"Crank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... To grind out a song of cheer I set to the crank my ancient muse. Will somebody kiss that bride for me? I fling with my blessing, ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... chair swiftly to his work table, and turned the little crank, continuing his plan ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... edges with iron wire. Hammer the wire down so that a good cylindrical surface is obtained. Make two wooden plugs for the ends of the iron pipe. Bore one to fit a nail, which may be held in a small retort clip, and fasten a stout wire crank handle into the other one. Support the neck of the handle by means of a second clip. In this way we easily get a sort of windlass quite strong ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall
... truth to say that I cannot recall the time when I was not passionately opposed to slavery, a crank on the subject of personal liberty, if I am a ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... your news about him," said the doctor. "I hoped he was going to stay. It's always a pity when such a man lets his sympathies use him instead of using them. But we must always judge that kind of crank leniently, if he doesn't involve other people in ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... the crank turned, and the next moment the train slid out serpent-like into the mist. Major Colquhoun had watched it off like any ordinary spectator, and when it had gone he looked at the porter, and the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Place a crank (E), 5 inches long, on the outer end of the mandrel, as in Fig. 3. Then mount one block on the end of the bench and the other block 3 inches away. Affix them to the bench by nails or screws, preferably ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... De Gay collects venomous insects from all over the world; no harmless ones need apply. Terriberry has a mania for old railroad tickets. Some are really very curious. I've often wished I had the time to be a crank. ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the performing monkey had ceased and its owner changed the tune on the piano-organ again. He handed the monkey a little toy gun with one hand while he still turned the crank with the other. The monkey threw the gun down petulantly at first, but Tony threatened him and finally the animal held it when it was thrust ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... three cylinders, as in the first engines, one to take up the other as the power was given off), by a ratchet on the end of a beam or else a chain. This acted on the shaft which moved the paddles. It is to Watt that we are indebted for the crank and direct action, so as to give a circular motion to ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... all the affairs of the Nation I made another attempt but I listened once more, rather than butt in again, listened and heard, 'Just the sweetest shade of green, you know—' Trials of Job, I was getting out of patience, to put it mildly. I gave the crank a vicious turn but the same party was still talking, she said sweetly, 'I guess someone wants the line.' I assured her I did, it was a case of life and death. 'Someone dead, oh dear, is it any ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... 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
... dark and cold; but the poor man bade his wife wait and see what would happen. He placed the little hand mill on the table, and began to turn the crank. First, out there came some grand, lighted wax candles, and a fire on the hearth, and a porridge pot boiling over it, because in his mind he said they should come first. Then he ground out a tablecloth, and dishes, and spoons, and knives ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... between that of a dutiful daughter and a genuine country neighbour, has gone over to Opal Farm to tidy up a bit until the doctor gives his decision and some native woman, agreeable to Amos's taste, can be found to look after the interesting yet aggravating crank. ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... suppose there's much chance," said Ned. "You notified the cops, didn't you, Nick? Good. The battery is low and there isn't any crank on my bus and my only hope is that she'll lay down on them. Soak it ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... is famous the country round as a cook, and she excelled herself that afternoon. Bishop is a crank on truck gardening, and the vegetables served would have taken prizes in any exhibit. A delicious soup was followed by a baked sea trout—I must not forget to ask Mrs. Bishop ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... was Cora's answer, as she stooped over to crank the motor. It started on the first turn and soon the Chelton was chugging a course over the sun-lit ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... voice 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 ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... individual, turning the crank, "look, Nor Juan, how with merely my own strength I can raise and lower the great stone. It's so well arranged that at will I can regulate the rise or fall inch by inch, so that a man in the trench can easily fit the stones together while ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Lamberton muttered, And under his breath said he, "This ship is so crank and walty, I fear our grave ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... sailing for that time without a certificate; that her starboard shaft is partially fractured, and that to reduce the strain upon it the floats of her starboard wheel have been shortened five inches, the strain being further reduced by giving her a decided list to port; that her crank is "bandaged," that she is leaky; that her mainmast is sprung, and that with only four hours' steaming many of her boiler tubes, even some of those put in at Auckland, had already given way. I cannot ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... leave. A prisoner stepped forward to crank my car, and all of them, the dauntless Frenchman in the center, lined up and gave us the military salute. Before reentering the woods I looked back and saw the blue-coated figure offering a light to the green coat. From cigarette tip to cigarette tip the fraternal spark was being transmitted: the ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... they were out of the train, walking up toward the engine. About it were men and women, and the children saw a man with a black box on three legs grinding away at a crank. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... A crank boat needs ballast; and of happy fortune is it for a disposition towards natural levity, when educational gravity has helped to steady it. Upon the vivacious, let the reflective supervene: to the gay, suffer in its season the addition of the serious. Amongst other ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... dusted out the door. At the same time while this was goin' on, 'nother feller had a light turned on this here winder wot nearly blinded me, and the feller with that funny lookin' camera was a-turnin' the crank to ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... She took the crank from him and began laboriously to turn it. "Down in Maine where I came from I used to turn for the men when they ground ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... his "Treaty of the Admirable Power of Art and Nature," he puts forth the idea that it is possible "to make flying-machines in which the man, being seated or suspended in the middle, might turn some winch or crank, which would put in motion a suit of wings made to strike the air like those of a bird." In the same treatise he sketches a flying-machine, to which that of Blanchard, who lived in the eighteenth century, ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... 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 ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... believe that illness is sent by God to achieve certain salutary modifications of character, they ought strenuously to oppose the modern determination to reduce disease to a minimum. They do not, and would, on the contrary, soon reduce to silence any religious crank who proposed it. They know perfectly well that the cases of "spiritual advantage" from illness bear no proportion whatever to the amount of suffering in the world. Slight but painful illnesses rarely have any beneficent ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... passed, the besieging army found itself compressed within a constantly contracting field. The "Ark of Delft," an enormous vessel, with shot-proof bulwarks, and moved by paddle-wheels turned by a crank, now arrived at Zoetermeer, and was soon followed by the whole fleet. After a brief delay, sufficient to allow the few remaining villagers to escape, both Zoetermeer and Benthuyzen, with the fortifications, were set on fire, and abandoned ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... so crank that one of us could not venture to lean over on one side unless we gave notice to balance the boat by inclining on the other. Still we made very good progress, considering the current ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... all she impressed Martin the most, because there was nothing of the crank about her. She went to theatres, to the seaside in the summer, took in The Queen, and was a subscriber to Boots' Circulating Library. She dressed quietly and in excellent taste—in grey or black and white. She ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... is done by machinery, which is the custom in Europe, with large lenses, the polisher is slid back and forth over the lens by means of a crank attached to a revolving wheel. The polisher is at the same time slowly revolving around a pivot at its centre, which pivot the crank works into, and the glass below it is slowly turned in an opposite direction. Thus the same effect is produced as in the other system. Those who practice ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... denunciatory language of that day he was called a "proud and pestilent seducer," or, as the modern newspaper would say, a "crank." It is well to make due allowances for the prejudice so conspicuous in the accounts given by his enemies, who felt obliged to justify their harsh treatment of him. But we have also his own writings from which to form an opinion as to his character and views. Lucidity, indeed, ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... guess you saved my life, then. For if you hadn't kept me quiet I'd have fought all creation for water. The notion took hold of me that I was a helpless baby and that my mother was beside me, turning a crank and making it rain into my mouth, and that all I had to do was to lie still and listen to her voice and hold my mouth open so that the drops could trickle down my throat. Lord! How good they did feel! That was how I happened to ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... then crumpled the attack with another burst of fire from the flank. With cries of alarm, the Russians turned and fled toward their trucks. McCready ran along the ravine until he was within fifty yards of the standing machines. As the Russians approached, one of them stepped to the truck crank. McCready's pistol spoke and he dropped. A second shared his fate. With cries of despair, the Russians climbed into the remaining truck whose motor was running. Rapidly it drove away across the plain. McCready rose from the ravine and ran toward the standing truck. He started the motor ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... the gauntlet of pseudo-designers, crank inventors, press "experts," and politicians; of manufacturers keen on cheap work and large profits; of poor pilots who had funked it, and good pilots who had expected too much of it. Thousands of pounds had been wasted on it, many had gone bankrupt over ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... an Army afternoon. All such afternoons are, for the average American knows truly nothing about his own Army. When he sees it actually at work he becomes, for the time at least, an "Army crank." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... out—and this added to his dislike of him; he 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. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... spell the result would undoubtedly have been different. I should have painted only the mask of the moment, and that would have satisfied her admirers, I imagine. I suppose you know that my ideas of the true functions of art have caused many people to call me a crank?" ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... eyes! What sharp noses!—who had been grinding them? Answer: the Morrell Twins. Not for nothing their long practice in sharpening pins and needles! It had come into play here. Richard had turned the crank and Robin had held down each official proboscis, and the board had winced. Then Richard and Robin had changed places, and the board had groaned. Now Richard and Robin were changing back, and soon the board might scream. "I'll take a hand ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... are taught in it. We shall no doubt have a similar field open in Oude when Government interposes in behalf of the suffering people, and we might prepare for it by converting the Martiniere into a similar school or college. The committee has just expressed to you a hope that Mr. Crank, the officiating principal, may be able to pass an examination in the native languages. This hope can never be realised; and if he does I shall have to record my opinion that he is otherwise unfitted. The power of nominating ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... and nearly all the Italians accused of crime in the city are included in their number. One of these men is to be seen on the Bowery at almost any time. He seats himself on the pavement, with his legs tucked under him, and turns the crank of an instrument which seems to be a doleful compromise between a music box and an accordion. In front of this machine is a tin box for pennies, and by the side of it is a card on which is printed an appeal to the charitable. At night a flickering tallow dip sheds ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... it will be Yes or No. Usually I imagine that I can pretty well guess what your opinion is likely to be, but I can't this time. The thing to decide upon is in itself so fantastic, so monstrous, that one moment I tell myself you won't even consider it. The next minute I remember what a dear little "crank" you are on the subject of gratitude—your "favourite virtue," as you used to write in old-fashioned "Confession Albums" of provincial American friends when I ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... in office of lack of good manners. Saying he was unable to read the handwriting in which the protest was written, he disposed of it in a way that would suggest itself naturally to a statesman and a gentleman. As a "crank" letter he turned it over to the Washington correspondents. You can imagine what ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... not 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 had ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... 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 second officer was on the poop ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Good Hope, staying some days at each place, and at the latter adding several passengers to our small party. We proceeded very happily until we were within a day's steam of the Island of St. Vincent, off the coast of Africa; then the great crank of the steam-engine snapped in two, and we had to sail. It took us ten days to beat up to the island, for a large screw steamer was never intended ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... RUNG. The old-fashioned telephones, still often used in the country, have little cranks that you turn to ring for central. The crank turns a coil of wire between the poles of the magnet and generates the electricity for ringing the bell. These little dynamos, like those in automobiles, are ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... said Dorothy, handing him a written slip, "except things I know mother took with her. So robbery wasn't the motive. I think you must be right. It's some crank. But, oh, if you only knew how afraid I am to stay here! I'm afraid of my own shadow; I'm afraid of the clock chimes; when the telephone rings I'm in a panic. Don't you think I could go away somewhere, ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... come true; and there were those who merely saw visions too impractical ever to become realities. To work amid this mecca of minds must have been not only an education in science but in human nature as well. Every sort of crank who had gathered a wild notion out of the blue meandered into Williams's shop in the hope that somebody could be found there who would provide either the money or the labor ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... complete rotation of the magnet producing one such cycle. Obviously the result would be the same if the magnet were stationary and the coils should rotate, which is the construction of more modern devices. The turning of the crank of a magneto-bell rotates the armature in the magnetic field by some form of gearing at a rate usually of the order of twenty turns per second, producing an alternating current of that frequency. This current is caused by an effective electromotive ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... was thrown to the lions not because he was a Christian, but because he was a crank: that is, an unusual sort of person. And multitudes of people, quite as civilized and amiable as we, crowded to see the lions eat him just as they now crowd the lion-house in the Zoo at feeding-time, not because they really cared two-pence about Diana or Christ, ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... runnin' a court any longer," he stated 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 ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... previous instance, to work with one cylinder. When the slide-valve gear is disabled, Engines with hand-gear possess an advantage which others want, in being able to be worked by hand, when a single cylinder would be unequal to the duty, from not being able to move the crank over the ...
— Practical Rules for the Management of a Locomotive Engine - in the Station, on the Road, and in cases of Accident • Charles Hutton Gregory
... the crankshaft took full advantage of this fact. It consisted of having the counterweights flexibly mounted instead of being rigidly bolted, as was common practice. The counterweights were pivoted on the crank cheeks. Powerful compression springs absorbed the maximum impulses by permitting the counterweights to lag slightly, yet forced them to travel precisely with the crank ...
— The First Airplane Diesel Engine: Packard Model DR-980 of 1928 • Robert B. Meyer
... I've got the map of it right here?" said Elam, tapping his ditty-bag, which was hung across his chest under his shirt. "I am nearer to it now than I have been before, and you had better talk to those who have made fun of me all these years. 'Oh, Elam's a crank; let him alone, and when he gets tired looking for the nugget he'll come to his senses and go to herding cattle.' That's what the folks around here have had to say about me ever since I can remember; but I'll get the start of all of them, you ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... 5 minutes, then turn crank slowly until mixture is stiff. When frozen drain off ice water and repack, using four parts ice and ...
— For Luncheon and Supper Guests • Alice Bradley
... 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 back his weakness; then ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... measure. This was a memory in fact simply to screen out—much as, just in front of him while he walked, the iron shutter of a shop, closing early to the stale summer day, rattled down at the turn of some crank. There was machinery again, just as the plate glass, all about him, was money, was power, the power of the rich peoples. Well, he was OF them now, of the rich peoples; he was on their side—if it wasn't rather the pleasanter ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... would be careful that the machine produced the least friction possible, and naturally it ought to produce little, as it would not be at all complicated. The new Daedalus, sitting comfortably in his carriage, would by means of a crank give to the pterophore a suitable circular (or revolving) speed. This single pterophore would lift him vertically, but in order to move horizontally he should be supplied with a tail in the shape of another pterophore. When he wished to stop for a little ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... 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 sand ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... bluntly. "Call me a crank, say I'm in a blue funk"—his compressed lips and sharp black eyes did not lend themselves much to that hypothesis—"only get out of this with that stuff, and take Barker with you! I'm not responsible for myself ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... from the battery up and down outside the pile of helices, it was clear that an upward and downward movement of the rod would follow, 'and that a shackle-bar attached from this oscillating rod, and to a crank, would convert this reciprocating motion into a continuous one.' To this contrivance the name of 'Jumper' was given, of which one was exhibited, the helices weighing 800 lbs., and the rod 526 lbs.; and by the means above mentioned, it has been converted into a working-engine, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... written frankly, and I think temperately. I am not a "crank" upon this—I hope not upon any subject. I am a temperance woman who does not scruple to avow what is her practice, as well as her belief. That thousands of better people than I will think my creed goes too far, and as many that it stops short ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... 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. Now an automatic press operated by ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... for a spin in the park. Stoop, crank your automobile. Step into the machine. Ride around the track; blow your horn. Pump up your flat tire. Bend and stretch arms upward to rest them. Ride home. Breathe in the good fresh air. Put your automobile into ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... take me over some evening to see them. I must not forget that you are a man and that some time you will be looking for a wife. You must go out occasionally, else you will appear awkward in the presence of young ladies or be considered a crank." ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... "All those sails, all that weight! Boxes heaped one on the top of the other—cubes to catch the air—a man sitting inert in a basket, with his hand on a lever and a crank: it's as though one tried to make a stuffed bird fly! And what becomes of the man in all that: the back push, the daring stroke? The man has got to be the backbone of the machine, with his quick balancings, his bendings, which are worth more ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... the double-acting engine, which was the first step by which the steam-engine was made capable of being used to propel a vessel. In 1780, James Pickard patented what is no other than the present connecting rod and crank, and a fly-wheel, the second and last great improvement in the steam-engine, which enabled it to be of service in propelling vessels.[CI] In 1785, William Symington took out a patent, by which he obtained, with economy of fuel, a more perfect method of condensation ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... thing. Only answer I can get is the old saw about knowledge being power. And some day you'll see how absorbing it is to have power, even here; to control the town——Oh, I'm a crank. But I do like to see ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... to talk to you like that," she exclaimed. "She old crank, anyway. You not like her. See me—I young, strong; I cook, wash, iron, clean. I do everything. You do notting. I cook good, too; not so much fancy, but awful good. My last madam, I with her one year. She sick, go South ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... became a man of one idea, and that a false one. He was a gigantic crank,—an arch-Jesuit, indifferent to means so long as he could bring about his end; and he became not merely a casuist, but a dictatorial and arrogant politician. He defied that patriotic burst of public opinion which had compelled him to change his ground, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... does not appreciate you at all. He regards you as an erratic philanthropist with a crank for assisting ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... dun'no'! She's an 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 ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... peoples of whom history has knowledge, while the researches of archeologists have shown that prehistoric peoples were accustomed to chase the gigantic cetacean for his blubber, his oil, and his bone. The American Indians, in their frail canoes, the Esquimaux, in their crank kayaks, braved the fury of this aquatic monster, whose size was to that of one of his enemies as the bulk of a battle-ship is to that of a pigmy torpedo launch. But the whale fishery in vessels fitted for cruises of moderate length had its origin in Europe, where the Basques ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... to himself four corpses lying in a pool of blood, and fright and horror seized his breast. To kill four men! Indeed they were knaves, but even so it was a horrifying affair. He recollected that at one time he saw a laborer—a fellah—killed by the crank of a steam dredge, and what a horrible impression his mortal remains, quivering in a red puddle, made upon him! He shuddered at the recollection. And now four would be necessary! four! The sin and the horror! No, no, he ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... 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 ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... premises. The House of Commons again and again postponed the date of the General Election but the occasional by-elections which took place proved that there was no register in existence on which it would be morally possible to appeal to the country. The old, the feeble, the slacker, the crank, the conscientious objector would all be left in full strength and the fighting men would be disfranchised. A Parliament elected on such a register would, Mr. Asquith declared, be wholly lacking in moral authority. Therefore, by sheer ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... adjourned he lingered with Dr. Hargrave. "We must not let ourselves be carried away by our young friend's suspicions," said he to his old friend. "Scarborough is a fine fellow. But he lacks your experience and my knowledge of practical business. And he has been made something of a crank by combating the opposition his extreme views have ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... the gate and went forward to crank up his runabout, but Ralph detained him a few moments longer, to tell him about the encounter with Bill Terrill. When he had finished, the doctor advised him to pay no attention to the vague overtures made by Silas Perkins' hireling, until the doctor himself had referred the matter of ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... found this house and the other houses combined in a conspiracy of silence against the musical addresses of a swarthy foreigner who had a foothold a yard beyond the curbstone, and who was turning the crank of his instrument with all the rapid regularity of the thorough mechanician. The whole street rang. "'Ah, perche non posso odiarti!'" hummed Truesdale in unison with the organ, as the performer, after an intricate ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... of a drink in it, not even in the singing-class. Would not have 'Here's a health to King Charles' inside the door. Narrowing, that; as many of the finest classics speak of wine freely. Eastman is useful, but a crank. Now take 'Lochinvar.' We are to have it on strawberry night; but say! Eastman kicked about it. Told the kid to speak something else. Kid ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... was in the very best of spirits. Then came a change, the wind backing out from south-west with squally weather which placed us at once upon a taut bowline; and simultaneously with this change of weather a most disagreeable discovery was made, namely, that the Daphne was an exceedingly crank ship. ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... fact that the Baron had hinted that Ronador's masquerade was at an end, the music-machine steadily approached and halted. The minstrel alighted and fell stiffly to turning the crank, whereupon with a fearful roll of the drum and a clash of cymbals, the papier-mache snake began to unfold and "An Old Girl of Mine" emerged from the cataclysm of sound and frightened the fish hawks over the shallow water. A great blue heron, knee-deep in ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... was a plan to do away with the crank, and transform the rectilinear motion of the piston into rotary motion. He figured it out that this would save two-fifths of the steam, and so stated in his application for a patent, a copy of which ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... than from any one else, because we are acquainted with you. If I do take the measles and anything happens to me Felicity is to have my cherry vase. I'd rather give it to the Story Girl, but Dan says it ought to be kept in the family, even if Felicity is a crank. I haven't anything else valuable, since I gave Sara Ray my forget-me-not jug, but if you would like anything I've got let me know and I'll leave instructions for you to have it. The Story Girl has told us some splendid stories lately. I wish I was clever like her. Ma says it doesn't matter ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Inglis & Spencer's 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... of the first week after she came, Mrs. Twiddler concluded to churn. The hired man spent the whole day at the crank, and about sunset the butter came. They got it out, and found that there was almost half a pound. Then Mrs. Twiddler began to see how economical it was to make her own butter. A half pound at the store cost thirty cents. The wages of that ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... member of the Cambridge Fabian Society, and held the posts of Secretary and President in turn. His socialism was accompanied by a passing phase of vegetarianism, and with the ferment of youth working headily within him he could hardly escape the charge of being a crank, but "a crank, if a little thing, makes revolutions," and Brooke's youthful extravagances were utterly untinged with decadence. He took his classical tripos in 1909, and after spending some time as a student in Munich, returned to live near Cambridge at the Old Vicarage ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... jump over the front railing of the car. Another deluge of missiles struck the car. He noticed that his friends were safely aboard. Andy noticed, too, that the crank handle of the motor box ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... experimental engine, constructed in less than a couple of hours, which appears in Fig. 38, consists of a coil, C, strapped down by a piece of tin to a wooden bedplate; a moving plunger, P, mounted on a knitting-needle slide rod, SR; a wire connecting rod, SR; a wooden crank, K; and a piece of knitting-needle for crank shaft, on which are mounted a small eccentric brass wipe, W, and a copper collar, D. Against D presses a brass brush, B1 connected with the binding post, T1; while under W is a long strip of springy brass against ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... slightly concave, so that it will fit on the outside of the cylinder. Two 1/8-inch holes are drilled in this piece as shown in the drawing. The hole at the top is the steam entrance and exhaust for the engine; that is, when the cylinder is at one side steam enters this hole, and when the crank throws the cylinder over to the other side steam leaves through the same hole after having expanded in the cylinder. This cylinder block is soldered to the piston as shown in Fig. 56. The pivot upon which the cylinder swings is ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... and Tony were ambitious of knowing how to handle tools. One day he took hold of the coffee-mill, which some clumsy fellow had only half nailed up in the kitchen, so that, whenever the coffee was ground, whoever turned the crank was sure to bruise his knuckles against the wall. Mrs. Spangler and her daughters of course did all the grinding, and complained bitterly of the way the mill was fixed. Besides, it had become shockingly ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... willow wands. Every moment it appeared that they must go. Lord Claymore stood watching them, and now and then taking a glance at his enemies, and though cool and collected, seeming positively to revel in the excitement of the scene. The wind was abeam; and the frigate, which proved herself but a crank ship, heeled over till her hammock-nettings dipped in the seething, foaming waters, which bubbled and hissed up through ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... to pull up stakes and go out West, where there's patriotism and decency still, and where they'd hang one of these foreign anarchists to the nearest lamp-post, yes, sir, and this fellow Frazer, too, if he encouraged them in their crank notions. Got no right in the country, anyway. Better deport 'em if they ain't satisfied with the way we run things. I won't stand for preaching anarchism, and never knew any decent place that would, never since I was a baby in Canada. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... of wood, and try surfacing them off with a file. When you place the two filed surfaces together after the first trial both will be convex, because the hands, in filing, unless you exert the utmost vigilance, will assume a crank-like movement. The filing test is so to file the two blocks that they will fit tightly together without rolling on each other. Before shaping and planing machines were invented, machinists were compelled ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... sense; he may love his friends with an elective, personal sympathy, and not accept them as an adjunct of the station to which he has been called. He may be a man, in short, acting on his own instincts, keeping in his own shape that God made him in; and not a mere crank in the social engine-house, welded on principles that he does not understand, and for purposes that he does ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the hungry fires, the cyclopean push of steam in eight vast boilers, the pulsing click and travail of the engines—whisper of valve and cylinder, noiseless in-plunge and out-glide of shining rods—the ten-foot stroke of either shaft and equal sweep of crank, the nimble beat of paddle-wheels and tumble of their cataracts, the tranquil creep of tiller-ropes, and the compelling swing and sage guidance of ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... base, and wedging the upper portion outwards three inches towards the ship's side. There the connecting-rod jammed. Meantime, the after engine, being as yet unembarrassed, went on with its work, and in so doing brought round at its next revolution the crank of the forward engine, which smote the already jammed connecting-rod, bending it and therewith the piston-rod cross-head—the big cross-piece that slides ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... good talking. Still I must say it's a pity that folks who have got religion don't take more comfort out of it. Now there's mother; she's a pillar in the church, and a good woman, I believe, but she's dreadful crank sometimes, and worries about things as she hadn't ought to. Now it seems to me, if I had all they say a Christian has, and expects to have, I'd let the rest go. They don't half of them live as if they took more comfort than I do, and ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson |
