took two of them to manage the complexities of the piano, and as neither possessed a musical turn of the wrist, and as neither had the remotest ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... it always ached when she was in a crank, as he called her moods, and he brought her salts, and undid her cloak and bonnet, and kissed her once or twice, while his father, who was hot because she was hot, said it was like an August day all over the house, and opened a window, but shut it almost immediately, for a cloud of snow came ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... information which our agents could not obtain. One timely note from them, at a critical moment in a certain deal, saved all of five millions to Mr. Hale. At another time they sent us a telegram which probably was the means of preventing an anarchist crank from taking my employer's life. We captured the man on his arrival and turned him over to the police, who found upon him enough of a new and powerful explosive to ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... Hudson Cavour had been one of those tragic men whose personalities negate the value of their work. A solitary, cantankerous, opinionated individual—a crank, in short—he withdrew from humanity to develop the hyperspace drive, announcing at periodic intervals ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... that I said seemingly wrong. I'm for A. S. just one hundred per cent and would prefer to have it as right as possible. I don't like crank letter writing and would never have written this now if it hadn't been for several of the letters in the March issue that gave me a touch of hades under the collar. S'long. Maybe I'll write again sometime when I get some more "ham science" ideas.—William ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Carlton, smiling pleasantly, "when he goes to the palace with that box and asks for a permit, they'll think he is either a dynamiter or a crank, and before they are through with him his interest in photography will have sustained a ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... to the regatta was M. Forcat, whose peculiar system of propelling boats I have mentioned in the account of a former voyage; and he brought up for exhibition, and for the practical trial by the winner of the canoe chase, a very narrow and crank boat, rowed by oars jointed to a short mast in front of the sitter, and thus obtaining one of the advantages possessed by canoeists, that their faces are turned to the bow, and so they see where ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... a motive power long before it was so applied; and because he employed a good deal of his time in trying to discover the principle, he was ridiculed by his neighbors and friends, and the more thoughtless among them didn't know whether he was a crank, a half-wit, or a "luny." From all accounts, he was a modest, shy, retiring man, though a merry one. He had but little money to devote to the experiments he wished to make, and in this was not different from ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... stop that man first," said he. "But what excuse have I? He may be nothing but a crank, with some crack-brained idea in his head. We'll soon know; for there's certainly something wrong ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... odd fish surrounding old Sir Joseph. Some of them I couldn't quite make out. He was just a little hard to get at, himself. I got very huffy at the old boy once or twice, I'm sorry to say. It was about ships. I'm a crank on ships. Everybody has at least one mania. That's mine—ships. Sir Joseph and I quarreled about them. He wanted to buy all I could make, but he was in no hurry to have 'em finished. I told him he talked more ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... with you. She's afraid of you. I told her you wouldn't interfere with her, but she wasn't satisfied. It's your own fault, Eunice. You've always been so queer and close that people think you're an awful crank. Victoria's young and lively, and you and she wouldn't get on at all. There isn't any question of turning you out. I'll build a little house for you somewhere, and you'll be a great deal better off there than you would be here. So don't ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sir—its in one o' the heving peepers, they sez—that the people wot's missin' hev been carted off in aeroplanes by some o' the other religionists wot wanted to git rid o' them, an' that the crank religiouses ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... understood that Monsen was the richest man in the town, and that he had become so by provisioning ships with spoiled foodstuffs, and refitting old crank vessels, which he heavily insured. And he knew who was a thief and who a bankrupt speculator, and that Merchant Lau only did business with the little shopkeepers, because his daughter had gone to the bad. Pelle knew the secret pride of the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... an' mebbe 'tain't a woman's place. But when men are too scart an' heven't as much spunk as a chicken jist outer the shell, what else is thar to do? Is thar no one in the hull parish to stan' up fer the Lord's anointed? Tell me that. Didn't that beautiful Queen Ester stan' before her crank of a husband, Hazen Hearus, an' plead fer the lives of her people? An' didn't Jael do the Lord's will when she put old Sirseree outer the way, tell me that? Now, I ain't a queen like Ester, an' I hope I ain't a woman like Jael that 'ud drive a nail through a man's head. I'm jist plain old Marthy ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... used up. I never saw him so completely cowed. It knocked all the eloquence out of him for once. The man is a crank and an agitator. I have kept my eye on him for some time. He is a fairly good workman in his line, though, and just now can't do much harm, as times are easy and these new improvements of yours keep the people busy with other interests. But he would ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... business no longer worthy of a serious soul. The public again, in its ever-confident patronizingness, says unto him: "But for thy great artistic genius, O Leo, son of Nicolas, with thy latest religious antics and somersaultings, we would call thee—a crank. But as to a great genius we shall be merciful unto thee, and bear with many a confession, many a cobbled shoe, if thou givest us only more of Olenins, ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... dead in a breach, round the foremast? Are those Twin tigers, who burst, when the waters arose, 40 In the agony of terror, their chains in the hold; (What now makes them tame, is what then made them bold;) Who crouch, side by side, and have driven, like a crank, The deep grip of their claws through the vibrating plank Are these all? Nine weeks the tall vessel had lain 45 On the windless expanse of the watery plain, Where the death-darting sun cast no shadow at noon, And there seemed to be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... entertainment a boy had broken in on the radio concert. Then a crank had come shouting right into the middle of a speech by a politician. A few moments later a message on 1200 had fairly burst his ear-drums. The message had been short, composed of just ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... no plowman, nothing but the farmer to crank the tractor and start it on its way," Dick exulted, as the uncanny mechanism turned up the brown soil and continued unguided, ever spiraling toward the field's center. "Plow, harrow, roll, seed, fertilize, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... diversions of the old man's day. It sapped his powers of resistance. In the morning there was the doctor, a weary little man, untemperamental and mercifully impervious to insult, who chugged up the lane in a car that needed but one twist of the crank to release a great many clattering things. All of them Kenny felt should be anchored more securely. There was an occasional hour in the open. At nightfall he sent for Kenny and by ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... velocipede With springs of burnished steel; He knew the way to work it— The treadle for the wheel, The brake to turn and twist it, The crank to make it stop, My! hadn't he been riding For ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... You're in a tight place, I know, but I was once in a tighter, yes, I did what you have nearly done—I went to jail on a false charge and false evidence. But I didn't commit suicide. I served my time, and I think it crazed me a bit though it was only a month; at any rate, I was what they call a crank when I came out, which I wasn't when I went in. Then I set to work and showed up those for whom I had done time—living or dead they'll never forget Stephen Strong, I'll warrant—and after that I turned ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... automobile was speeding down the street from the same direction as the taxi had taken. It swung close to the curb, and was pulled up barely a yard short of the waiting cab, whose engine the driver was starting with the crank. ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... worse, caught by an apple-baited hook hung from an orchard bough. He now limits his aspirations to hares and pheasants, and too probably once in his life, 'hits the keeper into the river,' and reconsiders himself for a while after over a crank in Winchester gaol. Well, he has his faults; and I have mine. But he is a thorough good fellow nevertheless; quite as good as I: civil, contented, industrious, and often very handsome; and a far shrewder fellow too—owing to his dash of wild forest blood, from gipsy, highwayman; and what not—than ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... crank pin, and shaft, are of steel. The eccentric-strap and flywheel are cast iron, and the other portions of the engine are of brass. The screw threads are all chased, and the flange, a, and head of the piston, F, in addition to being screwed, are ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... his hand. The fortunate sale of several storiettes, some humorous verse, and a few jokes gave Martin a temporary splurge of prosperity. Not only did he partially pay up his bills, but he had sufficient balance left to redeem his black suit and wheel. The latter, by virtue of a twisted crank-hanger, required repairing, and, as a matter of friendliness with his future brother-in-law, he sent ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... would prevent the atheists from producing distinctly anti-Christian plays which might very well cause riots, which certainly would prove a serious counterblast, if discreetly handled, to the efforts of the Church and Stage enthusiasts. One can conceive every kind of crank with money producing a play to advocate his particular ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... apples," suggested Florence; "it is such fun to put them on that little thing and turn the crank, while the skin ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... stones pounded up to make a sea beach. On the north side only was there barrenness— for that seemed but a tongue of low land and black rock thrust straight out into the sea. But elsewhere it was a spectacle to impress a man; and I began, perhaps, to admit that Edmond Czerny had more than a crank's whim in his mind when he took little Ruth Bellenden to such a shore for her honeymoon. He had a fancy for wild places, said I, and this was the very spot for him. But Miss Ruth, who had always been one for the towns and cities and the bright things of life—what ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... must tell you the truth so that you won't idealize me... and the situation. I am enlisted in this fight for life. Where it will lead me I don't know. But I must follow the road I see. You will lose your friends. They will think me a crank, an enemy to society; and they will think you demented. But even for you I can't ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... wall, distant about three feet from each other. The head was at the same height as the feet, and the body, held up on a trestle, described a half-curve, as though lying over a wheel. To increase the stretch of the limbs, the man gave two turns to a crank, which pushed the feet, at first about twelve inches from the rings, to a distance of six inches. And here we may leave our narrative to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... other worlds, is obtained by "superimposure," or by taking the picture twice, as it were. On the first "take" the characters go through the business already rehearsed, and the director keeps careful track of just when each important move is made by counting while the cameraman turns the crank. If, at the count of "Eleven!" one character registers surprise and points excitedly at an unoccupied corner of the room, it is the first step in introducing the fairy, or the spectre, who is to appear there in the picture as shown on the screen. After the scene ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... contrivance over the gas-jet, much as Sara did over the log- fire at home; but neither Morton nor Molly would have been surprised to see food come sliding in, all cooked, or clothes all made, by the simple turn of a crank, so ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... Bartley turned the crank that snapped the gong-bell in its centre; and the young man, who was looking at the street while waiting for some one to come, confronted her with a start. "Oh!" he said, "I thought it was Marcia. Good morning, Mrs. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... in numbers, who hate England and all things English. There are many, not stigmatised as dullards or as fools, who publicly oppose the teaching of English history in the State schools. The feeling against England is not a fantastical crank, it is a movement growing yearly in strength. I have seen men keeping their seats in serious protesting silence when the health of the Queen has been drunk at public banquets, and have found in private ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... automatic Corliss valve expansion gear. Referring to the general drawing of the engine, it will be seen that the cylinder is bolted directly to the end of the massive cast iron frame, and the piston coupled direct to the crank by the steel piston rod and crosshead and the connecting rod. The connecting rod is 28 feet long center to center, and 12 inches diameter at the middle. The crankshaft is made of forged Bolton steel, and is 21 inches diameter at the part where the fly-wheel is carried. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... a crank and played a joke on him that led to a division in the church and came near costing Mr. Strout his position ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... prejudiced. It was my influence which turned the tide against Robert Goodman. Thou knowest. Now, if Thou wilt only forgive and help me I will walk in the light as Thou sendest it, even consenting to be called a 'holiness crank.'" ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw
... a bad fight of it, O'Brien. Old style methods won't win for us. These crank reformers have got the people stirred up. Keep your ward workers busy, but don't expect them to win." He leaned forward and brought his fist down heavily on the desk. "We've got to smash Farnum—discredit him with the bunch of sheep who ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... You raise a genius—laugh at him, pity his family—till you learn how the outside world respects him. Then—hurrah! Strike up the band, boys! When I think how that old party has been quietly studying typhoid fever and water supply all these years, with you bunch of hayseeds looking down on him as a crank—I get so blamed sore at the place that I wish I'd chucked your letter into the waste-basket when you wrote me ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... whose father was a lascivious, egotistical crank, married a man absolutely devoid of will power and energy. She was gifted; the marriage a failure. Of the two children, one was an indolent, thoroughly useless, good-for-nothing boy, whose only thought was of wasting money on pretty neckties and the like and of flirting ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... something about hot showers, and not having to take any more sponge-baths. Howell was watching the stuff come off the other landing craft. A dozen pairs of four-foot wagon wheels, with axles. Hoes, in bundles. Scythe blades. A hand forge, with a crank-driven fan blower, and a hundred and fifty pound anvil, and sledges and cutters and swages ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... with a vast show of hurry and despatch, but I observed it to be principally show. The agricultural model for instance, which was practicable, proved a kind of flypaper for these busybodies. I have seen them blankly turn the crank of it for five minutes at a time, simulating (to nobody's deception) business interest: "Good thing this, Pinkerton? Sell much of it? Ha! Couldn't use it, I suppose, as a medium of advertisement for my ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... fare with your own body, were you on this iron frame and Varus standing where I am. There,—Caesar having in a few moments brought the wires—the body you perceive is confined in this manner.—You observe there can be no escape and no motion. Now at the word of the judge, this crank is turned. Do you see the effect upon the wire? Imagine it your body and you will have a lively idea of the instrument. Then at another wink or word from Varus, these are turned, and you see that another part of the body, the legs or arms ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... heard the hissing steam as it rushed through the cylinders, and without knowing what was going to happen next,—whether or not the boiler would explode, and the deck be torn up beneath me,—I waited in feverish anxiety for the result. Then I heard the splash of the wheels; the crank turned, rumbled, and jarred on its centre, but went over, and continued to turn. The Adieno moved, and the motion sent a thrill through my whole being. It was fortunate for us that she lay at the pier in such a position as ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... a cluster of rifle barrels, without stocks, arranged around a rod, and parallel to it. Each barrel has its own lock or bolt, and the whole cluster can be made to revolve by turning a crank. The bolts are all covered in a brass case at the breech, and the machine is loaded by means of a vertical groove in which cartridges are placed, twenty at a time, and from which they fall into the receivers one at a time. As the ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... a single rose, but always chosen so carefully to melt into the background; and such adorable china—I simply die of envy every time I see her Lowestoft plates. And such a quiet way of reproving any bad taste—the time that crank university professor was out there, and spoke of the radical labor movement, and Mattie just smiled at him and said, 'If you don't mind, let's not drag filthy lumberjacks into the drawing-room—they'd hate it just as much as we would, don't ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... the wind got round to N. and there was no appearance of its abating. At eight, the captain well satisfied that she was very crank and ought to have had more ballast, agreed to make for Bacon Island Road, in North Carolina; and in the very act of wearing her, a sudden gust of wind laid her down on her beam-end, and she never rose again!—At ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... after, two vessels were racing down the China seas, one of them a new barque heavily sparred and very crank, and the other a large, full-rigged ship. Both were rushed through the sea at great speed. The full-rigger, with Norman Burnside in command, drew ahead of the barque and lost sight of her in the darkness. Between ten and eleven at night ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... it easy and away goes the engine again, see if the governor belt is all right, and if it is, it would be well for you to stop and see if a wheel is not loose. It might be either the little belt wheel or one of the little cog wheels. If you find these are all right, examine the spool on the crank shaft from which the governor is run and you will probably find it loose. If the engine has been run for any length of time, you will always find the trouble in one of these places, but if it is a new one the governor valve might fit a little tight in the valve ...
— Rough and Tumble Engineering • James H. Maggard
... crank-case arms to the crank-case, using pneumatic hammers which were supposed to be the latest development. It took six men to hold the hammers and six men to hold the casings, and the din was terrific. ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... action. As I sat in the lantern, the great brazen frame of polished reflectors swung around, once in each minute, within a few inches of the side. Beneath was the projecting handle of a crank, or lever, by pressing upon which the revolution could be instantly arrested. Stooping down, I could sit at ease, with my head clear from any contact with the lamps, and in that position could have the lever-handle within ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various |
