"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the captain; and almost instantly I was laid prostrate and senseless upon the floor, by a blow from the butt ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... partial tempest, for to the very base of the mountain the same effects were visible. The trees on its side were of a much grander character than those in the forest, and consisted principally of black-butt and bluegum eucalypti measuring from six to eight feet in diameter. The rock was syenite, so weathered as ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... the foot which had prest down the Armatost, and lopt off the hands which had held the bow and fitted the quarrel, and plucked out the eyes which had taken the mark; and the living trunk was then set up as a butt for the archers. ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... long the butt of unkindly satire, have at last come by their own. Miss Bertha Bowlong, who was governess to the KAISER in the late "sixties," is shortly about to publish her reminiscences of her now all-too-notorious pupil. Strange to say it never occurred to her to set ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... I shan't easily forget the time before, when Billy was born, and I was shut up for a solid three weeks with your mother! Heavens! going about with a face like a funeral! Looking at me as if I was a monster every time I took up my hat to go out! I should think Vera Butt was a comfort to me! It wasn't as if you had been really ill. You know you were always saying you wanted to get up and come downstairs to be with us, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... children, her friends, her servants, to everybody. From the lofty height of her genius she scorns every womanly duty, and she is always trying to make a man of herself after the fashion of Mlle. de L'Enclos. Outside her home she always makes herself ridiculous and she is very rightly a butt for criticism, as we always are when we try to escape from our own position into one for which we are unfitted. These highly talented women only get a hold over fools. We can always tell what artist ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... when there were some final difficulties between the King and his Liberal Ministers over the exact wording of the oath of allegiance. The excitable Neapolitan populace forthwith became unmanageable. The Swiss Guards, who had long been the butt of the people, put down the revolt without mercy. Once more King Ferdinand was master. He hastened to dismiss his Cabinet and dissolved the Parliament before it could come to order. Orders were sent to General Pepe, who had marched to the front ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... into operatic heroes. Nebuchadnezzar appeared on the stage at Hamburg in an opera of Keiser's in 1704; Ariosti put him through his bovine strides in Vienna in 1706. He was put into a ballet by a Portuguese composer and made the butt of a French opera bouffe writer, J. J. Debillement, in 1871. He recurs to my mind now in connection with a witty fling at "Nabucco" made by a French rhymester when Verdi's opera was produced at Paris in 1845. ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a heap in the drawing-room of the furniture and books, to set first fire to; and are tearing up the floor for its more easily kindled planks, the less busily-disposed meanwhile hacking round in rage, with axes, and smashing what they can with butt-ends of guns. I do not care to follow with words the ghastly truth of the picture into its detail; but the most expressive incident of the whole, and the one immediately to my purpose, is this, that one fellow has sat himself ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... at this diversion, when the lover of Charlotta having his mind a little perplexed, placed his men so ill, that the chevalier beat him out at every motion. How is this, Horatio, cried he; you used to play better than I, butt now I have the advantage of you.—May you always have it, sir, replied he with the utmost respect, over all who pretend to oppose you.—Chess is a kind of emblem of war, where policy should go hand ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... declaration of war, the navy of the United States consisted of twenty vessels, of which the largest carried forty-four guns, and the majority rated under thirty. For years this navy had been a butt of ridicule for all the European naval powers. The frigate "Constitution" was scornfully termed by an English newspaper "a bunch of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting." Not long after ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Church, for all of them rest on the like untenable grounds. I did not wonder at finding the country abounding in unbelief. Now that the fires of the Inquisition have ceased to burn, the priesthood are made the butt and laughing-stock of those who are educated. Still, the national mind does not run toward the pure Gospel, which is here unknown and prohibited, but to infidelity and socialism. A sincere Protestant can have no sympathy ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... down on the edge of the mate's bunk, close against and facing the tiny table, he noticed the butt of a revolver just projecting from under the pillow. On the table, which hung on hinges from the for'ard bulkhead, were pen and ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... the butt of the gun, if he talks too much," Duff directed the bully, who had stepped back a few paces as the men formed a circle ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... bowmen of the Vine: there also were the wisest leaders, as the stark elder Stone- face, and the tall Hall-face, and his father of the unshaken heart, and above all Folk-might, fierce in his wrath, but his anger burning steady and clear, like the oaken butt on the hearth ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... seemed to have an intuitive perception that danger was approaching; for it turned abruptly round just as the missile left the seaman's hand, and received the butt with full force close to the root of ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... had to fear from the Sedition Act, appeared with startling suddenness in October, 1798, when Representative Matthew Lyon, of Vermont, an eccentric character who had become the butt of all Federalists, was indicted for publishing a letter in which he maintained that under President Adams "every consideration of the public welfare was swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, in an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice." The unlucky ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... passed on to their several destinations. A Quaker, fixing his eyes on Mr. Patten, and seeing his black dress, remarked, "Friend, thou hast been the trumpeter of rebellion to those men,—thou must answer for them." The moralizer was touched by a grenadier with the butt end of his musket, so that the "spirit fell into the ditch." But the Quaker was not rebuffed. "Friend," he said to the soldier, "thou art, I fear, no true friend to ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... produces a property lute. While they scrutinize it, a broad man with broad leathery clean-shaven face and small mouth, occupied by the butt end of a cigar, has come on to the stage from Stage Left, and stands ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... away, and shouting a command, started off through the jungle. Astro knew that the patrol had been ordered to move out, but he stood still, waiting for them to push him. They did. A hard jab in his naked side with the butt of a gun sent him stumbling forward in ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... 'that had not been to have acted Octavio to the life, but would have made a discovery.' 'Ah,' said she, 'that was your aim to have acted Octavio to the life, I believe, and not to discover my lady's constancy to your lord; but I suppose you have been sworn at the Butt of Heidleburgh, never to kiss the maid, when you can kiss the mistress.' But he renewing his caresses and asseverations of love to her, she suffered herself to be convinced of all he had a mind to have her believe. After this she could not contain any secret from ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... little Greener gun which he had used upon midwinter nights in a boat upon this very creek of the Salcombe estuary. He had brought down his first mallard with that, and he lifted it and slid his left hand along the under side of the barrel and felt the butt settle comfortably into the hollow of his shoulder. But his weapons began to talk over loudly in his ears, even as Ethne's violin, in the earlier days after Harry Feversham was gone and she was left alone, had spoken with too penetrating a note to her. As he handled the locks, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... military rank, "I fought under good King Henriot, and can play at sword and pistol as well as the worthy 'ligueurs';" and shaking his head he leaned against a post, his knotty staff between his crossed legs, his hands clasped on its thick butt-end, and his white, bearded chin resting on his hands. Then, half closing his eyes, he appeared lost in recollections of ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... camp-fire, and bargained. Because of fast traveling, the sick-train had no fresh meat; McTavish had no firearms. In ten minutes, a goodly supply of frozen rabbits had been packed on the north-bound train, and Donald once more caressed the butt of a revolver with one hand and the stock of a rifle with the other. He had promised to return them as soon as possible, along with the pocket compass that one man ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... stand erect, well balanced on the arches of the feet. The butt of the flag stick is held lightly in the right hand; the left hand steadies and directs the flag at a distance from six to twelve inches above the right on the stick. The length of the stick will determine the position of the left hand; ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... fifteen inches in diameter at what was now the butt, still sixty-five feet in length, and weighing, I roughly calculated, at least three thousand pounds. And then came the foremast, larger in diameter, and weighing surely thirty-five hundred pounds. Where was I to begin? Maud stood ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... knowledges adjacent and confining. If therefore the true end of knowledge not propounded hath bred large error, the best and perfectest condition of the same end not perceived will cause some declination. For when the butt is set up men need not rove, but except the white be placed men cannot level. This perfection we mean not in the worth of the effect, but in the nature of the direction; for our purpose is not to stir up men's ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... or started to tell him, why, and was knocked flat in a second. He sprang up, knife in hand, and rushed upon him a second time, only to be floored again, and the knife sent spinning. Willett seized it, and was standing over him, panting a bit, when felled by a crashing blow with a pistol-butt at the base of the skull. Then in terror Case fled the way he came, for he saw both Indians and Mexicans were on him, realized that murder was meant, and knew he would be involved unless he could instantly get back to his bed. Willett made a desperate ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... but began to laugh softly, as though pleased at the curious turn which the conversation was taking; and Prasville felt a vague misgiving at observing that fit of merriment. He grasped the butt-end of his revolver and wondered whether he ought ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... roared and tumbled below. The eyes of Ohquamehud gleamed with ferocious satisfaction as he beheld his foe in his power. Thrice he raised the rifle to his shoulder, after carefully examining the priming, and as often let the butt slide gently to the ground, pausing a little while each time between, and never taking his eyes off the victim. This conduct might be mistaken for irresolution. Far from it. The fell purpose of the savage never burnt more intensely; his hatred was ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... follow his course, as he makes off as if for Berwick and the sea. Once or twice he leaps clean into the air, a flying bar of silver. Then he sulks at the bottom, a mere dead weight, attempting devices only to be conjectured. A common plan now is to tighten the line, and tap the butt end of the rod. This humane expedient produces effects not unlike neuralgia, it may be supposed, for the fish is off in a new fury. But rush after rush grows tamer, till he is drawn within reach of the gaff, and so on to the grassy bed, ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... horses. The young man was waiting for him, and as soon as the Dragon had taken the Princess by the hand to carry her off he spread the salve upon his back, pressed him against the wall, and set his dogs upon him. At the same time he belaboured him with the butt-end of his musket, till the Dragon was quite exhausted and began to beg off, promising to give a written agreement never again to molest the Princess. When he had written the paper in his own blood and signed it ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... through the head or heart lies as if he were in a deep slumber; insomuch that when you gaze upon him you experience little else than pity. But of these, many had met their deaths from bayonet wounds, sabre cuts, or heavy blows from the butt ends of muskets; and the consequence was, that not only were the wounds themselves exceedingly frightful, but the very countenances of the dead exhibited the most savage and ghastly expressions. Friends and foes lay together in small groups of four or six, ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... it and removing the silk. Then blanch it for 3 to 5 minutes in boiling water and cold-dip it quickly. Cut the kernels half way down to the cob and scrape out what remains after cutting. For best results in this operation, hold the ear of corn so that the butt end is up; then cut from the tip toward the butt, but scrape from the butt toward the tip. Next, pack the jars tightly with the corn, pressing it into them with a wooden masher. Unless two persons can ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... moved softly around the corner of the table, and slowly tiptoed toward the door. Tierney had not heard a sound, yet he instantly became as alert as Morgan. He stood ready for a quick move, if necessary, while his right hand rested on the butt of the revolver in ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... to my recollection. The first moment at which I became definitely sure, Clara had been suffered to fall against the outside of my little tent, Northmour and I were tumbling together on the ground, and he, with contained ferocity, was striking for my head with the butt of his revolver. He had already twice wounded me on the scalp; and it is to the consequent loss of blood that I am tempted to attribute the sudden clearness of ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I raked pine or spruce needles together for a bed, but in the winter I used green pine or spruce boughs, putting heavy, coarse ones on the bottom, planting their butt ends deeps in the snow. Upon these I placed smaller twigs, which gave "spring" to my couch, and finally I tufted it with the soft, tender tips of the branches. Never have I rested better on mahogany beds than I did ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... get far. Soldiers barred the great green folding-doors. Colonel Espinasse hurried thither, the commander of the gendarmerie came up. The butt-ends of a pair of pistols were seen peeping ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... latch creaked and snapped behind them and, slowly and cautiously, the wooden shutter began to open outward. In an instant Harvey had raised his rifle and struck the resounding board a fierce blow with the butt. The door flew back, crashing in violent contact against the grizzled pate of Moreno himself, who, with a howl of mingled rage and anguish, fell back ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... horror of a nightmare—what a haggard eye you would have rolled over your reluctant shoulder towards the house on Beretania Street! Had you gone on; had you found every fourth face a blot upon the landscape; had you visited the hospital and seen the butt-ends of human beings lying there almost unrecognisable, but still breathing, still thinking, still remembering; you would have understood that life in the lazaretto is an ordeal from which the nerves of ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lambs, or sheep new shorn. I ask not ortolans, or Chian wine, The fat of rams, or quintessence of swine. Her spicy stores let either India keep, Nor El Dorado vend her golden sheep. And to the mansion house, or council hall, Still on her black splay feet may the huge tortoise crawl. Not Parson's butt my appetite can move, Nor, Bell, thy beer; nor even thy nectar, Jove. If B*** be happy, and in health, his guest, Whom wit and learning charm, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... hath his quiver full of them; and frankly gave her notice that, as his utmost efforts could scarcely maintain their existing family, if she ventured to present him with any more, either single, or twins, or triplets, or otherwise, he would most assuredly drown him, or her, or them in the water-butt, and take the consequences. ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... partook of the change, and I well recall how he came to me just before he landed, in a kind of grenadier uniform, with sword and musket and belts, drawing himself up very stiff and proud-looking as he let down the butt-end of his firelock with a ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... behind? What! have you lost your sense with your estate? Me!—look on me—come from the same condition! How sleek! how neat! how clad! in what good case! I've ev'ry thing, though nothing; naught possess, Yet naught I ever want."—"Ah, Sir, but I Have an unhappy temper, and can't bear To be the butt of others, or to take A beating now and then."—"How then! d'ye think Those are the means of thriving? No, my friend! Such formerly indeed might drive a trade: But mine's a new profession; I the first That ever struck into this road. There are ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... Junior, butt first," I said. I looked him in the eye with all the glare I had. He ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... said the Douglas. "I would sooner bare my breast, within flight shot, as a butt to an hundred Tynedale bowmen. No, by St. Bride of Douglas! I could but say I saw the ill fated youth dead. How he came by his death, your Grace can perhaps better explain. Were it not for the rebellion of March and the English war, I would speak my ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... all events imagine that he was the object of love. In the present piece accordingly he pays his court, as a favoured Knight, to two married ladies, who lay their heads together and agree to listen apparently to his addresses, for the sake of making him the butt of their just ridicule. The whole plan of the intrigue is therefore derived from the ordinary circle of Comedy, but yet richly and artificially interwoven with another love affair. The circumstance which ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... on the last day of November, we met with an English ship, and because it was too late that night, it was agreed that they were to give us two or three tons of wine next morning, being, as they said, all the provision of drink they had, save only a butt or two which they must reserve for their own use: But, after all, we heard no more of them till they were set on ground on the coast of Ireland, where it appeared they might have spared us much more than they pretended, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... spur cruelly into his little pony's flank. With a neigh of pain the animal leaped forward. For a moment there was a tangle of striking hoofs and wriggling coils of the foiled reptile, while Charley leaning over in his saddle struck with the butt-end of his riding whip at the writhing coils. Though it seemed an eternity to the helpless watchers it was really only a few seconds ere the pony sprang away from its loathsome enemy and Charley with difficulty ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... cultured men are to be pitied, for they are ever the butt, byword and prey of the untaught, who are often the knowing. As success came to Southey he lost the sense of values, that is to say, the sense of humor. He attacked Byron with great severity, and Byron's reply ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Irish Party, is still a well-known figure in the world of politics; but my friend Mr. A. M. Sullivan, who died some years ago, belonged rather to the more moderate regime which prevailed in the Irish Party during the leadership of Mr. Butt. ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... expect to meet with anything like "Aunt Sally" among May-day games, especially with the "May Lady" for butt! But not the least curious part of a very curious account of May-day in Huntingdonshire, which was sent to Notes and Queries some years ago, is the pelting of the May Lady as a final ceremony of the festival. The May-garlands carried round in Huntingdonshire villages appear ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the man never talks, when he can butt his ideas into you like that without ever saying a word. I suppose he uses that kind of smokeless powder on his wife all the time. But I guess she has her innings." He chuckled, and Olaf looked up. "Never ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... one of those stupid crushes," he began, "where all the people outside are trying to butt their way in, and all those inside are wishing to heaven that they were well out again—like so many June bugs and millers on a summer night bumping against both sides of a window with a candle in it?" Hilbrough finished with a humorous little chuckle ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... nigger!" muttered my kinsman of Southern blood. "Impudent dog! I would like to crack his head with the butt of this musket! Hear how he wagged his ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... rude, these gay-spirited young people, but a girl who couldn't play Fox and Geese seemed to them a justifiable butt for ridicule. Determined to succeed, Delight ran from one to another, arriving just too late every time. The unfamiliar exercise wearied her, her cheeks glowed pink with mortification at her repeated failures, and her breath came quickly, but she ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... would have fought if they had seen us; for as soon as we came near enough to be seen, some arrows were shot, and poor old Friday was wounded, though not dangerously. But our men gave them no time, but running up to them, fired among them three ways, and then fell in with the butt-ends of their muskets, their swords, armed staves, and hatchets, and laid about them so well that, in a word, they set up a dismal screaming and howling, flying to save their lives which way ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... copied the cut of his coat and the tie of his cravat; even the awful heads of houses looked leniently on his delinquencies. The gay, hearty, handsome young English gentleman carried a charm about him that subdued everybody. Though I was his favourite butt, both at school and college, I never quarrelled with him in my life. I always let him ridicule my dress, manners, and habits in his own reckless, boisterous way, as if it had been a part of his birthright privilege to laugh at me ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... with an instinct that sleep could not deny, his left hand kept clasped around the butt of ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... were again sounded; and now it became evident that the leak was rapidly gaining. The general opinion of the men was that the labouring of the brig in the short sea had strained her so seriously as to open more or less all her seams, or that a butt had started. They pumped away for another hour; and then, feeling pretty well fagged out, and finding on trial that the leak gained upon them with increased rapidity, they left the pumps, and began to clear away the boats. The mate made a strong effort to persuade ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... a sinner," exclaimed Sir Everard, springing to his feet, and knocking the butt of his rifle on the ground with a movement of impatience. "Sambo, you young scoundrel, it was all your fault,—you moved your shoulder as I pulled the trigger. Thank Heaven, however, the aim of the Indian appears to have been no better, although ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... him and tried to engage him in talk. He was not asked to dinner again for six weeks; and Fiche, my lord's confidential man, to whom Wagg naturally paid a good deal of court, was instructed to tell him that if he ever dared to say a rude thing to Mrs. Crawley again, or make her the butt of his stupid jokes, Milor would put every one of his notes of hand into his lawyer's hands and sell him up without mercy. Wagg wept before Fiche and implored his dear friend to intercede for him. He wrote a poem in favour of Mrs. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... meaning, apparent only to Galloway folk of the ancient time, in the word "cuif." It conveys at once the ideas of inefficiency and folly, of simplicity and the ignorance of it. The cuif is a feckless person of the male sex, who is a recognized butt for a whole neighbourhood to sharpen its ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... any importunate fellow, neither by Cratinus,(5) shaven in the fashion of the debauchees, nor by this musician, who plagues us with his silly improvisations, Artemo, with his arm-pits stinking as foul as a goat, like his father before him. You will not be the butt of the villainous Pauson's(6) jeers, nor of Lysistratus,(7) the disgrace of the Cholargian deme, who is the incarnation of all the vices, and endures cold and hunger more than thirty days in ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... St. Ronan's Well were renowned of old, and are still credited. The lunatic walks round the Temple of St. Molonah, whose ruin near the Butt of Lewis remains. He is sprinkled with water from the well, is bound, and placed on the site of the altar for the night. A cure is expected, if he sleep; if not, the fates are considered adverse, and he returns home. My authority, Dr. ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... the blade loose. Only just in time, for a burly man in a fez was swinging at his head with a rifle butt. Ken ducked under his arm, turned smartly and bayoneted him ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... and he arranges his defences, not forgetting to lay in a large stock of water. The savages return in force, and then—this is most important—at the most thirsty moment of the siege it is discovered that the water is all gone! Generally a stray arrow has pierced the water-butt, but in Masterman Ready the insufferable Tommy has played the fool with it. (He would.) This is the Hero's great opportunity. He ventures to the spring to get more water, and returns with it—wounded. Barely have the castaways wetted their lips with the precious fluid when the attack ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... means of taking the trout were very primitive. They had neither hooks nor lines, but depended entirely on a contrivance made from long, slender branches of willow, which grew on the banks of most of the streams. One of these branches would be cut, and after sharpening the butt-end to a point, split a certain distance, and by a wedge the prongs divided sufficiently to admit a fish between. The Indian fisherman would then slyly put the forked end in the water over his intended victim, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... beside some alder bushes, and smoking his pipe. "You don't mean that the angler is there," exclaimed I. "Yes, I do though," replied mine host, "and see, he has just got a bite." Sure enough the sedentary sportsman put forth one of his hands just as these words were uttered, and grasping the butt of a willow wand, seemed to give it a slight hitch in the air; but no results followed. It was quietly laid aside again, and the ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... vnto you; for in this wind, neither can Reare-admirall Kempthorne come to you, nor you beginne your voyage. I am glad you like Lucan so well. I wish more military men could read him; in this passage you mention, there are noble straynes; and such as may well affect generous minds. Butt I hope you are more taken with the verses then the subject, and rather embrace the expression then the example. And this I the rather hint unto you, because the like, though in another waye, is sometimes practised in the king's shipps, when, in desperate cases, they blowe up the same. For though ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... and etc. He had a better memory than a loan shark, and a encyclopedia would look stupid alongside of him. No matter what the subject was, this guy knowed more about it than the bird which wrote it and would butt in with the figures to prove it. Fin'ly, when I struck a match and he tells me they is 9,765,543 of them used in New York every fiscal year, I went out ...
— Alex the Great • H. C. Witwer
... hours, from playing him all kind of little pranks. Petrea was especially rich in such inventions; and he was too kind, too much delighted with their pleasure, not willingly to assist, or even at times allow himself to be the butt of their jokes. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... rough Northumberland, I dare your quenchless fury to more rage. I am your butt, and I ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... is of oak or other hard wood. Fig. 1 represents it opened for use; in Fig. 2 it is closed for transportation. A is a stout canvas, forming the back and seat; b, b, b are iron butt-hinges; c, c are leather straps, one inch and a quarter wide, forming the arms; d is an iron rod, with nut ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... answered smilingly; "a sore chest he may have tomorrow, but dead he is not, for I turned the lance-point back as I spun it, and it was the butt-end I threw at him!" ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... down on cobbled streets thronging with ordered ranks of men standing ready to move. Here and there a few officers spoke together, or a man gave his chum a light from his fag, or straps were tightened. A rifle butt rang on the pavement, and the adjutant's horse moved his feet restlessly. These men had no illusions as to what they would probably have to face; but none guessed that there lay ahead the most dreadful test of physical endurance which the old battalion, since the great retreat, ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... about to locate it. It was hanging on a nail at the opposite end of the table,—and Joe stood just beside it. She had no desire to waken his suspicions of her fear. She knew she must put up a bold front, at least. Nevertheless her fingers longed for the comforting feel of its butt. She resolved to watch for ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... decidedly tiresome very butt Solomon infection bluff Czar short although Caesarism ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... position, and standing before a glass, he endeavoured, the pistol in his right hand, to bring the muzzle to bear on his left temple. He found this impossible, and signified his annoyance with a grunt. Then he tried the pistol with his thumb on the trigger and his hand clasping the back of the butt. Here he was ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... carry, and betook themselves home to their old father. When he saw again his twelve sons, whom he had never expected to see more, he was so glad that he wept for joy. The brothers told him how much Esben had done, and how he had saved their lives, and from that time forward he was no longer the butt ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... Butt-in!" said he, "I ain't through wid you—not by a whole lot I ain't. Oh, I'll get ye yet, an' I'll get ye good! There won't be nothin' left for nobody else when I'm through wid you. Savvy this—there ain't nobody ever goin' t' queer me with Hermy Chesterton. Oh, I'll get ye ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... chap. You've got over it, as I always told her you would. Young men out of story-books don't die of broken hearts, even if for a month or two they do feel like standing on their head in the water-butt." ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... mighty and powerful, had never to do with me. As to the other, I know it by sight, and that's all. Beasts feel it; the shepherd Cratis, having fallen in love with a she-goat, the he-goat, out of jealousy, came, as he lay asleep, to butt the head of the female, and crushed it. We have raised this fever to a greater excess by the examples of some barbarous nations; the best disciplined have been touched with it, and 'tis reason, but ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... drink, was at the kitchen door fumbling at the butt of his pistol, while his sister had Doctor Jim's gun levelled at ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... life! The fiery old governor strode up and down the chamber with a vehemence that made the bosoms of his councillors to quake with awe; railing at his unlucky fate, that thus made him the constant butt of factious subjects and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... miscreant was, and he determined to chance it. He silently clubbed his Winchester, brought it back over his left shoulder, and, concentrating his utmost strength in his arms, brought down the butt of ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... serpent stung him, and the poison-tree dropped upon this little western flower: when the mercenary servile crew approached him, he had no pedigree to show them, no rent-roll to hold out in reversion for their praise: he was not in any great man's train, nor the butt and puppet of a lord—he could only offer them 'the fairest flowers of the season, carnations and streaked gilliflowers,'—'rue for remembrance and pansies for thoughts,'—they recked not of his gift, but tore him with hideous ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... beyond that natural to a starless night. In the southwest faint glimmerings of lightning gave warning of what might be looked for; but we had used light well while we had it, and could now bear what was to come. At 2 P.M. it came with a roar and a rush, "butt-end foremost," as the saying is, preceded by a few ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... so squeamish these days," he drawled, with a slow smile. "He sartin desarved it in the throat. That Pole 'n' me's goin' to butt agin each other some more. I never was wuth shucks when it comes to justice . . . an' I allus suffer fer it after. Look at Bilsy, an' Dutch Henry, an' a ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... unpleasantly modulated voice asks us to say our prayers, adding that we are on the point of going to Glory with our boots on. I think perhaps there may be some truth in this, as the mouth of a horse-pistol almost grazes my forehead, while immediately behind the butt of that death-dealing weapon I perceive a large man with black whiskers. Other large men begin to assemble, also with horse-pistols. Dr. Hingston hastily explains, while I go back to the carriage to say my prayers, where there is more ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... men here," said Ambrose. "Do what you're told without asking questions. If you make a racket you'll be cracked over the head with the butt of a gun." ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... when he was in full kick, he balanced himself with difficulty, and sent it at the lock with all the force of his arm, and of course broke the door in. In throwing the stone, he lost his balance, came full butt against Dr. Mulhaus, propelled him into the passage, into the arms of the surgeon, who was rushing out infuriated to defend his property, and down went the three in the passage together, the two doctors beneath, and the drunken sawyer on ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... a butterfly net in two sections and the deeply scalloped, silver-trimmed butt of a sporting rifle. Edelweiss adorned his green felt hat; a green tin box punched full of holes was slung from ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... accompanied by heavy skirmishing; and the action began to be general all along the lines. The American army was disposed in three lines of battle; the first extended in front of their earthworks on Butt's Hill, the second in rear of the hill, and the third as reserve a half-mile in the rear of the advance line. At ten o'clock the battle was at white heat. The British vessels kept up a fire that greatly annoyed the Americans, but imparted courage to the Hessians and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... to a lively repast, and Lorraine found herself, instead of an awe-inspiring, distinguished guest, treated with a frank camaraderie that was both amusing and refreshing. They all made a butt of Hal, who was quite equal to the three of them; and when the giant paraphrased one of her (Lorraine's) most tragic utterances on the stage into a serio-comic dissertation on a fruit salad they were eating, lacking in wine, she laughed as gaily as any, and ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... If they were pitted against each other, my bet would be laid on the tiger, though my sympathy might be with the lady. I am not a prophet. I cannot tell you the end of the story. Maybe the fool moose-calf will butt its brains out against the trunk of the tree. That would be no fault of the tree. The tree was there first, and was minding its own business. Maybe the calf will butt and get hurt, and scamper for home. Maybe it ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... "Hey, douse that butt! Can't you ... oh, Mac!" The commanding voice trailed off in a chuckle. Better to clown his way through the inspection, MacNamara thought, than to let Ruiz notice his nervousness. The co-pilot, Ruiz, walked toward ...
— Tight Squeeze • Dean Charles Ing
... stories in height, the first house of more than one story standing on the shores of the southern Ohio. Its roof was the wonder and envy of the whole region for many years. The shingles were of black walnut, elegantly rounded at the butt-ends. They were fastened on with solid walnut pegs driven in holes bored through both the shingles and the laths with a brace and a bit. For there was not a nail in Cedar House from its firm foundation to its fine ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... followed, and then in uncontrolled rage Werner and Glutts attacked Jack and Gif. Half a dozen blows were exchanged, and then Glutts attempted to run away while Werner attempted to use the butt of his gun as a club. Andy tripped Glutts up, and Spouter caught Werner from behind, and as a consequence of the general mix-up the two bullies received a well-deserved drubbing. Then their weapons were discharged and their ammunition was taken ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... mine.' 'Where did you get it?' I asked. 'In San Jacinto,' was his reply. As he still came towards me, brandishing the knife, I drew my gun, and said, 'Stop, or I'll shoot!' He did not stop, and I fired; still he did not stop, so I fired again; and as he did not fall, I knocked him down with the butt of my gun. After he was down, I shot him twice with ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... a gap in the fence about the PADI field. It consists of a bamboo spear of which the end is sharpened and hardened in the fire. This is laid horizontally about two feet from the ground, resting on guides. Its butt end is lashed to one end of a springy green pole at right angles to its length; the pole is laid horizontally, one end of it being firmly fixed to a tree, and the other (that carrying the spear) bent forcibly backwards ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... with some curious results. One of the favourite objects of ridicule of the past essayists was the virtuoso. There was something to them inexpressibly absurd in a passion for buying odds and ends. Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay made a special butt of Dr. Woodward, possessor of a famous ancient shield and other antiquities. Equally absurd, they thought, was his passion for fossils. He made one of the first collections of such objects, saw that they really had a scientific interest, and founded at Cambridge the ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... he would speak to his mother and make it easy for me, and Ply says he really meant it; but I thought then that's the way the bad ones always get the others into concealments and lies. So I wouldn't listen a moment, and I ran down, with him after me, saying, 'Hear reason, Mysie.' And I ran full butt up against some-body—Lord Ormersfield it was, I found—but I didn't know then. I only said something about begging pardon, and dashed on, and opened the door. I saw a whole lot of fine people all at five-o'clock tea, but I couldn't stop to ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his mouth with the butt end of her willow riding-switch, to find out what he had in his cheek-pouches. An onion and a few marrowfat peas rolled out, and the little girl, kneeling ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... not keep you. Do I need any proof of your cleverness? Keep for me the flowers of your wit. Show to others no fine surface to call forth flattery, compliments, or praise. Come to me, laden with hatred or scorn, the butt of calumny, come to me with the news that women flout you and ignore you, and not one loves you; then, ah! then you will know the treasures of ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... subordinate, had been increased, it took so rude a form that the ludicrous was not always easily distinguished from the humorous. The Fool was a strange mixture of both, varying from a mere idiot and butt to a man of genius, far superior to his masters. He made shrewd remarks, and performed senseless antics, the city fool, on Lord Mayor's day, was to jump clothes and all into a large bowl of custard. To a certain extent he generally corresponded with his name in ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... brought him down, a tumbling flurry of wings, like Satan's fall from Heaven. When I ran out to possess myself of his Satanic body he was only wounded, however, and was ready to show fight. Then I saw red again. I clubbed him with the gun-butt, going at him like fury. I was moist with perspiration when I got through with him. He was a monster. I nailed him with his wings out, on the bunk-house wall, and Olie shouted and called Dinky-Dunk when they came back from rounding up the horses, which had got away on the range. ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... he—the last-comer. And once more Fred suffered all the pangs of jealousy. It seemed to him that in his loneliness, between sky and sea, those pangs were more acute than he had ever known them. His comrades teased him about his melancholy looks, and made him the butt of all their jokes in the cockpit. He resolved, however, to get over it, and at the next port they put into, Jacqueline's letter was the cause of his entering for the first time some discreditable ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to you, but it is to me, if you don't mind," he persisted. "I—I made sure you'd know why I didn't—send you any word or—or anything. But if you didn't see it the right way, I've got to tell you now. It was because—of course, it was because—I just didn't dare butt in. I was afraid you'd feel, if I had the cheek to write a note, or follow up and speak to you in the hotel, that I was—kind of takin' advantage of what was an accident—my luck in gettin' a chance to do a little thing for you. A mighty small thing; 'twouldn't have been visible ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the mess-room shortly after daybreak on a bright June morning with that imposing but at most times useless item of cavalry equipment clanking at his heels, the lieutenant gazed with some astonishment upon the attire of his brother-officers there assembled, but found himself the butt of much good-natured and not over-witty "chaff," directed partially at the extreme newness and neatness of his dark-blue flannel scouting-shirt and high-top boots, but more especially at the glittering ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... succeeded Davenant as Poet Laureate,[10] and Howell as Historiographer, with a yearly salary of two hundred pounds. This place he lost at the Revolution, and had the mortification to see his old enemy and butt, Shadwell, promoted to it, as the best poet the Whig party could muster. If William was obliged to read the verses of his official minstrel, Dryden was more than avenged. From 1688 to his death, twelve ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... hanging on by the rigging, their butt ends every now and then striking against her with so terrific a force that I feared they must before long drive a hole through the planking. As far as I could make out through the thick gloom, some ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... in the nicest point,—his self-love. Besides irritating vanity, a constant flow of wit is excessively fatiguing to the listeners. A witty man is an agreeable acquaintance, but a tiresome friend. "The wit of the company, next to the butt of the company," says Mrs. Montagu, "is the meanest person in it. The great duty of conversation is to follow suit, as you do at whist: if the eldest hand plays the deuce of diamonds, let not his next neighbour dash down the king of hearts, because his hand is full of honours. I do ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... as my head in places and very heavy. It was what we call "blue-joint," mixed with a large coarse grass that grew three square at the butt. I got to the scythes where they had been mowing, told father I could mow that grass, took his scythe, cut a few clips and bent the blade very badly. (He often told afterwards, how much stronger I was than he, said he could mow the stoutest ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... his social position, and that he may have felt privileged to take liberties with Goldsmith as his countryman and college associate. It is evident, however, that the peculiarities of the latter, and his guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery of some of his associates; while others more polished, though equally perfidious, are on the watch to give currency to ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... was returned; and ere the smoke rose a cheer rang through the ravine, and Riley fell with a swoop on the intrenchments. With bayonet and butt of musket, the Second and Seventh drove the enemy from his guns, leaping into his camp and slaughtering all before them. Up rushed Smith's own brigade on the left, driving a party of Mexicans before them, and charging with the bayonet straight at Torrejon's cavalry, which was drawn ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... everyone else had become tired of them. She did not expect gratitude, nor did she get it. In spite of her dependence, Louie managed to convey the impression of Henrietta's inferiority, and the children spoke of her as a butt. ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... are generally used, and should be from the tips of the branches where the wood is not too large. Commence at the back part of the shelter, and lay down a row of the boughs with the butt of the branch towards the front. Overlap these with another nearer row and continue the operation, laying the evergreen as evenly as possible until the whole interior is smoothly covered. The projecting ends at the front, should now be secured by the weight of a medium sized log, ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... let go his sheet and began to paddle back. This bolsa was nothing but a bundle of tule, or bullrush, bound together with grass-ropes in the shape of a cigar, about ten feet long and about two feet through the butt. With these the California Indiana cross streams of considerable size. When he came ashore, I gave him a good overhauling for attempting to desert, and put him to work getting breakfast. In due time we returned him to his ship, the Ohio. Subsequently, ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... perfectly, and know how to convey by will, Estates, Real and Personal, and never forgett in its proper place, him and his heirs forever.... But after all what can I do if a poor Creature lies a-dying, and their family takes it into their head that I can serve them. I can't refuse; butt when they are well, and able to employ a Lawyer, I ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... party, Michael Dennin, contributed his Irish wit to the gayety of the cabin. He was a large, powerful man, prone to sudden rushes of anger over little things, and of unfailing good-humor under the stress and strain of big things. The fifth and last member, Dutchy, was the willing butt of the party. He even went out of his way to raise a laugh at his own expense in order to keep things cheerful. His deliberate aim in life seemed to be that of a maker of laughter. No serious quarrel had ever vexed the serenity of the party; and, now that each had sixteen hundred dollars to show ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... the voice they had just heard did not belong to the man for whom they were looking the rioters remained silent with surprise, and during this short interval Sam brought the butt of his gun to the floor with unnecessary force in order that there might be no question ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... and no sooner did I cry to God, but the child gave over weeping, and when we got up from prayer, the rain was pouring down on every side, but in the way where we were to go there fell not one drop; the place not rained on was as big as an ordinary avenue." And so great a saint was the natural butt of Satan's persecutions. "I retired to the fields for secret prayer about midnight. When I went to pray I was much straitened, and could not get one request, but 'Lord pity,' 'Lord help'; this I came over frequently; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... powerful glare was truly awful. Our people told us, that these formidable animals frequently upset canoes in the river, when every one in them was sure to perish. These came so close to us, that we could reach them with the butt-end of a gun. When I fired at the first, which I must have hit, every one of them came to the surface of the water, and pursued us so fast over to the north bank, that it was with the greatest difficulty imaginable we could keep before them. Having fired a second time, the report ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... go up to the hill cafay when our daily hike was done, And sip his beer, and chin with the lads, the crabby son-of-a-gun; He'd growl if you asked him to hold the light, he'd snarl if you asked for a butt, Till at last the gang was 'most ready to put Jim down for ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... he called me up to whip me; called me into his dining-room, locked the doors, then ordered me to pull off my shirt. I told him no, sir, I wouldn't; right away he went and got the cowhide, and gave me about twenty over my head with the butt. He tore my shirt off, after I would not pull it off; he ordered me to cross my hands. I didn't do that. After I wouldn't do that he went and got his gun. and broke the breech of that over my head. He then seized up the fire-tongs and struck me over the head ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... martyr is evident from the words of Pitt himself. In one of his speeches, having accused his rival of filling his speech with everything that was personal, inflammatory, and invidious, he remarked:—"I am not surprised if he should pretend to be the butt of ministerial persecution; and if, by striving to excite the public compassion, he should seek to reinstate himself in that popularity which he once enjoyed, but which he so unhappily has forfeited. For it is the best and most ordinary resource of these political apostates ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... threw a stone at the Established Church, let him die the death. Christianity must be steadily, even ferociously supported; in the policing of an unruly world it was indispensable. But the perennial butt of the paper was the fool who "went about doing good." The young men who lived in "settlements," for instance, and gave University Extension Lectures—the paper pursued all such with a hungry malice, only less biting than that wherewith day ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the chest, and then goes on with his grazing without looking round, leaving the tank for dead, as by all human standards it should have been, of course. But instead of being dead the box of tricks ups and gives the donk another butt and moves on. That roused the mule properly. He closed his eyes and laid into the tank for dear life; you could hear it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... The Mayor looked blue; So did the Corporation too. For council dinners made rare havoc With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock; And half the money would replenish Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. To pay this sum to a wandering fellow With a gipsy coat of red and yellow! "Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink, "Our business was done at the river's brink; We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, And what's dead ...
— The Pied Piper of Hamelin • Robert Browning
... Rowe the credit of having altered "butt" to boat, and "have quit it" to had quit it, in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... lives, apparently, that a poor man on foot might not be able to talk German, which seemed to me an astonishing thing; and as I sat there ordering beer for myself and for a number of peasants (who but for this would have me their butt, and even as it was found something monstrous in me), I pondered during my continual attempts to converse with them (for I had picked up some ten words of their language) upon the folly of those who imagine the world to be grown smaller ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... little kitten apiece; and there was "Old Billy," who once upon a time had been a frisky little lamb, Diddie's special pet; but now he was a vicious old sheep, who amused the children very much by running after them whenever he could catch them out-of-doors. Sometimes, though, he would butt them over and hurt them, and Major Waldron had several times had him turned into the pasture; but Diddie would always cry and beg for him to be brought back, and so Old Billy was nearly always ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... sharpening the weapon points as all that they were capable of, and had been bidden by Smallbones to turn and hold alternately, but "that oaf Giles Headley," said Stephen, "never ground but one lance, and made me go on turning, threatening to lay the butt about mine ears if ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to think of me as a friend, Miss Ross. I can see you are thoroughly capable and independent; but, believe me, India is not like England, and a white woman needs a good many things done for her here if she's to be at all comfortable. I don't want to butt in and be a nuisance; but just remember I'm ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... six ruffians gathered in the low room, lighted by a wretched lamp, was not very assuring, and Gerald kept his hand on the butt ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... his cool mien, his satire, were as giant's arms to drag Belllounds back from murder. The rifle was raised, the hammer reset, the butt lowered to the ground, while Belllounds, snarling ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... always did. How else should I walk? How do I walk that makes me so funny?" I asked, mortified at the thought of my having been the butt of secret ridicule. Henrietta was cordial ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... threatened them with a stick. The Town Councillors did not interfere, and the rabble passed bawling by the Pack-horse. Long before it came the Emigrant had recognised the ungainly man. It was Dicky Loony, the town butt. He had chivvied the imbecile a hundred times in just the same fashion, yelling "Black Cat!" after him as these young imps were yelling—though why "Black Cat" neither he nor the imps could have ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... over an undulating country of varied character, now extending in fine downs and plains, now covered with belts of thick Bricklow scrub, with occasional ridges of open silver-leaved Ironbark forest. Among the latter was a rather stunted gum-tree, with a black scaly butt; it was very frequent, and greatly resembled the Moreton Bay ash. The numerous watercourses which I crossed, were all dry; and, when the approach of night compelled us to select a camping place, which we did in a small ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... "Miss Hack-butt," he said, slowly. "I saw her the other day, and what he can see ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... youngster was a morbid sensitiveness in respect of anything like chaff. This was so marked that the least attempt at teasing was enough to send me away in a state of misery. My mates knew this, and accordingly often made me the butt of their cheap witticisms. When I spoke of the burrow and the resemblance of the gravel at its mouth to the diamondiferous soil in which we were working, this was made a pretext ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... have just one chance at them, that's all," grumbled Bob, as he let his hand fondle the butt of a modern repeating rifle, which he carried fastened to ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... vigorously against the proposal, on the ground that, if it were adopted, her name would sound just like Butt, which was already that of a contralto ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... attention to the felled tree once more, studying the innumerable teeth marks, like so many tiny chisel cuts, on stump and butt. Then they noticed the great chips lying about the stump, some of them half as big as ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... bounded gallantly over the sea, leaving in her wake a long silvery train of phosphoric light. Drawing no response from Mr. Higgins, the captain raised his night-glass and scanned along the heavens to the west. "We'll get somethin' out o' that quarter, butt end foremost," said the ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... dramatic piece attributed to Mr. Beddoes, and partaking largely of his well-known eccentricity and genius, called Death's Jest-Book or the Fool's Tragedy. A republication of Mr. Cottle's twenty-four books of Alfred, though the old pleasant butt and "jest-book" of his ancient friend Charles Lamb, is said hardly to deserve even so many words of mention. Nor is there much novelty in A Selection from the Poems and Dramatic Works of Theodore Korner, though the translation is a new one, and by the clever translator of the Nibelungen. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... couldn't get it out of him again, though I told him my distress about the stage-coachman? Did you ever know any thing so selfish? Did you ever know any thing so shabby, so shameful? And then to make me his butt, as he did last night at supper, because there were two or three dashing young men by; I think more of that than all the rest. Do you know, he asked me to eat custard with my apple-pie, just to point me out for an alderman's son; and when I only differed ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... universities that history, law, and usage with them form such a manifold, diversified, and complex mass, that it is not one subject but a world of subjects that we have to deal with in approaching them.' And he pointed out that if any clever lawyer such as Butt or Cairns were employed to oppose the bill systematically, debate would run to such lengths as to make it hopeless. This was a point of view that Mr. Gladstone's more exacting and abstract critics now, and ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... to a triangular indentation, which, with footmarks, was imprinted in the soft yellow sand at the foot of a small boulder; and taking the butt of his Winchester rifle, fitted it ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... Miss Scarlett went on. "I'm not used to it. To be left alone—oh, of course Billy Cox has been trying to butt in, but what good is he? My Hercules, my Roman Antony, who won my trusting heart last summer, at a time when I had just got it back from what I had thought a final and total loss—I find him away, and when he gets back, ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... overnight. He's hopping mad right now, because he can't say a word in his own defense, but if he doesn't make hell look like a summer holiday for Mr. Bill Peck, I'm due to be mercifully chloroformed. Good Lord, how empty life would be if I couldn't butt in and raise a little riot ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne
... lightning, and, swinging the butt of his rifle round—for the weapon was hanging over his right shoulder—struck the figure he could but dimly see beside him, and heard at once a dull thud as the wooden stock rapped the man's head violently. Then, with a dive, he gained the trees, and, pausing ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... impression was of a red, clawing hand that was closed around the thick butt of a tube of steel ... then down, and still down, he plunged into a bottomless pit of whirling, red ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... under censure by venturing, without his wife's authority, to lean forward and tap on the door-frame with the butt of his whip. At the sound, a shrill voice called instantly from the region of the stove pipe, "Clem! Clementina? Go to the front dooa! The'e's somebody knockin'." The sound of feet, soft and quick, made itself heard within, and in a few moments ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "They wouldn't be but two. 'T wouldn't take my team more 'n half a minute to butt the life out o' ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... confess what I'm doing. You may call me a baby, a fool, a crank or whatever you like,—I don't care. I've just got to see her, and this is the only way. Do you think I'd spoil things for her, now that she's made good? Think I'd butt in and queer it all? I'm no good, I'm a rotter, and I'm going to the devil as fast as I know how, Simmy. That's my affair, too. But I'm not mean enough to begrudge her the happiness she's found in spite of all us damned Tresslyns. Now, run along, Simmy, and don't worry about anything happening to ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon |
