"Rap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my man," continued I, but wi' a degree o' trepidation that I had great difficulty in concealin frae the boy, "tak this letter, and go to Mr. Barton's wi't, and rap canny at the door, and ask if Miss Barton's in. If she's in, ask a word o' her; and, when she comes, slip this letter into her haun. If she's no in, bring back the letter to me, and let naebody see't. Mind it's for Miss ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... as they were going to bed, they heard a rap on the door. It was Nana, who came to ask as coolly as possible if she could sleep there. What a state she was in! All rags and dirt. She devoured a crust of dried bread and fell asleep with a part of it in her hand. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... a horse clattered on the stony pavement, and stopped suddenly at the door. A light step and the clink of a scabbard rang on the steps. A familiar rap followed. Angelique, with the infallible intuition of a woman who recognizes the knock and footstep of her lover from ten thousand others, sprang up and met Le Gardeur de Repentigny as he entered the boudoir. She received him with warmth, even fondness, for she was proud ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... day I had scarcely trolled half a mile out into the Stream before I felt that inexplicable rap at my bait which swordfish and sailfish make with their bills. I jumped up and got ready. I saw a long bronze shape back of my bait. Then I saw and felt him take hold. He certainly did not encounter the slightest resistance in running out my line. He swam off slowly. I never had Sam throw out the ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... abeelity," said Sandy; "but as far as lies in my pooer, I will never budge from my post, but stand firm." At this point, Sandy's fit slippit aff the edge o' the sofa, an' he cam' stoit doon an' gae Moses Certricht a daud i' the lug wi' the croon o' his heid, that sent Moses' heid rap ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... 108. To locate the lungs. Mark out the boundaries of the lungs by "sounding" them; that is, by percussion, as it is called. This means to put the forefinger of the left hand across the chest or back, and to give it a quick, sharp rap with two or three fingers. Note where it sounds hollow, resonant. This experiment can be done by the student with only imperfect success, until practice brings ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... nor did he suffer pain. A smart rap on the head from a flying fragment of the splintered post, incurred simultaneously with the frightfully sudden shock to the nervous system, had momentarily dazed him. His term of unconsciousness, including the period of recovery, during which he had had the strange fancies, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... care a rap for Herr von Steinhardt or Herr von anybody else," the German cried. Then he said curtly to ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... was changed there since the early morning. The brass handle of the door was polished and bright, the steps clean, and Jack's pull at the bell and rap at the door was answered by Sam, in neat livery, who conducted him immediately to a pleasant parlour where Mrs Lambert was sitting; an old lady of a past time, her grey curls fastened back from her forehead by two combs, surmounted by a large cap something between a turban and a mob. Her black ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... an', by George, now that I've got headed that way, I simply can't wait any longer, nor hold in either. I intend to ask her to be my wife if—" he began again to kick the log. "Dang it, it seems to me—you see, I know that she don't care a rap for Wambush; a few of us thought thar was something between 'em once, but since he went off it is as plain as day that she is not grieving after him. But, somehow, it seems to me that she may have a hankering after you. I don't know why I think so, but if thar is any understanding ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... retired to his room, and, settling himself in his comfortable armchair, was soon deeply interested in one of Bayard Taylor's works. While thus engaged, a light step was heard in the hall, and, afterward, a gentle rap at his door, and Julia came into ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... in a great Family, and am in Love with the House-maid. We were all at Hot-cockles last Night in the Hall these Holidays; when I lay down and was blinded, she pulled off her Shoe, and hit me with the Heel such a Rap, as almost broke my Head to Pieces. Pray, Sir, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... covered another horrible half-mile we halted again, but this time no houses were near. How it rained! A perfect deluge. I was wearing a greatcoat, and had all my equipment strapped on over the top. The men all had macintosh capes. We were all wet through and through, but nobody bothered a rap about that. Anyone trying to find a fresh discomfort for us now, that would make us wince, would have been ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... turned away to hide her laughter; and just at this moment there came a rap at the door—a well-known rap evidently, for up jumped the young ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... The rap from Pablo's lance-staff had not really injured him, however, and all three of them walked on till they reached the Paez place without saying another word. Here it was at once evident that they, or, at least, the general and Pablo, were waited for. The ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... the legs and arms, but no bones appeared to be broken, so far as Dock's surgical skill could discern. The jar of the fall had doubtless racked his frame severely; but the miser was still a strong man, physically, and could bear a pretty hard rap. ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... thoughts to Ray Palmer, and she fell into troubled musings regarding his apparent neglect of her, and in the midst of this there came a rap ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... was dead, he also knowed what kind of a life he'd lead, so Skinny was wise to what she ment when she piped "Ask dad." If she'd told me that same I would have thought she was flashin a spiel for Sweet Caps. Skinny says that's repartee, but I think its RAP-artee. Speakin of Russia, I see by the papers that a new revolution has busted out there. That God forsaken country reminds me of a fly wheel on a ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... know," he said, "that I want to see it. That isn't what's the matter with me. You don't understand the situation. It isn't all over. She's only being good about it. She doesn't care a rap about me. She can't. And what's more I don't ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... man's voice, slightly elevated 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
... started work with two Arab stallions, Zarif and Mohammed. Both these animals learnt to count by means of rapping out the numbers with their hoofs on a board. One rap with the left fore-hoof always counted as "ten," while each rap with the right fore-hoof counted as "one" only. The number twenty-five was, therefore, composed of two left raps and five right ones. Spelling was similarly indicated by a system of raps meant to express ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... voice ascended the scale until it might have been audible half-way down the hall. She was called to a halt by a most decided rap upon the door. An awesome silence fell upon the room. Instantly every girl except the rightful owners of the room disappeared. No word had been spoken. Only the moving of the couch draperies, the gentle swaying of the portieres, or ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... sang, there was a rap at the front-door, and, just as she concluded, the prim maid entered with a ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... at him. Here was a new mystery. Was this man lying? Had he been in collusion with the Orientals, and was he trying to hide that fact; or had the rap on his head caused a lapse of memory, which blotted out all recollections of the affair in the ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... hangs, taken a little before his death by desire of the master of the coffee-house, which he had frequented for the last five-and-twenty years), but not attaining the meridian of its animation till evening brought on the hour of tea and visiting. The simultaneous sound of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke of the clock announcing six, was a topic of never-failing mirth in the families which this dear old bachelor gladdened with his presence. Then was his forte, his glorified ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... they say. A Master Man was what I wanted to be. But it's a pretty barren thing to think, or to feel, that you're a Master Man; because, if you are—if you've had a 'scoop' all the way, as Jowett calls it, you can be as sure as anything that no one cares a rap farthing what happens to you. There are plenty who pretend they care, but it's only because they're sailing with the wind, and with your even keel. It's only the Master Man himself that doesn't know in the least he's that who gets anything ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he comes later than usual. He rings the bell at the gate, which I was told had a concealed pull, known only to him and the priests, proceeds up-stairs and through the passage, rapping three times at the door of the sick-room, which is opened by a nun in attendance, after she has given one rap in reply. When he has visited his patients, and prescribed for them, he returns by ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... care a 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 ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... I was still soundly sleeping at five-thirty a loud rap sounded at my door. The night before I had noticed above my bed a framed sign which read: "Guests must be dressed in running trunks, shoes and sweater, and appear in the gymnasium by six sharp." "Gymnasium at six! Gymnasium at six!" a voice echoed down the ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... in the struggle; it's just a trial of strength and skill, like a game of football. A fish doesn't know anything about death; so he has no fear of it. And there is no gasping on the shore; nothing but a quick rap on the head with a ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... these captives, and sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a very merops apiaster, or bee-bird, and very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... (Vol. ii., p. 493.).—EDINENSIS. gives the above as the inscription on a tomb-stone, and requests an explanation. It is very probable that the stone-cutter made a mistake, and cut "Rab. Surdam" instead of "Rap. Surum," which would be a contraction for "Rapax Suorum," alluding to Death or the Grave. It seems {43} impossible to extract a meaning, from "Rab. Surdam" ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various
... don't care a rap for the flings he springs; He doesn't mean half of the things he sings. We're all down and out When it comes to a scout That can run just as if he had wings and things. That can run just as if ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... schoolmaster presumably did care enough whether Sam learned anything to beat him savagely enough to force him to lame his mind—for Johnson's great mind was lamed—by learning his lessons. None of my schoolmasters really cared a rap (or perhaps it would be fairer to them to say that their employers did not care a rap and therefore did not give them the necessary caning powers) whether I learnt my lessons or not, provided my father paid my schooling bill, the collection of which was the real object of the school. ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... and raises its fangs to the last. It was clear to me I must show Sandip I did not care a rap about these jewels. "If they have excited your greed," I said, "you ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... of the temple, through the quiet of her motherly dreams, Hannah heard a voice. Hannah didn't have to say, 'If you are a spirit, rap so many times.' No: she knew the voice. God prepares the listenin' soul His own self. 'They know my voice,' ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... you say, should you see the Sparkler shaking her elbow for a whole night together, and thumping the table with a dice-box? Or how would you like to hear good widow lady herself returning to her house at midnight and alarming the whole street with a most enormous rap, after having sat up till that time at crimp or ombre? Sir, I am the husband of one of these female gamesters, and a great loser by it both in rest my and pocket. As my wife reads your papers, one upon this subject might be of ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... Townsend, "I'll see your mother next week and fix it. And you do just what she told you to do till then. You've got the right idea, Joe." And he hit Joe a good rap on the shoulder in his friendly way . ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... was flying hard by him espying, He caught with small trying, and down let it snap; It fell quick as winking, on Neptune a-sinking, And gave him, I'm thinking, a bit of a rap. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... A thundering rap on the front door resounded through the cottage; the sailor put his pride in his pocket, stooped low and darted in. Nelly shut the door, and leaned ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... tumours for the sake of obtaining credit for different qualities. Thus a terrific crack at the back of the ear might produce so great an elevation of the organ of combativeness as might obtain for the greatest coward a reputation for the greatest courage; and a thundering rap on the centre of the head might raise on the skull of the veriest brute a bump of, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... nearly two hours before he came; but when he did come, we saluted him with a rap on the head, that made him hold his tongue; and then we set to, and gave him such a tremendous drubbing, that we left him insensible; but he was soon taken away by some watchmen, and we heard that he was doing well; but he was dreadfully ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... had made himself very busy securing evidence against Gordon. He was probably trying to curry favor with his chief. The little man always had been jealous of Peter. Perhaps he was attempting to rap him over the shoulder of Elliot because the Government official was a friend of Paget. Just now his insolent voice suggested a special ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... protest against this extraordinary method of thanking a benefactor, when a rap was heard ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... discovering the criminal, all the men of the tribes amongst whom the murderer could be stand round the coffin. A head man says to the corpse, 'Did such and such a man harm you?' naming, one after another, all the men. At the guilty one's name the corpse is said to knock a sort of rap, rap, rap. ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... the office. Murray stares into the fire. Miss Howard reappears from the office and goes out by the door to the hall, rear. Carriage wheels are heard from the drive in front of the house on the left. They stop. After a pause there is a sharp rap on the door and a bell rings insistently. Men's muffled voices are heard in argument. Murray turns curiously in his chair. Miss Gilpin comes from the office and walks quickly to the door, unlocking and opening it. Eileen enters, ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... saw neither monsieur nor mademoiselle. I passed the court early and late; I even went up to St. Louis, but the sick man was gone. The whole matter had nearly dropped from my mind, when one night—it was late, and very dark—the little bell at the wicket rung, and presently there was a loud rap at my door. It was the concierge of the next court; a man he said was dying, and a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... uproar there was an imperative rap upon the table, and my uncle rose to speak. As he stood with his pale, calm face and fine figure, I had never seen him to greater advantage, for he seemed, with all his elegance, to have a quiet air of domination amongst these fierce fellows, like a huntsman ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you were the one to stand guard to-morrow," said Will. "I'll go to-night myself," he added. "Come down just before it's light in the morning, and come to the door in the rear of the barn. Rap three times softly, and then if that doesn't work, whistle, but not ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... hark! a rap comes gently to the door; Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, [knows] Tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor, To do some errands, and convoy her hame. The wily mother sees the conscious flame Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; Wi' heart-struck anxious care, inquires ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... called out "Well, I will eat your fowls to-morrow;" but Anuwa the next night sat by the fowl house with a sickle and when the jackal came and poked in his head, Anuwa gave him a rap on the snout with the sickle, so the jackal made off crying "Well, Anuwa, your fowls have pecked me on the head, you shall die." So the next day Anuwa pretended to be dead and his mother went about crying; she took her way to the jungle and there she met the jackal and she told ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... upon the coarse belief, worthy of the barbarous and the middle ages, in an eternity of punishment, easily expressed by everlasting fire, and in ineffable joys, which no one has ever successfully expressed. The ghosts of our childhood have now become bona fide objective beings, who rap, raise tables, display fireworks, rain flowers, and brew tea. We explain by "levitation" the riding of the witch upon the broom-stick to the Sabbath; we can no longer refuse credence to Canidia and all her spells. And the very vagueness of the modern ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... quite enough to make me feel that I'd like to be a spy once just for pure spite!" declared Jimmie. "You and your spy business make me tired! We Boy Scouts don't care a rap about your ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... they could only wait in fear and trembling, and on the next day quite early there came a loud rap at the door, and on its being opened by the old man the constable and two keepers ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... and equestrians are not so numerous by any means as the asinestrians. The first round of a new ladder for ascending the balconies of the bathing-rooms was laid on Wednesday, amidst an inconvenient concourse of visitors. With the exception of a rap on the toes received by those who pressed so much on the carpenter employed as to retard the progress of his work, all passed off quietly. After the ceremony, the man was regaled by the proprietor of the rooms with some ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... must abide in that prison until released from without. And then he thought of noble prisoners for conscience' sake,—Daniel, and Paul, and Bunyan, and many a martyr and confessor,—and he felt that he was suffering in good company. It was just getting dusk when there came a rap at the window. He opened the casement. The face of his cruel ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... has not come in yet," Collier answered, and at that moment there was a rap at the door, and as soon as Lambert got into the porch I put my head out of the window and told him to come up to Ward's rooms. As he walked across the quad I saw that he had been having a rough time of it, for his clothes did not look as immaculate as usual. He was carrying an overcoat ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... moment there was a hurried rap-tap-tap; the door opened, and Maudie burst in unannounced. Her calm self-control had yielded to an agitated condition of excitement and indignation. Her earnest eyes were flashing angry sparks, and her cheeks ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... was commonly thought of merely as a fabulist whose remains had been 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, Cato, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... shook off her fears, and ascended rapidly. Being somewhat unfamiliar with the etiquette of shoemaker's shop, she hesitated whether to knock or plunge at once into the middle of things, but decided to err on the safe side, and gave a very moderate and conservative rap. Silence. A louder knock. The door rattled. Louder still. The whole building shook. Knuckles filed a caveat. Applied the heel of the dilapidated boot in her hand. Suffocated with a cloud of dust thence ensuing. Contemplated the nature of things for ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... I come after you for fifteen years? It's you I always have wanted and want yet, if I can get you. I don't care a rap for Harriet Warren or anyone but you. Now that's the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... called himself a Socialist, or any disgraceful thing like that, so many years ago. It is that sort of thing "Kappa" must invert if he wants a change in our public schools. You may arrange and rearrange curricula, abolish Greek, substitute "science"—it will not matter a rap. Even those model canoes of yours, "Kappa," will be wasted if you still insist upon model schoolmasters. So long as we require our schoolmasters to be politic, conforming, undisturbing men, setting up Polonius as an ideal for ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... own ugliness).—It is quite possible for a rascal to be a happy man. He has every chance of being so. And as for his irresponsibility, that is an idiotic idea. Do have the courage to face the fact that Nature does not care a rap about good and evil, and is so far malevolent that a man may easily be a criminal and yet perfectly sound in mind and body. Virtue is not a natural thing. It is the work of man. It is his duty to defend it. Human society has been built up by a few men who ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... Office. But there's not much in it after all. No designing, no calculations, and in a great many instances no real scale even. In fact, so long as the drawing is done quickly and immaculately got up, it does not matter a rap whether a man is as big as a monkey or not, so long as they are both good-looking. You see the main object is to make the principle of the invention clear at a glance in one view, that is why they generally are perspective. I have ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... directed at him and his department. The publicity, he was convinced, resulted from discrimination on the part of "the Negro and liberal press" (p. 324) against the Army's policy in favor of the Navy and Air Force. He was particularly incensed at the way the junior services had escaped the "rap"—his word—on racial matters. He ascribed it in large part, he told the Secretary of Defense in September 1948, to the "unfortunate" National Defense Conference, the gathering of black spokesmen held under Forrestal's auspices the previous spring.[13-33] The specific object ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... of knocking or making an effort to enter, it hesitated, stopped, turned and walked away for a few steps and then came back again. The second time, however, summoning a sudden courage, the arm shot forth, and there was a single rap on the door. The rap was so imperative that in spite of the rival noises inside, the door opened quickly. Then the newcomer entered and for another moment stood hesitating in ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... of applause followed this assertion, and ere it had subsided the indomitable Mike Walsh availed himself of the opportunity to give his colleague a rap. "When [he said] we came here we protested against the Administration interfering in the local affairs of the State of New York, and now my colleague states that a portion of his constituents have been guilty of the same interference in the affairs of the people of Kentucky." "Is that all," said ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... some of our industrial districts as a grave reproach to the nation. The lust for wealth and other unlovely aspects of competitive commercialism were most repugnant to him. He knew that Nature cares not a rap for equality and lavishes her gifts with a strange caprice. But though there is inequality of natural gifts, he thought it was the duty of the State to ensure equality of opportunity to all its citizens. ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... I'd just been yearnin' to crash into this affair for the last five minutes. I'd remembered Cyril. At least, I thought I had. And I proceeds to rap for order with ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... you are a pretty good scout, after all. You wouldn't have made such a bad Indian. I'll rap on wood." ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... of the Board of Trade was his first experience as Cabinet Minister. He, nevertheless, established innovations the thought of which would have given respectable and long-established statesmen a shudder. He cared not a rap for convention. He was not in the least afraid of his permanent officials, who so often control their department and their political chief with it. A Cabinet Minister in Britain is hedged with a certain ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... Indeed I am pretty sure it is. Thank you.' Then Mr. Pecksniff, gently warbling a rustic stave, put on his garden hat, seized a spade, and opened the street door; calmly appearing on the threshold as if he thought he had, from his vineyard, heard a modest rap, but was not ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... numbers, and betrayed by those who promised to assist me.'] At a much later date a writer in The Spectator speaks of 'mob' as still only struggling into existence. 'I dare not answer,' he says, 'that mob, rap, pos, incog., and the like, will not in time be looked at as part of our tongue.' In regard of 'mob,' the mobile multitude, swayed hither and thither by each gust of passion or caprice, this, which The Spectator hardly ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... replace the folded napkin on raisin No. 2, and in so doing, leave raisin No. 1 beside it. Now take up raisin No. 3 (with the right hand). Put the hand under the table, and in doing so get raisin No. 3 between the second and third fingers, as much behind the hand as possible. Give a rap with the knuckles on the underside of the table, at the same time saying, "Pass!" and forthwith pick up the left-hand napkin with the left hand, showing the raisins 1 and 2 beneath it. All eyes are drawn to the two raisins on the table, and as the right hand comes into sight ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... was heard, and then a pause. Father Francesco smiled with a peculiar and bitter expression. The rap became louder, more energetic, stormy at last, intermingled with vehement calls on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... rap on the outer door. It was repeated again in a few seconds. Callers were unusual at that time of the day, but all callers were welcome enough in Alaska. Natalie ran out and unbarred the door. In the dim light she saw the figure of a big man supporting a woman, who was obviously ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... far from unnecessary, son. He's a hero, dammit, and you'd better remember that! He's taking the rap for another man because he knows that he is expendable and the other ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... better 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 at the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... but it is almost impossible I should think, because he generally gave a very loud rap at the door, and he had ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... a gentle rap at the door, which was soon cautiously opened— cautiously, because it was now late—and, in those times, no one knew when he was safe. The light fell on Crosby's face, and the searching eye ...
— Whig Against Tory - The Military Adventures of a Shoemaker, A Tale Of The Revolution • Unknown
... cared a rap that Daniel Webster was opposing the war in the House of Representatives at Washington, and declaring that on land it ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... woman!" I cried, as we rode on, feeling for some occult reason very angry with the Man of Wrath. "And her wretched husband doesn't care a rap, and will probably beat her to-night if his supper isn't right. What nonsense it is to talk about the equality of the sexes when ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... tears coming into my eyes. It is said by 'our correspondent' at New York that the folks there rejoice in the losses and disasters of the allies. This can never be the case, surely? No one whose opinion is worth a rap can rejoice at any success of the Czar, whose double-dealing and unscrupulous greediness must have rendered him an object of loathing to every well-thinking man. But what have I to do with politics, or you? Our 'pleasant object and serene ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... stop at Queenstown is one of the experiences. May I send the steward to rap at your door when ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... A thundering rap at the door startled my meditations. I knew there was but one pair of knuckles in the house capable of beating such a tattoo, and I recoiled from ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Helen, sir, and if you want anything, just rap on the floor, or call, and I will ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... would reach out and rap it sharply with his bill, and then look as if he didn't know what to make of it. He didn't. That egg wasn't behaving right. It should have broken when it hit the branch of the apple tree. Certainly it should have broken when he struck it that way with his bill. However ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... hearers who did not usually go much to church, and they were accustomed—then as later—to say that here was a Christian who knew enough about the problems of thought to make his testimony worth hearing. Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, Realism or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, his literary charm. His style was entirely his own. He played strange tricks with the English language, heaped words upon ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... do appeal to him," she said, meekly, "I never thought to be so happy." This was a direct appeal to me; and it hit the mark. I didn't care a rap about Willis Bailey, or his sketches or the wooden statues with crystal eyes which he was going to make the fashion. If Miss Guest chose to hook her shining fish with a false fly it wasn't my business. It ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... stander by, lay it 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 hard ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... heart stood still as I thought, could they be coming for me? I had a sudden frenzy of fear that they might pass my door, but no, they came straight on, halted, and Ross, a principal officer—I had known him twenty years—gave a thundering rap on my door and shouted, "I want you!" Then a key rattled in the lock, the door was thrown open and three friendly faces looked in. Faint, deadly white, trembling like a frightened child, I started to my feet trying to speak, but ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... he. '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 and tedious periods if Sir Walter ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... Sometimes, in his absence, a boy was made to sit in his place for punishment, for being a "blockhead" too, as I imagined. I hoped I should never be put there. Stupid little girls received a different treatment,—an occasional rap on the head with the teacher's thimble; accompanied with a half-whispered, impatient ejaculation, which sounded very much like "Numskull!" I think this was a rare occurrence, however, for she was ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... stood aside to allow her to pass, he never knew, but Madelon was up the winding stairs with a swirl of her cloak, as if the wind had caught it. Parson Fair followed her, and motioned her to the south front chamber, and was about to rap on the door when it was flung open violently, and the great black princess ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... bade him follow. Without more ceremony Vergilius walked behind him through narrow streets, wholly unfamiliar, and presently descending a stairway, came into a dark passage. They halted, after a few paces, whereupon a loud rap startled the new-comer. Soon he could hear a door open. The stranger, taking his hand, led him into some dark place. It was all very strange, and like tales long familiar, relating to the city of mysteries. Standing there in the dark and silence, he had some misgivings ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... national Territories to slave immigration had transported the South to the verge of disunion. California, fought over by the two foes, was in the act of withdrawing herself from the field of contention to a position of independent Statehood. It was her rap for admission into the Union as a free State which precipitated upon the country the last of the compromises between freedom and slavery. It sounded the opening of the final act of Southern domination ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... so embarrassed, and as I was one of the officers of the lodge I would put it to him light, and he said he would go, so my chum got five other boys to help us put him through. So we steered him down to the gymnasium and made him rap on the storm door outside, and I said 'who comes there?' and he said it was a pilgrim who wanted to jine our sublime order. I asked him if he had made up his mind to turn from the ways of a hyena, and adopt the customs of ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... the miracle. I do not want it explained to me in terms of HO(2) or such like formulas, learned, but so hopelessly unsatisfying. I do not want my butterfly stuck on a pin and put in a glass case. I want to see the sunlight on its wings as it flits from flower to flower, and I don't care a rap what its Latin name may be. Anyway, it is not its name. The sun and the flower and the butterfly know that. The man who sticks a pin in it does not, and never will, for he knows not its language. Only the poet does among men. So, you see, I am disqualified from ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... was a warning to them to make less noise, and was always heeded—for a time. After a little, however, the boys might forget and begin to chatter again, and presently the man, without further warning, would reach over and rap one of them on the head with the stick, when quiet would again be had ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... 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 ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... their way, whether for good or bad," the Doctor said, when his assistant complained rather of the blessings,—pointing out at any rate their absurdity. "One man is damned for ever, because, in the conscientious exercise of his authority, he gives a little boy a rap which happens to make a small temporary mark on his skin. Another becomes a hero because, when in the equally conscientious performance of a duty, he gives himself a ducking. I won't think you a hero; but, of course, I consider myself very fortunate to have had beside me a man younger ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... learning, the cavalier watched with a face of anxiety the countenance of Dr. Rochecliffe; but when he saw the proud eye and steady bearing of the Episcopal champion, and heard him answer Greek with Greek, and Hebrew with Hebrew, Wildrake backed his arguments as he closed them, with a stout rap upon the bench, and an exulting laugh in the face of the antagonist. It was with some difficulty that Sir Henry and Colonel Everard, having at length and reluctantly interfered, prevailed on the two alienated ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... circle had broken up and each had withdrawn to his or her own apartment, and Ishmael found himself alone in his chamber, he heard a rap at his door, and on bidding the rapper come ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... and laid down a dollar. That fetched old Buck Williams' ghost on the jump, you bet, but he said he hadn't laid eyes on Bud yet. They hauled the Sweet By and By with a drag net, but they couldn't get a rap from him. Clytie trotted out George Washington, and Napoleon, and Billy Patterson, and Ben Franklin, and Captain Kidd, just to show that there was no deception, but they couldn't get a ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... not in order to shine in society that grace of manner is an asset; comparatively few people in a community care a rap about "society" anyway! A man of affairs whose life is spent in doing a man's work in a man's way is not apt to be thrilled at the thought of putting on "glad" clothes and going out with his wife to a "pink" tea or ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... nor be slow To give a friendly rap to one you know, Whene'er you find me struggling to increase My neat sufficiency, and ne'er at peace. Gold will be slave or master: 'tis more fit That it be led by us than ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... lifted; and 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, as ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... donkey which was employed in drawing a baker's cart. He was so well acquainted with the houses of all his master's customers, that while the baker went into one to deliver his loaves, the sagacious ass would proceed to the door of the next, at which, when he could reach the knocker, he gave a rap-a-tap-tap. If unable to do so, he would stamp with his feet in a peculiar way, well-known to the inmates. He never failed to stop at their doors, nor was he ever known by mistake to go ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... little centre-table, the ruddy head and the black one close together in the lamp-light, reading their Cicero. A rap at the door seemed a rude interruption; yet so unusual was the excitement of an evening visitor that they could not be quite indifferent to the event,—the less so when the visitor proved to be Polly's ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... then she noiselessly left the room, and moving quickly and silently across the hall she knocked at Sir Peregrine's door. This she did so gently that at first no answer was made to her. Then she knocked again, hardly louder but with a repeated rap, and Sir Peregrine summoned her to come in. "May I trouble you once more—for ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... he spoke another rap sounded on the front door—a brisk, imperative rap which brooked no delay. Pixie darted forward, imagining a surprise visit from the doctor, and found herself confronted by a man in black, standing sentinel over ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... A sharp rap sounded upon the door, and at once a soldier entered. He advanced to the centre of the room, stopped, clicked his heels together, saluted, and ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... had been possible; but the usher led her forward, and Robin Hood and the foresters having bent the knee before her, the hobby-horse began to curvet anew among the spectators, and tread on their toes, the fool to rap their knuckles with his bauble, the piper to play, the taborer to beat his tambourine, and the morris-dancers to toss their kerchiefs over their heads. Thus the pageant being put in motion, the rush-cart began to roll on, its horses' bells jingling merrily, and the spectators ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... leaped to his feet like a cat when a knock sounded on his door. He could tell in a twinkling if it was Hagan who knocked. This time he knew it was not. The rap ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... fighting his battle, when a slow step came down the stairs ending in a sharp rap upon the door. He said, "Come in," and Radbourn, the most powerful and most popular senior, entered the room. He was a good deal of an autocrat in the town and in the school, and took pleasure in exercising his power on behalf of some poor ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... your stick, tell us what's up,' said an old Republican colonel, who cared not a rap for Imperial gentility and ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... "I think, if you don't mind, I'll come in and sit down. That was a deuce of a rap I got across the toes. I am sure to be a great deal more lenient and agreeable if I'm asked to come in and see you. Incidentally, I thought I'd step up to inquire how your headache is getting on. Better, ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... this moment there was a smart rap at the library door, it was partly opened, and a ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... Bray is really a very respectable dragon. His selfishness is suggested with much more psychological tact and truth than that of any other of the villains that Dickens described about this time. But his daughter is merely the young woman with whom Nicholas is in love. We do not care a rap about Madeline Bray. Personally I should have preferred Cecilia Bobster. Here is one real point where the Victorian romance falls below the Elizabethan romantic drama. Shakespeare always made his heroines heroic as well as ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... company even of a child or dog. Stopping the horse, he listened. Not a footstep or wheel was audible anywhere around, and the dead silence was broken only by a heavy particle falling from a tree through the evergreens and alighting with a smart rap upon the coffin of poor Fanny. The fog had by this time saturated the trees, and this was the first dropping of water from the overbrimming leaves. The hollow echo of its fall reminded the waggoner painfully of the grim Leveller. Then hard by came down another drop, then ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... was a wholesome, happy place, even for these young heathen who were enjoying their bodies too much to care particularly about their souls. And when the superintendent stood up to rap the school to order for the close of the session, and line out one of Watts's sober hymns, there was a pleasant flutter of getting ready, and the smart young man of the neighborhood took his tuning-fork from his vest pocket to hit against ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... broke down utterly, and said such things of himself as other men do not like to hear. Presently there was a light rap of knuckles at the door. Austin opened it and ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... unfit for any troubles: my Lord St. John did, a day or two since, openly pull a gentleman in Westminster Hall by the nose, one Sir Andrew Henly, while the judges were upon their benches, and the other gentleman did give him a rap over the pate with his cane, of which fray the judges, they say, will make a great matter: men are only sorry the gentle man did proceed to return a blow; for, otherwise, my Lord would have been soundly fined for the affront, and may be yet for his affront ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... that are important, or that have been omitted in the rapid spelling, by rapping impatiently on the latter with the point—the point being lifted off the board at such times half an inch or so, and the board remaining planted on its two hind legs. I have seen the front leg of the board rap a dozen or so times on a letter that had been omitted; and sometimes the board would get so violent that it had to be quieted—just as the hand in automatic writing has to be quieted. Then, again, the board gets a certain "technique" ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... 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 all ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... 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 at every door. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... He is almost near enough for some shooting, when the Huns dive steeply, with the evident intention of landing on a near-by aerodrome. One of them fires a light as he goes, and—enter the villain Archibald to loud music. A ter-rap! ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... about suddenly and fell to copying digits furiously. Nor did he look Emmy Lou's way, only drove his pencil into his slate with a fervor that made Miss Clara rap sharply ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... eleven when he arrived, and in the perfect stillness of that upper corridor. I heard the bustle which heralded his approach, heard the rap upon the door opposite, followed by a muffled "Come in" from Weymouth. Then, as the door was opened, I heard the sound ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... began to shout: "Shame! Shame! The earth will devour such a man!" Because of this disgrace some of them began to strike their chests with their hands, and others to rap the silver dishes, not knowing ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... dressed quickly. She couldn't boldly rap at Sir Basil's door and call him to join her in the garden for a dewy walk before breakfast, for Jack's was the room next his; but, outside, as she drifted back and forth over the lawn, in full view of his window, she sang to herself, so that he could hear, sang sweetly, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... man! Poof! There is no such thing as a goblin man. In-a Italy we do not have such goblin mans. He said he heard something rap, rap on the inside of the barrel. Poof! Sergius must have been having one beeg, grand-a dream. Never in all my life did I ever hear anything go rap, rap on the inside of a barrel. (Stands close to JACK FROST'S barrel.) And if I did, I'd think ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... as she answered my rap at the cottage door. "Oh, Master Percy, how you have grown, and how's your ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... to his desk, and was arranging his papers, preparatory to departing for the day, when his ears were greeted by the unusual and unwelcome sound of a rap upon the communicating door. Instinctively he braced himself for an unpleasant encounter before replying. It was his experience that the Governor's room was like to Nazareth of old, in that no good might be expected to issue ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... the movement, the style of execution, and the relations of the parts—I was very full of business. For five or six minutes they were tuning; to me each minute seemed an age. At length, all being ready, I rap with a handsome paper baton on the leader's desk the five or six beats of the "Make ready." Silence is made—I gravely set to beating time—they commence! No, never since French operas began, was ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... print dresses. It was more than alienation, it was almost separation; but he was still my friend, he was the man, and he always will be, to whom my youth, with all its aspirations, was most closely united. So I turned to say good-bye to him and to my past life. Rap—rap—rap! ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... lad," he snapped. "I'd not have given a rap for you if you'd have cast your name away as easily as a pinching pair o' boots. Stick to your own name, John, and you'll look all ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... she nor her husband had a rap, they were ready for anything, and yet they did not make a large fortune. One of the chamberlains of the Regent, with an annual salary of six thousand livres, having received another appointment, Madame de Sabran thought six thousand livres a year too good to be ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon |
