"Rap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Georgia for retaining it. There appeared through this whole debate a great desire, in some of the delegates from the Eastern States, and in one from New Jersey, to insult the General," and a little later the Congress passed a "resolve which," according to James Lovell, "was meant to rap a Demi G—over the knuckles." Nor was it by commission, but as well by omission, that they showed their ill feeling. John ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... she had never breathed a word to her son, though it was present in her mind always, and occasioned her inexpressible anxiety and disquiet. She had caused the brass knocker to be screwed off the inner door of the chambers, whereupon the postman's startling double rap would, as she justly argued, disturb the rest of her patient, and she did not allow him to see any letter which arrived, whether from boot-makers who importuned him, or hatters who had a heavy account to make up against ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the rug tells me that a breeze has blown my papers off the table. A round thump is a signal that a pencil has rolled on the floor. If a book falls, it gives a flat thud. A wooden rap on the balustrade announces that dinner is ready. Many of these vibrations are obliterated out of doors. On a lawn or the road, I can feel only running, stamping, ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... all about it, and I don't care a rap," he answered. "Mon General, or rather, Monsieur le Directeur, you may consider yourself appointed, Jesuit or no Jesuit. We need men of your stamp to train up officers in ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... loved. I never forget how much you and papa love me. I couldn't exist without either of you. Papa is looking much better since he came down. Don't you think so? And I like to see love in the eyes of men I don't care a rap about. Their eyes are like impersonal mirrors for me to read the secrets of the future in. And I don't really hurt them. Most men have a lot of superfluous love in them. I may as well have it as another. It won't interfere with the destination of ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... rap about laws such as yours. As for gangs—that was what you were going to say—I'd snap my fingers in the face of Ike the Dropper himself if he were here. You could kill me, but I would ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... steep paved lane. Turning to the right, they entered a scale staircase, as it is called, the state of which, so far as it could be judged of by one of his senses, annoyed Mannering's delicacy not a little. When they had ascended cautiously to a considerable height, they heard a heavy rap at a door, still two stories above them. The door opened, and immediately ensued the sharp and worrying bark of a dog, the squalling of a woman, the screams of an assaulted cat, and the hoarse voice of a man, who ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... he was to deliver to some one who was to meet him on the quay, and show him a gold ring; the man with the gold ring supposed to be the Stadtholder! I tried to persuade our friend there was no great shame in being an agent of this sort; but he said with a light rap on the table that he wouldn't ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... sensible of his absurd position, caned by his enemy, and ridiculed by his friends, in whose cause he was suffering. On these occasions, he often made a run, open-mouthed, at the sailors; in return for which mutinous proceeding he was sure to get a smart rap over the nose from his own party, which more than counterpoised the anguish at the other extremity of his person, giving ludicrous occupation to both his hands, and redoubling the shouts of laughter at his expense. In short, ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... theron, saying, that you meane to cast all those three Balls into your mouth at once: and holding a knife as a penne in your hand, when he is laying vpon the poynt of your knife, you may easily with the haft rap him on the fingers, for the other matter will be ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... rarely honest with us, because it is imperfect, and unconsciously we tell the best account of things, but I fancy I was wondering on this text when there came at my door the sharp rap of bony, hurried knuckles. "Enter!" I said, and in marched the corporal of the guard. His hand went easily to the salute. He had a message in ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... dandy," replied the rook, with a hoarse laugh. "Don't get saucy, or I'll give you a rap on the head!" ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... later another rap sounded on the door, and again it opened before he could call. A shrewd-looking, rather trim old lady with carefully coiffed hair stood ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Butterwick going into Col. Coffin's office. I went over after him, while the man with the dog went in the opposite direction. Butterwick was in the back office; and as the front room was empty, I sat down in a chair until he got through with Coffin and came out. In a few minutes there was a rap ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... much like an invalid," said the forester; "you look wild enough, and know how to rap out an oath. So you are neither tradesman nor steward?" said he, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... thatch-roofed building—very plain but very homely. The clumsy string-lifted wooden door-latches, and the wooden pins fixing the framing, and which have never been cut off, but stick up some inches from the wall, are still all there. It was dusk before I got there. My rap at the door was responded to by the appearance of an old lady custodian, a descendent of the Hathaway family, who immediately busied herself to light a tallow candle. That being successfully accomplished, ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... of her toilet! I have often seen the poor wretch come out with red eyes from the closet where those long and mysterious rites of her ladyship's dress were performed, and the backgammon-box locked up with a rap on Mrs. Tusher's fingers when she played ill, or the game was ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... said, "you don't care a rap about spires. I don't believe you know anything about them. I don't. What did that idiot of a woman ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... concurred, giving Tom a rap on the shoulder. "And now you know, you won't tell? You won't tell that I've gone to New York?" he ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... spoke these words a rap on the ceiling made her raise her head, and a voice which reached her through the ceiling cried, "Dear Madame Bonacieux, open for me the little door on the alley, and I ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... she is now!" announced Mrs. Fisher cheerily. "Come in, Sarah," as a rap sounded on the door. "Our little girl is all ready for that good apple. ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... there's any call-down for a little humanity, I don't give a rap. You go get some dry clothes. I know Cap. Sawyer won't mind. You can be back here in five minutes. You've done enough to-day to deserve a little consideration, me boy. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... gun, there was the roar of the report, and all was darkness, again and again, while somehow—he could not tell how it was— the heat was intense, and Rodd threw up one hand, which came in contact with the top of his cot with a sharp rap. ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... is fifty rubles, take them. You are robbing your own companions, but you don't care a rap about that, for you'll have something with which to organize your own company. Here, take them, but that ends ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... anatomically loose; and when it is struck heavily, it turns and jars the brain, and the man who is struck feels as though the man who struck him had opened the top of his skull and taken his brains in his hand and wrenched them as a brakeman wrenches a brake. If you shut your teeth hard, and rap the tip of your chin sharply with your knuckles, you can get an idea of how effective this is when multiplied by an arm and all ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... be a ghost," said Edwin: "they do things of that kind, you know—turn tables and rap and so on. I've been thinking I must be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... to himself as he read this brief note. He knew now that Ben had been somewhere around. No doubt he had been peering through the window and watching him talking to the professor and his daughters. How he longed to get a rap at the cowardly cur. The pick-handle would not be necessary; oh, no, his fists would be sufficient. But Ben knew enough to keep out of the way and let ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... was no more puzzled than I was. Yesterday when I stood on the river-bank watching my cork, I cared not a rap whether George or Charles won, and that was an understandable position; but why a man should be spending money in handfuls, and roughing it in the wilds of Staffordshire, merely in order to know who was going to win, was ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... balls, indeed: we are much obliged to you," said the boys as they received them, and they proved them immediately. The balls struck the floor with a delightful sound, and rebounded higher than Mr. Gresham's head. Little Patty clapped her hands joyfully. But now a thundering double rap at ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... by a rap at the door, signifying the approach of another client; upon which the lady inquired for his private passage, through which she might retire, without the risk of being seen. When she understood he was deficient in that convenience, she withdrew into an empty room adjoining ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... feller from Simpson County out there mighty anxious to ride. He come up here on purpose to git that premium. Suppose you ride ag'inst him and show him that Simpson can't beat Warren.' Sam laughed like he was mightily pleased, and says he, 'I don't care a rap for the premium, Uncle Jim, but, jest to oblige the man from Simpson, I'll ride. But,' says he, 'I ought to 'a' known it this mornin' so I could 'a' put on my Sunday clothes.' And Uncle Jim says, 'Never mind that; you set your horse straight and carry yourself jest so, and the judges won't look ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... found his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half his fleshy incumbrance. Every one was at his ease, and a most uproarious chorus had just been sung by the whole strength of the company, when we heard the ominous sound of a quiet double rap at the outer door. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... fainted away. On reaching the house, Arthur had sent his servant (who had followed him with the horses) for the nearest surgeon; and while the woman was still employed, after taking off the sufferer's cravat, in burning feathers under his nose, there was heard a sharp rap and a shrill ring. Arthur opened the door, and admitted a smart little man in nankeen breeches and gaiters. He bustled into ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... much more cost than the value of the waste words they overlie, that one comes at last to groan and change color at the very sight of a package, and to dread the postman's knock as if it were that of the other visitor whose naked knuckles rap ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... What you've rammed down my throat all along. What you're thinking of now. You're not thinking of me; you're thinking of yourself, and how respectable you are, and how I've dished you. You don't want me to take my wife back because you care a rap about me and my children. It's because you're afraid. That's what it is, you're afraid. You're afraid of the rotten scandal; you're afraid of what people'll say; you're afraid of not looking respectable any more. You know what my wife's ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... thump!" a thunderous rap at the door of Shirley's shop brought the four girls on the run from the back room, where they had been doing the last of the ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... turn-up nose in a man. But his father's pretty well off. It would be nice to marry a whole store full of dry-goods and have a new dress every time you wanted one. I wonder where they have gone to! I believe I'll rap." ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... Rabbit cut 'im a long switch en trim it up, en w'en he get it fix, up he step en hit de Hoss a rap—pow! De Hoss 'uz dat s'prise at dat kinder doin's dat he make one jump, en lan' on he foots. W'en he do dat, dar wuz Brer Fox danglin' in de a'r, en Brer Rabbit, he dart out de ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... which brought on another and another until the speaker was drowned in a storm of contending yells. Their struggles to get the floor with bawlings, bellowings, and contortions, and the senseless rap of the Speaker's ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... probabilities in her sick dizzy mind, she heard soft steps outside her bolted door, and low voices whispering. It was the bedtime of happy people with hearts at ease. Some of the footsteps passed lightly on; but there was a gentle rap at Ellinor's door. She pressed her two hot hands hard against her temples for an instant before she went to open the door. There stood Mrs. Forbes in her handsome evening dress, holding a lighted lamp ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his feet high upon the side of the mantelpiece, his ready-made costume perhaps a little more unbuttoned than the strictest propriety might approve, and a stiff glass of whisky-and-water at his elbow, when there came a rap at his door. ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... Angel, "let's rap on the pane, and then when she looks up, we'll all stick our tongues out at her. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... would have come upon him with the same letter in his hand, his whole mind absorbed in its contents, especially the last paragraph: "Be here at seven o'clock, sharp; don't ring the bell below, just rap twice and I shall know it is you. I have to be very careful ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in a tone of such earnestness, as to cause West to glance toward him sharply. For an instant it was upon the lips of the younger man to ask a question, but Sexton turned away, and it remained unasked. Promptly at the time mentioned came the servant's soft rap on the door. ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... the man's pockets gave Brett a sharp rap, and when they separated with mutual apologies, he ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... full of compassion for the lovely sufferer, and rejoicing in the calm tranquillity that had just taken possession of her, when a little girl, the only child of Mrs. Hammond, opened the street-door to the rap of the bailiff He said he wanted to speak with Miss Melville, and the child answered that she would go tell her mother. So saying, she advanced to the door of the back-room upon the ground-floor, in which Emily lay; but the moment it was opened, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... preserved by a few grammarians. Bentley, in the first draft (1697) of the part of his famous 'Dissertation' treating of the fables of Aesop, speaks thus of Babrius, and goes not far out of his way to give a rap at Planudes, a late Greek, who turned works of Ovid, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... Father Tierney, "and that's for you to judge, general. It was the avenin' of the eighth, and I was sittin' in my parlour after Judy O'Flaherty's funeral, and having just parted with Father Lavalle at the Noviciate. And there came a rap, and an aide of Stonewall Jackson's—But whisht! maybe I am taking up your time, general, with things you ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... his big mouth, he was just going to bite her in two; but at that minute a little fat man, with a wand in his hand, popped out from behind the stump. It was Santa Claus, of course. He gave the bull such a rap with his wand that he moo-ed dreadfully, and then put up his fore-paw, to see if his nose was on or not. He found it was, but it hurt him so that he 'moo-ed' again, and galloped off as fast as he could into the woods. Then Santa Claus waked up the fairy, ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... ordered him to knock at the door. The boy contemplated disobedience; but a glance at Bounder's whip induced him to change his mind, and he gave the door a sounding rap. The door speedily opened, and Bounder's master appeared. But such was his disguise that Bounder was necessitated to rub his eyes. Divested of his coat, and enfolded in a leathern apron, "the Golden Shoemaker" stood in the doorway, with ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... thou bawler!" cried the Alderman, giving the younker a rap on his naked poll, in passing, with the end of his cane, that might have disturbed the harmony of one less bent on clamor. "A thousand windy trumpeters would be silence itself, compared to such a pair of lungs! How now Master Schipper, is this your punctuality, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... that the keeper is the guilty man—I go to the door and rap smartly on it. Some might think that we were rather late in thinking of the keeper, since our first business, after having found that the murderer had escaped us in the gallery, ought to have been to search everywhere else,—around the ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... I hear that other chap Congratulate himself because He gave "some time"—I'd like to rap Him once across his selfish paws! (Because I have met him— I want to ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... father," Hugh amusedly went on, "to the certainty of a row; and a row can only be good for us—I mean for us in particular." Yet he had to bethink himself. "The case depends a good deal of course on how your father takes such a resounding rap." ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... at his mentor, wonderingly, unwound his long legs from the fence and crossed the yard. Grandma answered his timid rap. ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... answered by a hearty laugh, and the recital of a verse, but I have forgot what it was, and my mother gave him a rap on the knee with her open hand, and said, "It was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... rap at the door, and in walked Wildney, as he often did after the rest were gone to bed, merely slipping his trousers over his night-shirt, and running ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... 'Why should we want books when we have the men themselves to tell their tales to us? Would you give a rap to possess a set of Shakespeare if William himself would sit down and rattle off the whole business to you any time you chose to ask him to do it? Would you follow Scott's printed narratives through their devious ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... three measurements fits anyone today, and as for the man who is a real "between"—well, he is in a sad box. But what of that? He doesn't seem to care. He is so occupied today fighting, just as he did in the days of the great Napoleon, that no one cares a rap how he looks—and surely ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... she steals out again, into the Chapel of the Holy Office. She stops at a certain part of the flooring. Her great effect is at hand. She waits for the rest. She darts at the brave Courier, who is explaining something; hits him a sounding rap on the hat with the largest key; and bids him be silent. She assembles us all, round a little trap-door in the floor, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... elude, and in return made a snap at his enemy's wing, and obtained a mouthful of feathers; but in revenge he received on his nose a rap from the strong pinion of the bird that made him turn tail and fairly yelp with anguish. "Never mind, brave Fig! good dog! at him again! Bravo — bravo! good little fellow!" There he is, once more upon him. And now, master Fig, taught a lesson by the smart blows he had received, endeavours to assail ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... by a table in her mother's room studying her spelling lesson. Suddenly she startled her mother by giving the table a sharp rap with her ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... said, "I don't like this. We seem to be listening. I don't believe Sally will like our overhearing her; and we ought to warn her. It's no use your stamping your bare feet, for they wouldn't make any noise. I'll rap my stick on the floor." He also called out, "Hello, the house!" and Sally herself came to the kitchen door. She burst into her large laugh. "Well, I declare to goodness, if it ain't Abel and the Squire! Well, ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... his decease. While he was invisible to all, three people were present besides myself—one of these, a child of eight, who received the message. No spelling out by signals nor automatic writing was employed, but word of mouth." [A rap sounds.] Who will that be at this hour?... [Looks at the clock.] Nearly midnight. [Opening the ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... accustomed to make a villegratura at L'Arriccia during a portion of the summer months, returning only now and then to look after his affairs in Rome. On such visits he would often arrive towards midnight, and rap at the door of a friend to claim his hospitality, barking a most intelligible answer to the universal Roman inquiry of "Chi e?" "One morn we missed him at the accustomed" place, and thenceforth he was never seen. Whether a sudden homesickness for his native land overcame him, or a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... a good boy and listen?" she exclaimed, playfully emphasizing each word with a light rap ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... seat at one of the tables, and gave a thundering rap to summon the waiter. All the cafe had been startled by the advent of the large foreigner. And evidently a rich man, for he was an Englishman, as they thought. So up came the waiter with a very low bow, and a very dirty jacket; and ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... as he ascended a ladder to a very high shelf and pulled out a squabby little tome. Then he remained about five-and-twenty minutes on the ladder absorbed in the perusal of the volume, when the customer, growing impatient, began to rap on the counter with his stick. Thereupon Mr. Tomlins came down the ladder. 'If you think,' he remarked, with calm severity, to the intending purchaser, 'that any considerations of vile dross will induce me to part with this rare and precious little volume, you are very much mistaken. ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... replied. "Once I was very 'flee-by-the-sky'—I didn't care a rap, sinned much, and feared neither God nor the devil—or, if anything, I feared the devil a little; for God I never had the least respect. But one day I picked up a book written by one Andrew, and I read some facts that astonished me. He said that in eight ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... studied chemistry in the University under a man who knew more in a minute than all the 'tommy rot' you've been filled up with. I also lived on an Illinois farm, and I speak from practical experience. I know what I am talking about, and I don't care a rap for all the theories that can be stacked up by your modern college professor, who wouldn't know a pumpkin if he met one rolling down hill. I tell you God Almighty never made the black corn belt land to be worn out, and he doesn't create people on ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... around the barn he sat down and charged up mileage to the county. The rest of this legislation is on the same basis. Here's a legislature that's like Dave Darrington's hogs. After old Dave lost his voice and couldn't holler to the hogs, he used to rap on the trough with his cane at feeding-time. Then a woodpecker made his home in the pig-pen and the hogs went crazy. Vard Waymouth is all bill! I'd reckoned I'd go home. But I guess I'll stay and see just how far ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... striking him upon the head with his rifle-stock felled him to the earth. Then the savages fired five or six shots into him as he lay upon the floor. The body was dragged away and the blood-thirsty fiends sat waiting for the approach of another victim. Half an hour passed, and no other rap came upon the door. An hour went, and still no sound of foot-fall. All this while the savages sat mute as stones, each holding his murderous rifle in readiness ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... self indulgence. He's crazy to learn, and I've no doubt that already he is studying like a steam engine; but when he wants to do other things he'll do 'em with the same zeal. I gather from the Colonel that he doesn't give a rap for anybody or anything just so he gets to a book. Self control? He doesn't know any more about it than water coming down a ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... exaggerated propositions, supreme determinations and comic irrelevancies, showed as radiant a young head as the stage had ever seen. Other people quickly surrounded her, and Peter saw that though, she wanted, as she said, a fresh ear and a fresh eye she was liable to rap out to those who possessed these advantages that they didn't know what they were talking about. It was rather hard for her victims—Basil Dashwood let him into this, wonderfully painted and in a dress even more beautiful than Miriam's, that of a young dandy under Charles the Second: if you ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... There was a sharp rap at the door. Guinea opened it and in came the old General. "Mr. Jucklin, can I speak to you in private?" he asked, bowing ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... I will when you git out o' this. If you can't save your own soul—" She stopped and quickly went over to the mantel where she took down a bottle of whisky and a glass; but in the act of pouring out a drink for him there came a loud rap on the window, and quickly looking round she saw Rance's piercing eyes peering into the room. For an instant she paled, but then there flashed through her mind the comforting thought that the Sheriff could not possibly see Johnson from his position. So, ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... were yet speaking a rap sounded at the door. Mr. Humphrey rose and opened it, but stood speechless, when he beheld Ernest supported by two or three of his companions. At the first he supposed him either hurt or seriously ill. But upon going near to him what was his amazement when he discovered that he was ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... absolutely unlimited. Get them for us, old man; and while you are about it, bring a stepladder. (Exit Perkins, dejectedly.) Now, Barlow, you and Bradley help me with this piano. Pianos may do well enough in gardens or pirates' caves, but for conservatories they're not worth a rap. ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... discovery. A box was missing! The dress-box containing the skirts of all her best frocks, spread at full length and carefully padded with tissue paper. It had been there ten minutes ago; the custom-house officer had given it a special rap. She distinctly remembered noticing a new scratch on the leather. Where in the name of everything that was inexplicable could it have disappeared? Appealed to for information the porter was not illuminating. ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... elapsed before they reached the hillock, and still the three Boers moved slowly and unsuspectingly across our view. After an anxious pause the rifles cracked out, one after another, like a rip-rap, and at the same time the Boers seemed to fly instead of to crawl. I then saw through my glasses that one of the men pitched backwards from his horse, which still fled, riderless now, beside the others, who were ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... King did not devoutly read his Bible, and he was determined that everybody should read it the same way. The result was a kind of Puritanism that filled the churches and compelled the employment of men to go around with long sticks to rap the people on the head when they fell asleep. Christian the Fourth was not the first ruler who has tried to herd men into heaven by battalions. But his people would have gladly gone in the fire for him. He was their friend. When on his tramps, ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... lighted his great red fire, and hammered out four fine new shoes, with a cling! and a clang! and fastened them on with a rap! and a tap! Then away rode the man on his ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... altered tone, and the expression of her face seemed to soften. But before she could make answer there was a rap at the door. It opened, and Brutus stood ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... hear the click of her father's typewriter. She pressed the button that lighted her bed lamp, found her slippers and stole noiselessly downstairs. Never in her whole life had she disturbed her Daddy when he was writing, but now she did not even rap—she pushed the door open and ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... perceived than he levelled his cudgel at his head and laid him sprawling. Jowler and Ringwood then fell on his greatcoat, and had undoubtedly brought him to the ground, had not Joseph, collecting all his force, given Jowler such a rap on the back, that, quitting his hold, he ran howling over the plain. A harder fate remained for thee, O Ringwood! Ringwood the best hound that ever pursued a hare, who never threw his tongue but where the scent was undoubtedly true; ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... Mr. Maitland was beginning to read again, he was interrupted by a smart rap-tap at the front door; and immediately after, the servant announced ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... guard. Then the Tinker spat upon his hands and, grasping his staff, came straight at the other. He struck two or three blows, but soon found that he had met his match, for Robin warded and parried all of them, and, before the Tinker thought, he gave him a rap upon the ribs in return. At this Robin laughed aloud, and the Tinker grew more angry than ever, and smote again with all his might and main. Again Robin warded two of the strokes, but at the third, his staff broke beneath the mighty blows of the ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... entered the house, and banishing at once the occurrence from her mind, she did not give it a second thought. At night, however, while she was waiting to go to bed, she suddenly heard a sound like a rap at the door. A band of men boisterously cried out: "We are messengers, deputed by the worthy magistrate of this district, and come to summon one of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... spirit, she would have liked to project out of a window into the dizzy space occupied by pulleys and clothes-lines. Footsteps came and went past her door, but there was as yet no interruption to Miss Bowyer's pow-wow. At length there came a step on the stairs, and a rap. Mrs. Martin laid Tommy on the bed and opened the door. Charley beckoned her to be silent and to ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... so," said Carden gravely; "if I were really going to fall in love with her—I would not care a rap about my Aunt ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... by liquor and opposition, saying, "I know what's due from one gen'leman to 'nother"—a querulous, objecting voice saying, "Hole on! not now," and a fainter feminine protest, all of which were followed by a rap ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Billy, don't!" exclaimed Aunt Hannah, lifting shocked hands of remonstrance. "Rap on wood—do! How can you boast ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... in and get the figures, anyway: come to the private door of my office and rap three times. It will be just as well if it isn't generally known that you are confabbing with me. Our semiannual report will probably be in New York ahead of you, but it won't hurt if you have the information to work with." Evans was pushing his chair from ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... I am dumbfounded. Then I think of the entries we made at the inn in the Urserenthal, and then in a flash I have the truth. I rap the desk smartly with my finger-tips and shake my index-finger in my ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... had seen it. When I'd laid the cylinders down on the table they were in random positions. During the seance there had been no jarring of the table, not even so much as a rap or quiver which could have been caused by the Swami's lifted knee. When we'd shifted the table, after the Swami had changed his chair, the cylinders hadn't been disturbed. When Old Stone Face had been staring at them during the seance—seance?, hah!—they ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... not suffer me to live upon mang-Creole altogether; she insists upon occasional beefsteaks and roasts, and tries to tempt me with all kinds of queer delicious, desserts as well,— particularly those cakes made of grated cocoanut and sugar-syrup (tablett-coco-rap) of which a stranger becomes very fond. But, nevertheless, I cannot eat ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... with anger, stalked majestically away from his tormentor without arriving at any adequate reply, and Jimmy was left alone. In the gray, cold dawn of four o'clock the next morning, as Jim followed the porter out, he paused behind just long enough to rap loudly on the Judge's stateroom door and to explain, "Baltimore. I'm leaving you now. ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... Plymouth; their eldest son was his mother's companion. One evening, tidings were brought to her that the Crescent had arrived and anchored in Cawsand Bay; the boy was playing in the passage with his nurse, awaiting the appearance of his father, when at length the short hasty rap was heard! All ran to the door, and in the hurry of opening it the light was extinguished, and total darkness obscured the objects of his affection; but the eager, parental tone with which the words "Where art thou, my darling boy?" were uttered, left such an impression on the mind ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... the Paris Surete was searching everywhere; "but your face betrays the truth, my dear. Don't worry," she added in a tone of sympathy. "No doubt he'll write as soon as he is back in England. Personally, I don't believe he really cares a rap for the Ranscomb girl. It's only a matter of ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... opposite him this time. He felt Lagune's finger quiver still more palpably, and then suddenly the raps began, abruptly, all about him. Rap!—making him start violently. A swift percussive sound, tap, rap, dap, under the table, under the chair, in the air, round the cornices. The Medium groaned again and shuddered, and his nervous agitation passed sympathetically round the circle. The music seemed to fade to the vanishing point ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... almost as much as I have in Spanish. It is really only the first drudgery that is difficult, in learning a language. When once one makes a start one gets on very fast; especially if one is not afraid of making mistakes. I never care a rap whether I make blunders or not, so that I can ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... the young queen heard her husband say in his dreams at night: 'Boy, make me the doublet, and patch the pantaloons, or else I will rap the yard-measure over your ears.' Then she discovered in what state of life the young lord had been born, and next morning complained of her wrongs to her father, and begged him to help her to get rid ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... observing him, took care, afterwards, .. to exhort him to cherish his courageousness to the utmost, for he might often find it needful. Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's seat. The involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... at his excellent pap— "My friends, it's a tap Dat is not worf a rap." (Now this was remarkably ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... kicking took place as I never before witnessed, about thirty of them being most sedulously engaged in the occupation, all at the same time. I never saw such ill-behaved mules; it was quite impossible for the judges to decide upon the prize, for you could see nothing but heels in the air; it was rap, rap, rap, incessantly against one another's sides, until they were all turned out, and the show was over. I rather think the prize must, in this instance, have been awarded to the one ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... point where his word would have most effect, Steve Gilbert said, while opening the hearth to rap out the ashes of his pipe, "Sam's wife heerd that he was kind o' thinkin' some of goin' into business here, if things ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... their territory, which we might just as well have done in the first place. It may be all very well to be lenient, when one is dealing with a European enemy; but magnanimity does not pay when you have to do with Orientals, who don't care a rap for treaty engagements, and who always regard concessions as being ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... block come upon the sand cushion. Don't twist and turn the block, and to remove the working plate pass a stick through the core holes in both block and plate so that the plate will not fall when loosened. A slight rap on the center of the plate will loosen it. As soon as the blocks are up-ended commence the spraying and soak the sand underneath the block. It may seem unnecessary to dwell on these points so long, but barrels of cement and barrels of money have been wasted by neglecting to supply the hardening block ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... other,' as Poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for it is true, 'We may give advice, but we can not give conduct.' However, remember this, 'They that will not be counseled, can not be helped;' and farther, that, 'If you will not hear reason, she will surely rap your knuckles,' as ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... a spacious Elizabethan settle in the hall. The humorous spider mocked them from the window, the humorous stone fruit from the plate beside the pot-pourri bowl. Even as she repeated, "I cannot lose him," again, a tremendous rap came on the front door, and Georgie, at a sign from his queen, ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... me, I assume that there is something else, of which these things are appearances. The colour ceases to exist if I shut my eyes, the sensation of hardness ceases to exist if I remove my arm from contact with the table, the sound ceases to exist if I cease to rap the table with my knuckles. But I do not believe that when all these things cease the table ceases. On the contrary, I believe that it is because the table exists continuously that all these sense-data will reappear when I open my eyes, replace my arm, ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... Luther nailed up his theses; but even this is not the identical door; that was destroyed by the French. Still, under that arched doorway he stood, hammer and nails in hand; he held up his paper, he fitted it straight; rap, rap,—there, one nail—another—it is up, and he stands looking at it. These very stones were over that head that are now over mine, this very ground beneath his feet. As I turned away I gave an earnest look at the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... peremptory rap on the door, startled the girl back to a realisation of the flight of time. The sun had set, and a grey light filled the room. Without a passing thought of the tears upon her face, she lowered the bolt and confronted ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... in his own lodging, with the door locked upon him, reading greedily from the open page, and drinking in, as it were, refreshment and strength, when he was roused from his reverie by the sound, first of voices, and then by a sharp rap upon the panels of ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... than he anticipated. The Pelican and the Curlew were at Diablo by now. He should hear from them any minute. While he was waiting there was much that he could do. He took up his personal bank-book and began to balance it. A low rap ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... the man to the master. It became clear to him that in some respects Henslowe suited the squire admirably. It became also clear to him that the squire had taken pains for years to let it be known that he cared not one rap for any human being on his estate in any other capacity than as a rent-payer or wage-receiver. What! Live for thirty years in that great house, and never care whether your tenants and labourers lived like pigs or like men, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and presently I heard them, and reckoned that a dozen at least must have come after me; and I heard the voices of the men too as they rode away, grow faint and cease. Then I heard my Cousin Dolly slip through the door beneath me, and she gave me one little rap to the floor of my hiding-hole ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... he, "you know very well what I think! Here is my hand to you with all my heart; but of money, not one rap." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as for his master with regard to not paying anything in inns and hostelries. At this the innkeeper waxed very wroth, and threatened if he did not pay to compel him in a way that he would not like. To which Sancho made answer that by the law of chivalry his master had received he would not pay a rap, though it cost him his life; for the excellent and ancient usage of knights-errant was not going to be violated by him, nor should the squires of such as were yet to come into the world ever complain of him or reproach him with breaking ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... go gin mighty quick, I tell you—den was de time he must ha got de bite. I didn't like de look ob de bug mouff, myself, no how, so I wouldn't take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him wid a piece ob paper dat I found. I rap him up in de paper and stuff piece of it in ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Take heard the "rap-a-tap, tap! rap-a-tap, tap!" of a drum. "They're coming! They're coming!" she called to her Mother and Father. The Mother rolled Bot'Chan on to her back. Take took her Father's hand. They all ran to the gate to see the procession. The servants ...
— THE JAPANESE TWINS • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... I saw in my newspaper an announcement that enraged me. It was made in the driest, most casual way, as though nobody would care a rap; and this did but whet the wrath I had in knowing that Adam Street, Adelphi, was to be undone. The Tivoli Music Hall, about to be demolished and built anew, was to have a frontage of thirty feet, if you please, in Adam Street. Why? Because the London County Council, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... Protestant Government for the purpose of crushing the Catholic interest. This Lord Liverpool communicated (privately) to Canning, and it was afterwards communicated to the King, who appears (the answer was not there) to have given the Duke of York a rap on the knuckles, for there is a reply of the Duke's to the King, full of devotion, zeal, and affection to his person, and disclaiming any intention of breaking up the Government, an idea which could ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... had an offer to go into business with a relation at Zante. My master, who could not well do without me, intreated me to stay; but I was positive. He then offered me a share of the business if I would remain, but I was not to be persuaded. Every rap at the door, I thought that the aga and his janissaries were coming for me; and I hastened my departure, which was fixed for the following day,—when in the evening my master came into the store with a paper ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... a grain given in England to horses and in Scotland to the people, he indulges his prejudice against the Scotch, whom he never understood, just as, in his definition of "pension," he takes occasion to rap the writers who had flattered their patrons since the days of Elizabeth; though he afterwards accepted a comfortable pension for himself. With characteristic honesty he refused to alter his definition in ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... my first experience of Will with hysteria, for it amounted to that. I remembered that to cure a bevy of school-girls of it one should rap out something sharply, with a cane if need be. Yet Will was not like a school-girl, and his hysteria took the pseudo-manly form of refusal to retreat. I yearned for Fred's camp-fires, and Fred's laugh, hot supper, or breakfast, or whatever ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... struck the trades, but when I came on deck at midnight we had got them steady and strong. As there was still a good-deal of casting to make, the ship had been brought close to the wind on the port tack; the bowlines steadied out, but not dragged, every sail a good rap full, "fast asleep," without the tremor of an eyelid, if I may so style a weather leach, or of any inch of the canvas, from the royals down to the courses. Every condition was as if arranged for a special occasion, or to recompense us for the tedium of the horse latitudes. The moon was big, and ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... spoil the wean's beauty, which is an old freak, (the smallpox, however, afterwards did that;) so, with much persuasion, he took a chair for a gliff, and began with some of his drolls—for he is a clever, humoursome man, as ye ever met with. But he had now got far on with his jests, when lo! a rap came to the door, and Mysie whipped away the bottle under her apron, saying "Wheesht, wheesht, for the sake of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... they had so often known her hospitality. The English, indeed, when he thought of it with its phrase a mere borrowing from the Gaelic, seemed an affectation. No, it must be in the natural tongue his tidings should be told. He would rap at the door hurriedly, lift the sneck before any response came, go in with his bonnet in his hand, and say "Tha bean Lecknamban air ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... it soulfully and sorrowfully. He was red-haired. "Hell," he repeated. "That was my brother Bill." And at regular intervals throughout the session, his solemn "Hell" was heard in the courtroom; nor did his comrades check him, nor did the man at the table rap him to order. ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... 'em well; but they didn't mind that, and I told her Christmas come but once a year, and as it turned out, the poor things were hungry, in yearnest. And you never see children eat so; I do believe they hadn't had a good meal for a fortnight. Well, we hadn't got fairly seated after supper, when rap! rap! at the door, and there was Jake Crow had come for Mrs. Jenkins; for Jenkins had got into a drunken row, and had his head cut with a stick. And you never hearn sich a fuss; and Mrs. Jenkins and the little brats went home crying all ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... in the side of the hill. It's what is called an advanced H.Q.—i.e., when the Push begins, the gilded ones will crawl in and rap out messages to the various commanders, ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson |
