"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I shall tell you, that the fishing with a natural-fly is excellent, and affords much pleasure. They may be found thus: the May-fly, usually in and about that month, near to the river-side, especially against rain: the Oak-fly, on the butt or body of an oak or ash, from the beginning of May to the end of August; it is a brownish fly and easy to be so found, and stands usually with his head downward, that is to say, towards the root of the tree: the small black-fly, or Hawthorn-fly, is to be had on any hawthorn bush after the leaves ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... keeping abreast of the boats as well as they were able, crying out taunts and imprecations; and one, more zealous in his passion, went to the top of a hill and struck the earth three times with the butt of his gun,—the registration of a mighty oath against the ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... mistress of the king. This made me impatient, and by degrees deprived me of my natural gaiety. One day when the king was with me, he perceived my want of spirits. "What ails you?" said be, with the greatest solicitude. "What ails me!" replied I, "I wish I were dead, rather than see myself the butt of all the scandal of the foul-mouthed gossips of your court." The king, suspecting the confidence I was about to repose in him, was sorry he had asked for it, and was silent. He began to play a tattoo with his fingers ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... found that some of the Genoese team were old friends, for in the morning I had seen them in the water and on the sand at the Lido, and wondered who so solid a band of brothers could be. Then they played a thousand pranks on each other, the prime butt being the dark young Hercules with a little gold charm on his mighty chest, which he wore then and was wearing now, who guarded the Genoese goal and ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... his master-stroke. "Jennie explained to me that she was a free-lover; she told me all about free love. I told her I didn't believe in it, but you know, Sadie, when Jennie believed in anything, she would stand by it and act on it. So I felt certain it wouldn't do any good for me to butt in." ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... the midst of the pursuers and very nearly found the death which he sought. He was wounded in several places: he was struck to the ground; and in another moment his brains would have been knocked out with the butt end of a musket, when he was recognised and saved. The colonists lost only twenty men killed and fifty wounded. They took four hundred prisoners, seven pieces of cannon, fourteen barrels of powder, all the drums and all the colours of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... ten minutes, then, with the dagger in his hand, he walked cautiously towards my hammock. He was within 3 metres of me when I jumped up, seizing Filippe's rifle, which I had placed by my side in the hammock. With the butt I struck the Indian a ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... convictions—and, confound it! they were the convictions of England, after all—met with scurrilous derision; and here Master Randall nursed a dull and inarticulate resentment in a world out of joint, where the winning side was a butt for epigrams. To win, and be laughed at! To have the account reopened in lampoons and witticisms, contemptible but irritating, when it should be closed by the mere act of winning! It puzzled him, and he brooded over it, turning sulky in the end, not ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... opened 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
... and ire he rose to mete out justice to this highwayman. Had the butt of his whip hit Shelby he would have seen more stars than twinkled overhead. But it didn't. It was caught in one hand, given a dexterous twist and sent flying into the road as Shelby said in ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... who, though brown, considered herself a white woman, insisted on marrying either him or his servant Richard. Being above twenty, she was considered past her prime; but had it not been for her stoutness, which made her look like a walking water-butt, she would really have been handsome. Finding that neither of the white strangers would accept her offers, she endeavoured to entrap them by giving a wife to Pasco, by which, according to the customs of the country, she obtained some sort of claim over his master. ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... near by, they wanted to become acquainted with their neighbors. One of them made up an errand and went into the new house and asked for a light for his pipe. But as soon as he got inside the door the sheep gave him such a butt that he fell head foremost into the hearth. Then the pig began to bite him, and the goose to nip and peck him, and the cock upon the roost to crow and chatter, and as for the hare, he was so frightened that he ran about aloft and on the floor and scratched and ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... entirely of huge red cedar logs it was two 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 roof. Even the hinges and ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... larger than common. The bony buttresses of the forehead over the eyes, too, as they rose above the strong lower face, were emphasised, looking truly as though, if tongue and pen failed to make a way, the shoulders could push one, and, if worse came to worst, the head would butt one. Next to Luther was a head of Christ; then in the same line, with nothing in the position or quality of the pictures to indicate that the subjects were any less esteemed, a row of royal personages, whose military trappings were ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... light of a 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 ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... stopped whirring for half an hour and I sat and ate my frugal meal, listening eagerly to the talk going on about me. Sometimes the girls made me the butt of their jests, for they were envious of me, because of my easy job, and hinted that I was not getting this snap for nothing. All of this I did not in the least understand, for I was not much ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... very 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 ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... the bed, she would amuse herself with pulling off the pillow-cases. Then she would butt her woolly head among the pillows, until it was covered with feathers sticking out in all directions. She would climb the bedpost, and hang head downwards from the top; wave the sheets and covers ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... describe the where— Young, slender, and pack'd easily, he lay, No doubt, in little compass, round or square; But pity him I neither must nor may His suffocation by that pretty pair; 'T were better, sure, to die so, than be shut With maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... and found her on the portico, in her riding-habit. She was whipping one of the maids with the butt end of her riding-whip. I rushed up and released the poor creature, whose cries were really heart-rending, when my wife turned on me, like a fury, and struck two blows over my head. One of the scars is on my ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... Jap's voice became savage. "You come along with me—quick an' quiet. This old Colt ain't loaded, but ef I hit you over the head with the butt of it, ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... it, in spite of you, and I know to whom to apply. Do you think you can play fast and loose with me and my love? No, no! I used to believe in you; I turned, a deaf ear to your traducers. My mad passion for you became known; I was the jest and the butt of the town. But you have opened my eyes, and at last I see clearly on whom my vengeance ought to fall. He was formerly my friend, and I would believe nothing against him; although I was often warned, I took ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... and put the butt down in the trench bottom, slipped his bayonet out, and holding the rifle near the muzzle with one hand, with the other placed the point of the bayonet to the trigger of the rifle. He removed it instantly and returned it to ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... an arm, bringing a howl of pain and several minutes of cursing. The unexpected resistance, once the surprise was over, infuriated the rum-sodden men. One of them yelled: "Sock him; Shorty!" A ray-gun's butt was slapped down on Friday's head; the negro rolled over, stunned. Then he was picked up without resistance and borne out into the night, where fantastic figures cavorted around the ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... not do for me to find merit in American manners —for are they not the standing butt for the jests of critical and polished Europe? Still, I must venture to claim one little matter of superiority in our manners; a lady may traverse our streets all day, going and coming as she chooses, and she will ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... some running stream, where there is plenty of red willow, has been fixed upon for a camping-place, and a fire has been lighted, the squaws cut a quantity of the willow, and, making a rude framework of the larger branches, of which the butt-ends are fixed firmly into the ground, and the small ends bound together to look like a small dome, they weave the smaller branches and twigs in and out until the whole affair looks like a great leafy basket turned upside down. The entrance ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... butt of Mr. Wilson's unwieldy sarcasms. Robertson, he tells us, was the "principal of the University High School of Edinburgh,"—an institution of which we do not remember ever to have heard before. He is especially indignant that "Robertson—a Presbyterian minister!" (the Italics and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... six-foot odd in his stockings, straight, stalwart, and confident. His face is broad and strong, his close-cropped head is firm and proud on his shoulders—firm and proud as a young bull's. It is a head made, indeed, rather to butt than to think with; it is visited with no effeminacy of thought or dream. It has another striking quality: it is hardly distinguishable from any other head in the room—for I am in an assemblage of true men all, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... another quarter of an hour, when all at once, as if struck by an electric shock, it flashed across my mind, "Peradventure, I might be lost for the night!" and be obliged to make my bed in Open Desert. I have seen in my life-time people strike a dead wall, as a convenient butt against which to vent their ill-disguised rage. I now must have a victim for my vexation. It was not wanting. I felt something heavy and dragging in my pocket. The half hour's running about had reminded me of some until now ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... wits, musicians and literati whom a traditional morgue still excluded from many aristocratic houses. Yet in spite of his hospitality (or perhaps because of it) the Procuratore, as Odo knew, was the butt of the very poets he entertained, and the worst satirised man in Venice. It was his misfortune to be in love with his wife; and this state of mind (in itself sufficiently ridiculous) and the shifts and compromises ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... "In the old attacks you used to see the British dead lying outside the machine-gun emplacements like birds outside a butt with a good shot inside. Now, these ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... in so many yeres they have nott founde the menes to make a bourse! but must walke in the raine, when ytt raineth, more lyker pedlers then marchants; and in thys countrie, and all other, there is no kynde of pepell that have occasion to meete, butt they have a plase meete for that pourpose." Indeed, Clough got quite excited over the thought that London, of all cities in the world, possessed no decent accommodation for merchants transacting their everyday business, and declared ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... glued to his seat in mingled fear and wrath. Was he to be the butt of those overbearing sophomores? He thought he could do nothing but hang on with all his might. The ascending student jumped upon the fourth bench and, reaching up, laid hold of Ken with no gentle hands. His grip was so hard that Ken had difficulty in stifling a cry of pain. This, however, ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... contents into his palm—four loaded shells, suety and slick with grease, and one that had been recently fired; and it was discolored and flattened a trifle. Each of the four loaded shells had a small cap like a little round staring eye set in the exact center of its flanged butt-end, but the eye of the fifth shell was punched in. He turned the empty weapon in his hands, steadying its mechanism, and as he did so a scent of burnt powder, stale and dead, came to him out of the fouled muzzle. He wrinkled his nose and ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... variety of individualities a herd of cows presents when you have come to know them all, not only in form and color, but in manners and disposition. Some are timid and awkward and the butt of the whole herd. Some remind you of deer. Some have an expression in the face like certain persons you have known. A petted and well-fed cow has a benevolent and gracious look; an ill-used and poorly-fed one a pitiful and forlorn look. Some cows have a ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... had his hand on the butt of the .44 Magnum under his left armpit, and he even had time to be grateful, for once, that it wasn't a smallsword. The women were in the back seat, frozen, and he yelled: "Duck!" and felt, rather than saw, both of them sink down onto the floor ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... Half-a-dozen rifles rang out in different directions, and in an instant West suffered for his thoughtless unselfish act, for he felt as if someone had struck him a cruel blow with a sjambok across the face from the front, while someone else had driven the butt of his rifle with all his force full upon his shoulder-blade—this blow from the back driving him forward upon his knees and then causing him to fall across Ingleborough. Then for a few moments everything seemed ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... down, making a lunge with his sword, sure of killing his adversary. But the old fellow, squarely hitting the blade, the point of which would have pierced his stomach, turned it aside, and with the butt end of the whip struck the soldier a sharp blow on the temple and he fell to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... thrill, The master thundered, "Hither, Will!" Like wretch o'ertaken in his track, With stolen chattels on his back, Will hung his head in fear and shame, And to the awful presence came—— A great, green, bashful simpleton, The butt of all good-natured fun. With smile suppressed, and birch upraised, The thunderer faltered—"I'm amazed That you, my biggest pupil, should Be guilty of an act so rude! Before the whole set school ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... should 'ave been there to see it. They were all round me and two taubes over 'ead watching my movements. Swish! and my bayonet went through the man in front and stabbed the identity disc of another. When I drew the bayonet out the butt of my 'ipe[3] would 'it a man behind me in the tummy. Ugh! 'e would say and flop bringing a mate down with 'im may be. The dead was all round me and I built a parapet of their bodies, puttin' the legs criss-cross and makin' loop 'oles. Then they began to bomb me from the other side. 'Twas ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... animals frequently give us great trouble? Whenever a wild pig, a tiger, or a buffalo, takes it into his head to scratch himself, he uses one of our telegraph-posts if he finds it handy. Elephants sometimes butt them down with their thick heads, by way of pastime, I suppose, for they are not usually fond of posts and wire as food. Then bandicoots and porcupines burrow under them and bring them to the ground, while kites and crows sit on the wires and weigh them down. ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... has rather unfairly caricatured, as Vadius in Les Femmes savantes, the great scholar Gilles Menage, whose Dictionnaire etymologique, published in 1650, was long a standard work. Moliere's mockery and the fantastic nature of some of Menage's etymologies have combined to make him a butt for the ignorant, but it may be doubted whether any modern scholar, using the same implements, could have done better work. For Menage the one source of the Romance languages was classical Latin, and every word had to be traced to a Latin word of suitable form ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... across the hall, and Isabel Boncassen followed him very slowly. When she entered the room she found him standing with a cue in his hand. He at once shut the door, and walking up to her dropped the butt of the cue on the floor and spoke one ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... sighs, contemplated the front of the Superfluous Mansion. It was not the first time that she had thus stood afar and looked upon it, like our common parents at the gates of Eden; and the young man had already had occasion to remark the lively slimness of her carriage, and had already been the butt of a chance arrow from her eye. He hailed her coming, then, with pleasant feelings, and moved a little nearer to the window to enjoy the sight. What was his surprise, however, when, as if with a sensible effort, she drew near, mounted the steps, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... much feared, the cold steel? The momentary hesitation ended the debate, for the Guard was almost upon him. Quickly he prepared for the shock, and, parrying the Hun's first thrust, he gave him the upward stroke with the butt of his gun; but the Hun kept coming, and he quickly brought his gun down—his second stroke cutting the head with the blade of his bayonet. The Prussian reeled but was not finished, and as he came again our friend pricked ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... man's as ill as that, I have no desire to butt in for an interview," he said. "Oblige me by ascertaining at your earliest convenience whether or not I may be of service to Mr. Kent in ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... wounded, in the hat brim. And this gave rise to a most amusing scene. Robert Fulton was a driver to the limber of the third gun. He was a large, soft, man, and was, by no means, characterized by soldierly bearing, or warlike sentiments. On the contrary, he was something of a "butt," and was always desperately unhappy under fire. He could dodge lower off the back of a horse at sound of a shell, than any man living. His miraculous feats, in this performance, afforded much diversion, whenever the guns went under fire, to us all, except ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... right hand swept to his revolver holster and came on upward clutching the weapon's butt. The movement was so quick that before those who were looking at him really grasped its meaning the hot rocks were bandying echoes of the report. The Mexican was sliding from his saddle, quite dead. The outlaw was spurring his pony ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... 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. ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... torch, pulled out the wick and stamped it into a patch of burnt ground, threw the torch back from the fire line, and started clubbing the fire out of the grass with the butt of ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... made a detour through the woods so as to approach the cabin on the side away from the path, where there was little likelihood of those inside keeping a lookout. Very cautiously they advanced from the concealment of the woods, Frank Brandon with his right hand on the butt of a deadly looking automatic pistol. They crept close to the wall of the cabin, and listened intently for some ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... said, gravely, with the calm which presages a storm; "our Royal person must be no butt for raillery. This sceptre appears light, my lords, but he who ridicules it shall be crushed thereby as with a block of iron. I believe that our holy father the Pope is somewhat indebted to us, so that we do not fear his displeasure ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the boy leapt convulsively from Nurse Beaton's arms, rushed blindly into the wall and endeavoured to butt and bore his way through it with his head, screaming like a wounded horse. As the man and woman sprang to him he shrieked, "It'th under my foot! It'th moving, moving, moving out" and fell to ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... crude. They didn't have to be crude. They just let him butt his head against a stone wall. Everything he tried was blocked, or else it didn't lead anywhere. Like this Berlin Conference. It's a powder keg. Dad gambled everything on going there, forcing the delegates to face facts, to really put their cards on the table. Ever since the United Nations ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... — Naisi and his brothers. LAVARCHAM. We are lonely women. What is it you're wanting in the blackness of the night? NAISI. We met a young girl in the woods who told us we might shelter this place if the rivers rose on the pathways and the floods gathered from the butt of the hills. [Old Woman clasps her hands ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine, robust old man, was knocked clean down by it as if it had been the butt ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... think well and wisely about a poker will begin somewhat as follows: Among the live creatures that crawl about this star the queerest is the thing called Man. This plucked and plumeless bird, comic and forlorn, is the butt of all the philosophies. He is the only naked animal; and this quality, once, it is said, his glory, is now his shame. He has to go outside himself for everything that he wants. He might almost be considered as an absent-minded person who had gone ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... however small they may be, provided that they do but amount to half-a-dozen, you will invariably meet with a bully. And it is also generally the case that you will find one of that society who is more or less the butt. You will discover this even in occasional meetings, such as a dinner-party, the major part of ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... of authority and influence uttered with such terrible license. He attacked the gods, the politicians, the philosophers, and the poets of Athens; even private citizens did not escape from his shafts, and women were subjects of his irony. Socrates was made the butt of his ridicule, when most revered, and Cleon in the height of his power, and Euripides when he had gained the highest prizes. He has furnished jests for Rabelais, and hints to Swift, and humor for MoliEre. In satire, in derision, in invective, and bitter scorn, he has never been surpassed. No modern ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... George Hardy being at William Morse his house, affirm that ye earth in ye chimny cornar moved and scattered on us. I was hitt with somewhat; Hardy hitt by a iron ladle; somewhat hitt Morse a great blow, butt itt was so swift none could tell what itt was. After, we saw itt was ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... the rest of us war either gashed by thar knives or had got ugly cracks. However, six of them war lying in the boat when we hauled it alongside; two war stone-dead, the other four had been stunned with the butt ends of the muskets, or cut down by the darkies' sabres. We took 'em down to the next place and handed 'em over to the sheriff; and as thar happened to be a lot of boats waiting thar for the wind, you may guess it warn't many hours afore they ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... he became interested in Bertie, when that young adventurer insisted on showing him an automatic 44-calibre pistol. Bertie explained the mechanism and demonstrated by slipping a loaded magazine up the hollow butt. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Singularly disposed, he ever after treated these gifts with virulent ridicule, and never was heard to utter any serious remarks concerning this transaction. The clairvoyant after this event was the butt of his satire and jests, and received them without revenge so long as Henry remained, which was about five years—a reckless, abandoned, evil-minded person, eventually severed by that same power which he strove incessantly to ridicule. All these strange operations ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... help gaping. Somehow one didn't associate Voules with engagements. Then it struck me that I'd no right to butt in on his secret sorrows, ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... wake, and find my neighbour with his head upon my shoulder. It seems a shame to cast him off; he looks so trustful. But he is heavy. I push him on to the man the other side. He is just as happy there. We roll about; and when the train jerks, we butt each other with our heads. Things fall from the rack upon us. We look up surprised, and go to sleep again. My bag tumbles down upon the head of the unjust man in the corner. (Is it retribution?) He starts up, begs my ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... for Kirstie and the credit of the Elliotts. And again she had a vision of herself, the day over for her old-world tales and local gossip, bidding farewell to her last link with life and brightness and love; and behind and beyond, she saw but the blank butt-end where she must crawl to die. Had she then come to the lees? she, so great, so beautiful, with a heart as fresh as a girl's and strong as womanhood? It could not be, and yet it was so; and for a moment her bed was horrible to her as the sides of the grave. And she looked ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shall pasture the ewes, There the spotted goats browse, And the kids shall arouse In their madness of play; They shall butt, they shall fight, They shall emulate flight, They shall break with delight O'er the mountains away. And there shall my Mary With her faithful one tarry, And never be weary In the hollows ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sprang forward, flew across the gang-plank just as it began to move, and leaped on deck with such energy as to run his head full butt into the chest of a passing ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... writers—not only those who compose his following—as a person of extraordinary attainments, a sort of super-man towering over the minor magicians of his day. Contemporaries, however, take him less seriously and represent him rather as an expert charlatan whom the wits of the salons made the butt of pleasantries. His principal importance to the subject of this book consists, however, in his influence on the secret societies. According to the Memoires authentiques pour servir a l'histoire du Comte de Cagliostro, Saint-Germain was the "Grand Master of Freemasonry,"[446] and it was ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... smiled wearily. "Let's go and see the men at drill," he remarked. "We've got a corporal here who's A1 at instruction." As we passed, the sentry brought his right hand smartly across the small of the butt of his rifle, and, seeing the Major behind us, brought the rifle to ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... was against the side of the fort. Then, instead of using it as a battering ram, they lifted it higher until, with an exertion that must have been very great, it was raised even with the log wall. A combined effort rested the butt on the support, the trunk sloping downward, until the top reached the ground, ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... right hand into the muzzle of an heavy gun, a fowling-piece of about six or seven foot barrel, did lift up the gun, and hold it out at arms end; a gun which the deponents, though strong men, could not, with both hands, lift up, and hold out, at the butt end, as is usual. Indeed, one of these witnesses was overpersuaded by some persons to be out of the way, upon G. B.'s trial; but he came afterwards, with sorrow for his withdraw; and gave in his testimony; nor were either of these ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... shuddered before, my heart stood still now with a nameless dread, for sure enough, from both the 'butt' and the 'ben' of the so-called ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... he was diving to the right, breaking his fall with the butt of his auto-carbine, rolling rapidly toward the cover of a rock, and as he did so, the thinking part of his mind recognized what was wrong. The tank-tracks had ended against the vine-grown side of the ravine, what he had ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... was quicker. He dug his 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 reined him in a few paces ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... with the Church," but they took the surest road to level it. They corroded the foundations of Christian belief. By encyclopedias and pamphlets they first attacked with sneer and jibe, the person of the priest, then the sacraments he administered became the butt of their mockery, and they finally flouted the gospel he preached. And while the agents of evil were busy, the good cures of France sounded no trumpet of alarm, but dreamed themselves into the comforting delusion that all would blow over, till the ground under ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... gripped the butt of his revolver. Then with a bitter smile he put it back in its place. Why should he hurt or kill anything that was alive? Death seemed sure enough for ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... &c. If men truly virtuous care to be rewarded for it, their virtue is but a poor investment of their moral capital. Was Job so happy then on that ash-heap of his, the mark of the world's scorn, and the butt for the spiritual archery of the theologian, alone in his forlorn nakedness, like some old dreary stump which the lightning has scathed, rotting away in the wind and the rain? Happy! if happiness be indeed what we men are sent into this world to ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... minutes there was a hand-to-hand fight, the Americans using the butt-ends of their muskets, the English their bayonets. The soldiers were exhausted with the climb up the hill and their exertions under a blazing sun, and the great majority of the defenders of the redoubt were, therefore, enabled to retreat unharmed, as, fresh and active, ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... of heroism: the collective behaviour of a crowd is of so much more importance to the world and so much more a test—if a test be wanted—of how a race of people behaves. The attempt to record the acts of individuals leads apparently to such false reports as that of Major Butt holding at bay with a revolver a crowd of passengers and shooting them down as they tried to rush the boats, or of Captain Smith shouting, "Be British," through a megaphone, and subsequently committing suicide along with First Officer Murdock. It is only a morbid sense of ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... Several times lately Olga had, so to speak, run full-tilt into Lucia, and had passed on leaving a staggering form behind her. And in each case, so Georgie clearly perceived, Olga had not intended to butt into or stagger anybody. Each time, she had knocked Lucia down purely by accident, but if these accidents occurred with such awful frequency, it was to be expected that Lucia would find another name for them: they would ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... to come out with the other Europeans, as he had something to tell him. Theodore sat upon a rock, about twenty yards in front of us; between him and ourselves stood a few of his high officers, and behind us a deep line of soldiers. He was still angry, breaking the edges of the rock with the butt-end of his lance, and spitting constantly between his words. He at once addressed himself to the Rev. Mr. Stern, and asked him, "Was it as a Christian, a heathen, or a Jew, that you abused me? Tell me where you find in the Bible that a Christian ought to abuse? When you wrote your book, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... corruption, for which I had once already been prosecuted, condemned, and punished. Confidently I demanded my release, and Philip must have ground his teeth in rage to see his prey escaping him, to see himself the butt of scorn and contempt for the wrongs that it became clear he ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... bays and a chestnut sorrel—the latter clearly a race-horse. They were all good horses. There were rifles leaning against the trees within reach of the sleeping men; and from under the coat which one of them was using for a pillow there stuck out the butt of a ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... exemplified what Goldsmith said of him, with the aid of a very witty image from one of Cibber's Comedies: 'There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it[847].' Another was this: when a gentleman[848] of eminence in the literary world was violently censured for attacking people by anonymous paragraphs in newspapers; he, from the spirit of contradiction as I thought, took up ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... that Lady Geraldine would feel the want of her butt; however, I found that Miss Tracey's place was supplied by Captain Andrews, one of the Castle's aides-de-camp; and when Captain Andrews was out of the way, Lord Kilrush and his brother O'Toole were good marks. High and mighty as these ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... from his shoulders, but he still had his pistol, and he kept one hand on the butt, resolved not to be taken. He heard the horsemen crashing here and there among the bushes and calling to one another. He knew that they pursued him so persistently because they believed him to be one who had spied upon ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was the butt of ridicule among the scholars because of his awkwardness, his simplicity, and his ingenuousness. His comrades dubbed him "Harry Oddity of Follyville," a nickname that carried no reproach with it, but was intended to express good-natured appreciation of his characteristics. Mr. Quick tells us ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... heavy sword and he hewed at the butt of the spear. The edge of the sword turned. The blade leaped back in his hand as if it had been struck against an anvil. And Jason, feeling within him a boundless and tireless strength, ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... better than owt, for a mon can bash t' faace wi' thot, an', if he divn't, he can breeak t' forearm o' t' gaard. 'Tis not i' t' books, though. Gie me t' butt.' ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... at him, then?" I insisted. "No, I beat him up with the butt of my gun for shootin' you," ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... her breath with a little gasp, for she saw Pobloff, with a quick writhe of his thin body, free his imprisoned right arm, and strike with the metal butt ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... away and any large lateral roots that are too large to bend well we cut them off, and we take all the fibrous roots we can and put them in this pot. Put your soil around it first, and when you have it nearly full, just the same as if you take your son and lay him on your knee and spank the butt good and put the soil around the roots. Then pack it with your thumb ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... knew where the 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 this ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... are removed by two ramrods, screwed together by the locking-bolt being omitted. I needn't again go over the twenty-four different screws, but, in ease of accident, it will be well to retain their various outside thread diameters in your memory, specially not forgetting that those of the Butt Trap Spring, the Dial Sight Pivot, and the Striker Keeper Screw, stand respectively at .1696, .1656, and .116 of an inch. Of course you will remember the seven pins, and that, if anything should go wrong with the Bolt Head Cover Pin, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... understand that a new-chum is, throughout the colonies, regarded as food for mirth. He is treated with good-humoured contempt and kindly patronage. He is looked upon as a legitimate butt, and a sort of grown-up and incapable infant. His doings are watched with interest, to see what new eccentricities he will develop; and shouts of laughter are raised at every fresh tale of some new-chum's inexperienced attempts and failures. Half the stories that circulate in conversation ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... a very simple residence. The main building is brick, two stories high and about twelve feet square. The walls are so loosely laid up that it seems as if a colored prisoner might butt his head through. Attached to this is a room for the jailer. In the lower room is a wooden cage, made of logs bolted together and filled with spikes, nine feet by ten feet square and perhaps seven or eight feet high. Between this cage and the wall ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... enough to excite the fancy of a sportsman. Dick's heart fairly leaped in his breast as he grasped the butt of his Purdy. ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... myself looking down at one of those thick-set Burmans whom I always associated with Fu-Manchu's activities. He lay quite flat, face downward; but the back of his head was a shapeless blood-dotted mass, and a heavy stock-whip, the butt end ghastly because of the blood and hair which clung to it, lay beside him. I started back appalled as ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... ran the faster for his pain and terror. Thus unnoticed and safe myself, I lifted my head slyly up, and with horror I beheld that the wolf had ate his way into the horse's body; it was not long before he had fairly forced himself into it, when I took my advantage, and fell upon him with the butt-end of my whip. This unexpected attack in his rear frightened him so much, that he leaped forward with all his might; the horse's carcass dropped on the ground; but in his place the wolf was in harness, and I on my part whipping him ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... fire." In taking aim in the offhand shots the gun's barrel was brought upward so the target was always in full view, and as the bead was drawn the body was tilted backward until an easy balance for the long barrel was found. The elbow of the arm against which the butt of the rifle rested was lifted high, awkwardly high, but this position prevented any nervous backward jerk or muscular movement of the arm that might sway the barrel. Only the weight of the forefinger was needed to spring the hair-trigger. When the gun-sights were nearing the tip of the black triangle, ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... out, so we slipped into a well of yellow mist and felt around for each 'other until a square block of light suddenly opened in mid air and four terrified women appeared in the doorway of the house through which the cabman was endeavoring to butt himself. They begged us to come in, and we did— Being Christmas and because the McCarthy's always call me "King" I had put on all my decorations and the tin star and I also wore my beautiful fur coat, to which I have ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... the flour was obtained, and the raisins; the beef-fat, or "slush," from Old Coffee; and the requisite supply of water from the scuttle-butt. I then went among the various cooks, to compare their receipts for making "duffs:" and having well weighed them all, and gathered from each a choice item to make an original receipt of my own, with due deliberation ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... from a rather disagreeable position, so that they were able to bring off a wounded trooper. Nightly the cavalry camp went to sleep in the belief that a general attack would open on the enemy's position at dawn. Day after day the expected did not happen. Buller had other resources than to butt his head against the tremendous entrenchments which were springing up before him. Everyone discussed every conceivable alternative, and in the meanwhile it was always 'battle to-morrow,' but never 'battle to-day.' And so it has continued until this moment, and the great event—the main trial ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... correct. Heavy spurred boot-heels crossed the porch floor; there was a thundering knock with the butt-end of a riding-whip on ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... black belt about his waist. Attached to the belt were at least a dozen weapons: several grenades, a pistol, another pistol with a flaring muzzle, a long knife, a glassy looking tube fitted to a pistol-butt, and a blue-black ugly thing which was shaped like an ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... motion in resuming order from any position; piece to strike ground gently. In resuming the order from any position in the manual, the motion next to the last concludes with the butt of the piece about 3 inches from the ground, barrel to the rear, the left hand above and near the right, steadying the piece, fingers extended and joined, forearm and wrist straight and inclining downward, all fingers of ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... him down" for a story; and as it requires more brains to tell a story than to sing a song, the poor butt made an ass of himself. He maundered and wandered, and stopped, and went on, and lost one thread and took up another, and got into a perfect maze. And while he was thus entangled, a servant came in and brought him a note, and put it in his hand. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... number front rank: butt between his feet, barrel to front. Even number rear rank passes piece to ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... taking some years to build. That belief was about the unlikeliest thing imaginable from every natural standpoint, with God left out. And God is practically left out, except as a very last questionable consideration, then, and ever since, and to-day. Probably Noah was the butt of gossip and ridicule, quite possibly of scandal and reproach, year after year, by the whole race; and he would feel it, and feel it for his family's sake. That boat and its dreaming builder were the standing joke of the time. He was regarded ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... such adjectives to Judas Maccabeus as to Jesus; and even St. Luke, who makes Jesus polite and gracious, does not make him meek. The picture of him as an English curate of the farcical comedy type, too meek to fight a policeman, and everybody's butt, may be useful in the nursery to soften children; but that such a figure could ever have become a centre of the world's attention is too absurd for discussion; grown men and women may speak kindly of a harmless creature who utters amiable sentiments and is ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... the Count was kept pretty busy for the next minute or so. He rushed, leaping and yelling, roaring and dodging, from side to side and corner to corner, and then made a frantic bolt for the outer staircase, but he had only got half-way up when his head fell with a splash into a water-butt below, while his body slid down to the bottom of the steps, where it lay ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... cases the name "Butts" refers to the fact of the land, under the common-field system, abutting on meadows or roads, e.g. "Butt-close," in the ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... that we need to cross by. The only problem is, whether our general is going to strike with his right arm at Mitchell's Ford, his left arm at this very Warrenton road we are on, or whether he means to butt the middle of the line of Beauregard's battle to break him ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... and I have often found particularly good shots to possess an almost telescopic vision. In the ordinary use of the rifle, the barrel is guided by the eye, but there are sportemen who fire with the butt of the gun at the hip. In this case, as in the use of the sling, the lasso, and the bolas, in hurling the knife (see Babinet, Lectures, vii., p. 84), in throwing the boomerang, the javelin, or a stone, and in the employment of the blowpipe and the ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... I got you?" cried he, as he almost throttled the man. "Get up now, an' come along peaceably. If you don't, I'll knock your brains out with the butt ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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, I made ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of temper, Carl brutally clubbed his assailant into insensibility with the revolver butt and dragged him heavily to the tonneau of his car, throbbing unheeded in the darkness. Having assured himself of his guest's continued docility by the sinister adjustment of a handkerchief, an indifferent ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... unregenerate mind Is proper soil wherein to seek and find The seeds of latent evil, which may spring— And springing, grow, till they destruction bring. Even so it was with WILLIAM'S carnal heart, Some mischief settled in its fleshy part. Nor was this all; he oft became the butt Of journeymen or 'prentice, who would glut Their hardened hearts by showing greatest spite 'Gainst him for following what he thought was right. Often that wicked youth, in wantonness, Would try all means to give him ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... practice of his craft. Insight into the physiological basis of his life-work can save the artist, it seems, from those periods of black despair which he once used to employ in running his head against a concrete wall, and raging impotently because he could not butt through. Now, instead of laying his futility to a mysteriously malignant fate, or to the persecution of secret enemies, he is likely to throw over stimulants and late hours and take to the open road, the closed squash-court, and the sleeping-porch. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... for the fence between the orchard and hen house, near the spot where Edith was standing. She had placed her right foot on the second board of the fence just ready to jump, when Jerry arrived just in time to take advantage of the opportunity presented. With one strong butt he hoisted her clear of the fence, landing her on all fours on the soft, plowed ground on the other side. She jumped up quickly, spitting out a mouthful of the soft earth she had scooped up. Bob and Edith ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... him in it, stalking through the terrible dances, a heroic figure at last. He shuddered every time he found himself on one leg; he got sternly into everybody's way; he was the butt of the little noodle of an instructor. All the social tortures he endured grimly, in the hope that at last the cork would come out. Then, though there were all kinds of girls in the class, merry, sentimental, practical, coquettish, prudes, there was no kind, he felt, whose heart he ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... wall-plate, averaged about 19 ft. for the 141/2-ft. circular sewer and 191/2 ft. for the 15-ft. sewer. The arch timber segments in the cross-section were 10 by 12-in. North Carolina pine of good grade, with 2 in. off the butt for a bearing to take up the thrust. They were set 5 ft. apart on centers, and rested on 6 by 12-in. wall-plates of the same material as noted above. The ultimate strength of this material, across ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... the Pyrenees and the Ebro: there were even dark suggestions as to the need of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons once for all. Interpreting these hints in the light of their own consciences, the King, Queen, and favourite saw themselves in imagination flung forth into the Atlantic, a butt to the scorn of mankind; and they prepared to flee to the New World ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... he called a fish-whip, made from the whipray, a fish quite new to us, but indigenous to these waters. With a body shaped like a flounder, it has a tail often ten feet long, tapering from about one inch in thickness at the butt to an eighth of an inch at the small end. When dried this resembles whalebone, and makes a good coach-whip. There is a great variety of fish in and about the Bahamas. We saw, just landed at Nassau, a jew-fish, which takes the same place here that the halibut fills at the North, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... do my best to see after Jane and to counteract the family.... I've not gone there or written, or anything yet, because I didn't want to butt in. But ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... criticised the musical conditions of Leipzig adversely. The progressive LISZTVEREIN, of which he was soon the leading spirit, alone escaped; the opera, bereft of Nikisch, and the Gewandhaus, under its gentle and aged conductor, were treated by him with biting sarcasm. But his chief butt was the Conservatorium, and its ancient methods. He asserted that not a jot of the curriculum had been altered for fifty years; and its speedy downfall was the sole result to be expected and hoped ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... and Miss Murdstone here, and got through them without disgrace. Before, and after them, I walked about—supervised, as I have mentioned, by the man with the wooden leg. How vividly I call to mind the damp about the house, the green cracked flagstones in the court, an old leaky water-butt, and the discoloured trunks of some of the grim trees, which seemed to have dripped more in the rain than other trees, and to have blown less in the sun! At one we dined, Mr. Mell and I, at the upper end of a long bare dining-room, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... to be broken out of the drifts and rolled upon the sleds with the aid of the men's canthooks. It was a mystery at first to Nan how they could get three huge logs, some of them three feet in diameter at the butt, on to the sled; two at the bottom and one rolled upon them, all being fastened securely with the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... would like to have thought and said, but did not," and, "Introducing to each other words which never had thought of being acquainted." Both of these perhaps hit the modern forms of the phenomenon even harder than they hit their original butt. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... breastplate, pauldron and palette, coudiere, taces and the rest, and have armed them with lance and shield, jewel-hilted sword and slim misericorde; while the Emperor himself might have been given the very suit of armour stripped from the Duke of Clarence before his fateful encounter with the butt of malmsey. ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... 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
... crowd, and would have been trampled in the mud beneath the feet of those who hated her lover had not Geoffrey Ripon darted from the ranks and snatched it up to his infinite peril, for the trooper at his side struck him with the butt of his carbine. "See," he said to Dacre, who was stalking on in unconscious revery; "see, she has thrown you a rose. Be of good cheer, man." And Geoffrey could not help thinking that if the one he loved had dropped a rose at his feet, ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... youngster cried, glowering into the speaker's face. "That the feller Buck called an outlaw passon?" he demanded. His right hand slipped to the butt of his gun. "Say you," he cried threateningly, "if you got anything to say I'm right here ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... unbearable. I had never done such work before, and was not built for it. I did my best to keep up with the gang, but my chest heaved and my heart beat as though it would burst. There were nineteen Irishmen in the gang—big, rough fellows who had picked me out, as the only "Dutchman," as the butt for their coarse jokes; but when they saw that the work was plainly too much for me, the other side of this curiously contradictory, mischief-loving, and big-hearted people came out. They invented a thousand excuses to get me out of the ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... innocent, too transparently a child of nature. Warrington, with all his sense and honesty, is rough; Pendennis is a bit of a puppy; Clive Newcome is not much of a hero; and as for Dobbin he is almost intended to be a butt. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... I mean—all the money I had left yesterday, and I 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 |
