"Butt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were to post a squad at a certain point where the spies were supposed to have hidden a quantity of petrol. The place in question was close to a rifle-butt. Men were detailed to guard all roads leading to the marsh, and to allow all traffic, whether motor-cars, carts, or pedestrians, to pass unchallenged. The sentries were on no account to show themselves, except to hold up everything and ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... a "Colt's Army," while I had a double-barreled shot-gun, loaded with buckshot. I was sitting on the double-tree, on the right side of the tongue, which was propped up with the neck-yoke. Stewart sat on the tongue, about an arm's length ahead of me, I holding my gun between my knees, with the butt on the ground. Stewart was getting off one of his stories, and, had about reached the climax, when I saw something running low to the ground, in among the stock. Thinking it was an Indian, on all fours, to stampede the animals, I instantly ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... is one which brings you nearest to your work and over which you have the greatest control to make all kinds of cuts. In the writer's experience no tool does this so smoothly and conveniently as a properly shaped saw. A good saw should be quite rigid, rather heavy at the butt, where its depth should be about six inches, tapering down to about two inches at the point. It should have a full, firm grip, be not more than thirty inches long, and should always be kept sharp. Two-edged saws should not ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... frenzy Edith struck that hand again and again with the heavy butt of her riding-whip, but it did not loosen its grasp. Her ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... of blue light were moving. And a man had died. He lay on the rock, his flesh blackened jelly, with a rope of glowing light running from the metal of his gun butt to the metal buttons on ...
— A World is Born • Leigh Douglass Brackett
... what did you see?" asked the sailor, turning the boat-hook round and holding it so that he could rap the boy's knuckles with the butt end of it. ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... Cattle butt with the horns and show a tendency to lick other animals. They bellow more than common and the sexual desire is increased. Paralytic symptoms are manifested early in the disease, and the animal may fall when moving about. They soon present a gaunt, ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... crossed Brandes' features, and Stull snatched at the pistol he had whipped out. There was a struggle; Brandes wrenched the weapon free; but Neeland tore his way past Curfoot and struck Brandes in the face with the butt of his ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... when I charged plunk into the middle of 'em. Yer should 'ave been there to see it. They were all round me and two taubes over 'ead watching my movements. Swish! and my bayonet went through the man in front and stabbed the identity disc of another. When I drew the bayonet out the butt of my 'ipe[3] would 'it a man behind me in the tummy. Ugh! 'e would say and flop bringing a mate down with 'im may be. The dead was all round me and I built a parapet of their bodies, puttin' the legs criss-cross and makin' loop 'oles. Then they began to ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... would attend the enterprise, so implicit was his confidence in his leader. When at some little distance from the town they halted, and Wallace ordered a tree to be felled and lopped of its branches. It was some eight inches in diameter at the butt and thirty feet long. A rope had been brought, and this was now cut into lengths of some four feet. Wallace placed ten of his men on each side of the tree, and the cords being placed under it, it was lifted and ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... cried lustily into the twilight our coachman's thick peasant voice. With the butt-end of his whip he pointed toward the hill that the belfry crowned. Below the little hamlet church lay the village. A high, steep street plunged recklessly downward toward the cliff; we as recklessly were following it. The snapping of our driver's whip had brought every inhabitant of the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... a lion's mane flew across the desert, but it was not till midnight that the fearful uproar began, and even you shuddered when it broke out in the Apis-cave. Frightful things must be coming on us when the sacred bulls rise from the dead and butt and storm at the door with their horns to break it open. Many a time have I seen the souls of the dead fluttering and wheeling and screaming above the old mausoleums, and rock-tombs of ancient times. Sometimes they would soar up in the air in the form of hawks ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "She fell in love with a false priest, and rued it ever mair"? The priest followed her "butt and ben," and gave her no peace. They took horses and money and rode out together "Until they came to a rank river, Was raging like the sea." There the priest ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... in the cache with one or two other prospector's tools, which, as the reef they desired to find was uncovered in one place, they had not thought it worth while to carry over that high ridge; so they set to work in silence with the rifle butt and their naked hands. Fortunately, the stones were large, and the soil beneath them soft, and in about twenty minutes they were ready for the rest of their task. It was one from which they shrank, but they accomplished it, and Grenfell straightened himself wearily as they ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... time he had held his hand in his bosom, and now he drew it out so far as to show the brass gleam of a pistol butt. ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... time. The Newton boy was small and stood low in his class, perhaps because book-learning had not been the bent of his grandmother. The fact that Isaac was neither strong nor smart, nor even smartly dressed, caused him to serve in the capacity of a butt for the bullies. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... husband, her children, her friends, her servants, to everybody. From the lofty height of her genius she scorns every womanly duty, and she is always trying to make a man of herself after the fashion of Mlle. de L'Enclos. Outside her home she always makes herself ridiculous and she is very rightly a butt for criticism, as we always are when we try to escape from our own position into one for which we are unfitted. These highly talented women only get a hold over fools. We can always tell what artist or friend holds the pen or pencil when they are ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... individualities a herd of cows presents when you have come to know them all, not only in form and color, but in manners and disposition. Some are timid and awkward and the butt of the whole herd. Some remind you of deer. Some have an expression in the face like certain persons you have known. A petted and well-fed cow has a benevolent and gracious look; an ill-used and poorly-fed one a pitiful and forlorn look. Some cows have a masculine ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... chimney is to cut a block of wood to the inside dimensions of the chimney, less 1/4 in. in width and thickness, then soften the asbestos cardboard by immersing in water, and bend it round the wood, cutting off to the required size, i.e., till the two edges form a neat butt joint. It can be allowed to remain on the mould until dry—when it will retain its shape—or can be put into the chimney straight away, if it is wanted for use immediately. In the latter case, however, it will be some fifteen minutes or so before the tube ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... decease, of "warbling truth at court," like Mr. Mallet [4] of indifferent memory.—Consider, one hundred marks a year! besides the wine and the disgrace; but then remorse would make me drown myself in my own butt before the year's end, or the finishing of my first dithyrambic.—So that, after all, I shall not meditate our laureate's death ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... he was countersigning the Note of Capitulation in the headquarters at Aldershot, the Auriole swung round from the northward and descended on to the turf flying the flag of truce. He saw it through the window, got up, put his right hand on the butt of the revolver in his hip-pocket, thought hard for one fateful moment, then took it away and ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... the cylinder, in which an accurately fitting and hollow piston moves. A powerful helical spring, turned out of a solid bar of steel, is compressed between the inside end of the piston and the upper end of the butt. To set the gun, the catch is pressed down so that its hooked end disengages from the stock, and the barrel is bent downwards on pivot P. This slides the lower end of the compressing lever towards the butt, and a projection on the guide B, working in a groove, takes the piston ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... connected by a bridge with the Laconian Coast. Hence the French Malvoisie and our Malmsey. Prof. Azevedo (loc. cit.) opines that the date of the wine's introduction disproves the legend of that 'maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.'] whose black grape was almost a raisin, and a harsh produce like that of the modern Gual, with great volume and alcoholic strength, but requiring time to ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... swiftness, Pierre leading, to the gate. They had just reached it when there was a cry from the walls, on which two Indians were sitting. The Indians sprang down, seized their spears, and lunged at the seven as they entered. One spear caught Little Babiche in the arm as he swung aside, but with the butt of his musket Noel dropped him. The other Indian was promptly handled by Pierre himself. By this time Corvette and Jose had shut the gates, and the Fort was theirs—an easy conquest. The Indians were ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... toward her. For one brief moment it was laid across her lap upon the paper-covered book she had been reading. Then its butt found its way to a resting place against her soft shoulder. Not for an instant had her gaze been diverted from the moving object. Now, however, her head inclined forward, and her warm cheek was laid against the cool butt. The sights of the weapon ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... 'cause he couldn't!" Amy quoted. "Poor Cigarette," she added, descending to prose again, and tapping Cigarette's nose with the butt of her riding-crop. "How he did heave and pant when he caught up with us! And Sunbeam ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... at a gull and brought it down on the rocks; but it was only winged, and picking it up, I wrung its neck, and flung it down, thinking it was dead, but in a couple of minutes it gave such signs of returning animation that I put the butt of my gun on its neck, which was upon the hard pathway, and pressed with all my might. But the thing would not die, so I got cross with both it and myself, with the bird for not dying and myself for causing it so ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... butt of a musket fell against the door, and we started to our feet in an instant. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard—Mrs. Peerybingle filled the kettle at the water-butt. Presently returning, less the pattens (and a good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short), she set the kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... the wits, musicians and literati whom a traditional morgue still excluded from many aristocratic houses. Yet in spite of his hospitality (or perhaps because of it) the Procuratore, as Odo knew, was the butt of the very poets he entertained, and the worst satirised man in Venice. It was his misfortune to be in love with his wife; and this state of mind (in itself sufficiently ridiculous) and the shifts and compromises to which it reduced him, were a source of endless amusement to ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... hurriedly reloaded their arms, only to meet with fresh failure, while I did nothing but laugh and laugh! The thing could not go on indefinitely. There were plenty of other means of doing away with me. They had their hands to strangle me with, the butt ends of their muskets to smash my head with, pebbles to stone me with. And there were over ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... hold that deadly fuse tight, it would eventually burn down to the bitter end. Then there would be a flash, and I'd probably never hold my hand around a gun butt again. I'd have to go looking for this pair of lice with my gun in my left. If they didn't try the same trick on my other hand. I tried to shut my mind on that notion but it was no use. It slipped. But the chances were that this pair of close-mouthed ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... without the capable assistant whose services were essential. In this perverse sequence of events disaster to his application was more to be desired than success. He foresaw himself browbeaten, humiliated, detected, a butt for the ridicule of the community, his pretensions in the dust, his pitiful imposture unmasked. And beyond these aesthetic misfortunes, the substantial emoluments of "keepin' store," with a gallant sufficiency of arithmetic to regulate prices and profits, were vanishing ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... had no more this opinion after Robertson said it, than before. I know nothing more offensive than repeating what one knows to be foolish things, by way of continuing a dispute, to see what a man will answer,—to make him your butt!' (angrier still.) BOSWELL. 'My dear Sir, I had no such intentions as you seem to suspect; I had not indeed. Might not this nobleman have felt every thing "weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable[1039]," as Hamlet says?' JOHNSON. 'Nay, if you are to bring in gabble, I'll talk ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... after I get it," he said belligerently. "I'm not going to do an investigation of some silly subject like The Transience of Venusian Immigrants in Relation to the Martian Polar Ice Cap Cycle. Solarian sociologists are the butt of enough ridicule now. Do something like that and for the rest of your life you get knocking of the knees whenever anybody inquires about the specialty you worked in and threatens to read ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... with a start. Anson with his admiring smile pulled his gun and, taking a couple of steps forward, held it out butt first. She stretched eagerly for it and he ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... the Mexicans thought of asking for quarter. One of the infantrymen, retreating before Dalzell's deftly handled sword, and fighting back with his rifle butt, retreated so close to the edge of the roof that, in another instant, he had fallen to the street below, ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... this pistol artist. This citizen remonstrated and warned the Idaho man that there was a Mounted Policeman not many miles away who would probably hear of the situation and come over. This enraged the "gun-man," who offered to bet that no Mounted Policeman could arrest him, adding, "if he comes to butt in to my game I will eat his liver cold." A telephone message was sent to Corporal Lett. It took some time to ride in, but Lett located the Idaho citizen terrorizing a bar-room. Lett walked in and the Idaho man had his gun up in a ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... really study—boxing?" At the last word Gibbs reeled under a blow in the face; his revolver, going off harmlessly, was snatched from him, Maxime's derringer missed also, and Gibbs swayed, bleeding and sightless, from Hilary's blows with the butt of the revolver. Presently down he lurched insensible, Hilary going half-way with him but recovering and turning to the aid of his friend. Maxime tore loose from his opponent, beseeching the bull-drivers to attack, but ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... two ways. A straight down push and a sideways push. The bolt resists the down push and transmits it to the first stick, and that pushes against the sill that I marked a. Now, the sideways push is against the butt of the first timber of the floor, and that's passed on, same ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... the butt of the gun, if he talks too much," Duff directed the bully, who had stepped back a few paces as the men formed a circle ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... lay a finger on me, Binet, you would give me the only provocation I still need to kill you." Andre-Louis was as calm as ever, and therefore the more menacing. Alarm stirred the company. He protruded from his pocket the butt of a pistol—newly purchased. "I go armed, Binet. It is only fair to give you warning. Provoke me as you have suggested, and I'll kill you with no more compunction than I should kill a slug, which after all is the thing you most ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... always did. How else should I walk? How do I walk that makes me so funny?" I asked, mortified at the thought of my having been the butt of secret ridicule. Henrietta was ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... advised that a club, of which he was an honorary member, would entertain him—that it would be a farmer's night. Alfred well knew there would be great fun at the expense of the farmer. He would be the butt of all the jokes the busy brains of a dozen or more keen wits could devise. Therefore, he studied for days that he might in a humorous way parry the jibes. Nothing humorous in connection with the farm could be evolved from his brain. He was too ambitious, too enthusiastic a ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... towards him with my musket loaded, and when near enough as I thought to him, I fired; but it did him no mischief and only made him take himself off at once. I nearly got into a scrape through it, however, for I was fired at myself in return, the bullet fortunately only taking the butt end off my musket. I turned to run off, and another shot hit the knapsack on my back, but I soon got out of reach of their shot again, luckily, as it happened, without any injury; but it must have been a near thing, for when I next opened my knapsack, I found ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... ridiculed, most despised nation on earth? That your countrywomen furnish about eighty per cent. of the world's prostitutes; that a German almost anywhere is a waiter, or a sausage-manufacturer, or a beer-seller, the butt of comic papers in a score of languages? All that has not occurred ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... down. His rather long, fair hair was in contrast with the golden tan of his face. He wore a shirt of fringed buckskin, open at the neck. His trousers were tucked into silver-studded riding boots, weighted with spurs that jingled in tune to his swinging stride. At each trim hip was the butt of a ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... She's served them butt, she's served them ben, Intill a gown of green, But her e'e was ay on Brown Robin, That stood low ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... "The butt! the butt!" she cried, almost breathlessly. "I know that's right! I read how Edward Everett Hale did ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... the kind of a man I am looking for. I want somebody with nerve. The trouble with the fellows in college who hate Merriwell is that they do not dare butt up against him. They ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... gaining the upper hand when the thug whom he had thrown over his head recovered. The brute took the situation in at a glance, saw his pal in trouble, and, sneaking treacherously behind Locke, dealt him a terrific blow with the butt of a revolver. Locke dropped to the floor as if pole-axed and ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the dock the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for the corporation there near Butt bridge. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... butt for ridicule, and is continually told that he ought to put on his nightcap, and draw it down over his eyes, and do nothing but ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... worst, I'll cover the whole of this property with a couple of tubs, one to catch rain-water and t'other filled with garden mould. If the sea rots 'em, I'll have the whole estate careened, and its bottom pitched and its seams stopped with oakum. I'll rig up a battery here, and if the water-butt runs dry you shall blaze away at the guns till you fetch the rain down, as I've seen it fetched down before now by a cannonade. But I mean to have a garden here, and a ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... performed as to make those at the Rito believe that the Navajos were the perpetrators. This was her plan, and she did not feel the slightest scruple or compunction. For years she had been, among her own people, the butt of numberless insults and mortifications. Now it had gone so far that her life even was in imminent peril. Ere this should be lost, she would prove to her enemies that she was alive, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... to probe with the end of a staff among the ivy. For some time he was met by the solid ground, but presently the butt of the staff went through suddenly, pitching him on his head, amid a suppressed laugh from ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... sent to the Matambwe south-east of this returned with a good supply of grain. The sepoys won't come; they say they cannot,—a mere excuse, v because they tried to prevail on the Nassick boys to go slowly like them, and wear my patience out. They killed one camel with the butt ends of their muskets, beating it till it died. I thought of going down disarming them all, and taking five or six of the willing ones, but it is more trouble than profit, so I propose to start westwards on Monday the 4th, or Tuesday the 5th. My sepoys offered ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... for Ben, nothing more would have been done or said about, the matter. Butt it was not in his nature to be sensible of an inconvenience without using his best efforts to find a remedy. So, as he and his comrades were returning from the water-side, Ben suddenly threw down his string of fish with a very ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the Governor General. The State regulates very strictly the importation of arms. Permission has to be obtained from the Governor General before any fire arms can be landed; then each one is stamped on the butt with the Star of the State and a number which is registered. If anyone in the country wishes to purchase a weapon from another, both buyer and seller have to obtain permission from the Governor General. These laws are very excellent for they effectually keep modern weapons out of the hands ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... pronounce a hasty verdict upon actions which may be carelessly misrepresented, or words, if not intentionally, yet heedlessly misquoted, without affording an opportunity to the condemned individual to speak for himself, is unjust in the extreme. But how many excellent persons are made the butt of ridicule, or tossed about as the playthings of a gossipping spirit, which, incapable of a direct charge, gratifies its malignity by infusing calumnies into the too listening ear of prejudice. An idle ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... secrecy—that the jewel had been lost when the lamp was shipped from New York," Dundee explained. "There's a blank cartridge in the gun now, of course, but Miles, in his panic, took my words literally.... See the electro-magnet strapped to the gun butt? He got it from the bell Sprague had installed in Lydia's bedroom, and he returned it when he was 'cleaning up', so that the bell would ring again. The magnet he connected with the electric wire in one of the two lamp sockets, as you see it now, and the long cord of ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... Not that Walter really hated his brother; he would have been shocked to admit to himself the faintest shadow of such a feeling, for he was naturally generous and of warm affections; but he clearly looked upon his elder brother as decidedly in his way and in the wrong place, and often made a butt of him, considering it quite fair to play off his sarcasms and jokes on one who had stolen a march upon him by coming into the world before him as heir of the family estate. And now that their mother—who had made ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... home, I greet my father alone in the patio. Father Dominic, meanwhile, sits outside in his flivver and permits the motor to roar, just to let my father know he's there, although not for money enough to restore his mission would he butt in ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavor in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, Obedience: for so work the honey-bees; Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king and officers of sorts: Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like soldiers, armed in their ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... on to sharpening the weapon points as all that they were capable of, and had been bidden by Smallbones to turn and hold alternately, but "that oaf Giles Headley," said Stephen, "never ground but one lance, and made me go on turning, threatening to lay the butt about ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... In a blackened butt of an inn, a group of Senegalese were hiding. They were great six-foot fellows, with straight bodies, and shoulders for carrying weights—the face a black mask, expressionless, save for the rolling whites of the eyes, ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... this thought which led him stealthily to place his hand on the butt of the revolver at his hip, prepared to whip it out and fire as quickly as he knew how. At the same time he edged away from him, so as to maintain ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... coachman,—that is the man who was before me,—gave you, in the dark, a good sound drubbing, of which you said nothing. In short, what is the use of going on? We can go nowhere but we are sure to hear you pulled to pieces. You are the butt and jest and byword of everybody; and never does anyone mention you but under the names of miser, stingy, ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... thought in an agony of uncertainty, but the hazard followed quick upon the thought, and bang, bang, went my two barrels. At the same time the Sikh dafadar, Gopal Singh, with all the characteristic bravery of this magnificent race, ran in and beat the animal about the head with the butt-end of Blake's shot-gun, which he was ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... hand gripped the butt of his pistol as he led the way straight ahead. The sudden gloom helped to hide in his face the horror he felt of what that "rescue" would mean to Mary Standish; and then a cold and deadly definiteness possessed him, ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... Skinski whispered back. "Never a break from yours mysteriously, believe me. We wouldn't have come out at all if your partner hadn't insisted. He was so hot to have us butt in here and hand your heart a flutter that I just couldn't resist his pleading voice. It's a catchy jest, all right, and it's making me laugh. The way you two ducks josh each other is pitiful, but your secret ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... by my side. I slept peacefully and without a dream; the sun was high in heaven when, with a yawn and a stretching of my limbs, I awoke. I heard, as I opened my eyes, a little rustling as of somebody moving; my hand flew to the butt of my pistol. But when I turned round I saw Barbara only. She was sitting a little way behind me, looking out over the sea. Feeling my gaze ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... into his little pony's flank. With a neigh of pain the animal leaped forward. For a moment there was a tangle of striking hoofs and wriggling coils of the foiled reptile, while Charley leaning over in his saddle struck with the butt-end of his riding whip at the writhing coils. Though it seemed an eternity to the helpless watchers it was really only a few seconds ere the pony sprang away from its loathsome enemy and Charley with ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Flushing effectually did, and Walcheren, with its ophthalmia and its agues, was no longer a place for a gentleman. Besides, I plainly saw that if there ever had been any intention of advancing to Antwerp, the time was now gone by; and as the French were laughing at us, and I never liked to be made a butt of, particularly by such chaps as these, I left the scene of our ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a BAThrooM wallpaper? it could be produced verery cheaply and itcould be calld the CHER RYdesigN damn, imeant to put all that in capitals. iam afraid this articleis spoilt now but butt bUt curse . But perhaps the most excitingthing aLout this macLine is that you can by presssing alittle switch suddenly writein redor green instead of in black; I donvt understanh how Lt is done butit is very jollY? busisisness men us e the device a gre t deal wen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... music calculated to fire the breast of the Scotsman with a lust for blood. We had rifle practice on the marvellous ranges. We had sham battles in which the men engaged so intensely that on one (p. 017) occasion, when the enemy met, one over-eager soldier belaboured his opponent with the butt end of his rifle as though he were a real German, and the poor victim, who had not been taught to say "Kamarad", suffered grievous wounds and had to be taken away in an ambulance. Though many gales and tempests had blown ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... that until they found out about you. He walked over to Colin's sofa and put the new-born lamb quietly on his lap, and immediately the little creature turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown and began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt its tight-curled head with soft impatience against his side. Of course no boy could have ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... rendered him notorious. He had gained, and not undeservedly, great reputation for his critical powers. After a retention of above thirty years, his Pucelle appeared. He immediately became the butt of every unfledged wit, and his former works were eternally condemned; insomuch that when Camusat published, after the death of our author, a little volume of extracts from his manuscript letters, it is curious to observe the awkward situation in which he finds himself. In his preface he ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was a preliminary step to his being shot, he fell on his knees and implored mercy. His captors were, however, inexorable, and he began to cry bitterly, and besought them to spare his life; these manifestations had, however, no effect on his deadly foes, who now threatened to fell him with the butt end of a fusee if he did not comply: this had the effect, and the poor captive reluctantly pulled off the jacket and threw it on the ground; this was immediately picked up by one of the party, to avoid its being stained with the life-blood of the victim. ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... was marred by his irregular habits, which resulted in pecuniary embarrassment, and between 1865 and 1870 he returned again to his work at the law courts. The result, however, of the disestablishment of the Irish Church was to drive Butt and other Irish Protestants into union with the Nationalists, who had always repudiated the English connexion; and on 19th May 1870, at a large meeting in Dublin, Butt inaugurated the Home Rule movement in a speech demanding an Irish parliament for local affairs. On this platform ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... while brief, was thorough. The judges examined the saddle carefully for copper stitching, looked at the butt end of the whip, ran their hands over Calamity's thin loins and last of all felt in his bootlegs for wires connected with the spurs. All this time Jockey Gillis might have been posing as a statue of ...
— Old Man Curry - Race Track Stories • Charles E. (Charles Emmett) Van Loan
... incomparably the best patients, taking them by and large. Besides, when they won't get well and bore you to death, you can send 'em off to travel. Mind me now, and take the tops of your sparrowgrass. Somebody must have 'em,—why shouldn't you? If you don't take your chance, you'll get the butt-ends as a matter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... open weather. The cattle in the corral ate corn almost as fast as the men could shell it for them, and we hoped they would be ready for an early market. One morning the two big bulls, Gladstone and Brigham Young, thought spring had come, and they began to tease and butt at each other across the barbed wire that separated them. Soon they got angry. They bellowed and pawed up the soft earth with their hoofs, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads. Each withdrew to a far corner of his own corral, and ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... for a week or two afterwards she would not pass through that room. As we entered the refectory one evening for dinner we saw a large snake vanish out of the back door, and we found it curled up behind the water-butt. ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... with the official reports of Captain Bailey and of his own commander, Lieutenant Harrison; "but a heavy charge from our eleven-inch gun settled the Governor Moore, which was one of them. A ram, the Manassas, in attempting to butt us just missed our stern, and we soon settled the third fellow's 'hash.' Just then some of our gunboats which had passed the forts came up, and then all sorts of things happened." This last expression is probably as terse and graphic a summary of a melee, which to so many is ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... laurels were chiefly won. Yet, at the time of the declaration of war, the navy of the United States consisted of twenty vessels, of which the largest carried forty-four guns, and the majority rated under thirty. For years this navy had been a butt of ridicule for all the European naval powers. The frigate "Constitution" was scornfully termed by an English newspaper "a bunch of pine boards sailing under a bit of striped bunting." Not long after the ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... kindred's sake before he makes friends for his own; the world is overkind to his virtues and blind to his faults; he enters manhood indeed as "one of our conquerors"; and it will cost him some trouble to throw away his advantages. Before the war such a youth was the common butt of the Socialist orator. He was the typical "shirker" and "loafer," while other men worked; the parasite bred from the sweat of the poor; the soft, effeminate creature who had never faced the facts of life and never would. As to his ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which scarcely affect other trees, or only tear off a few twigs. Two have thus been thrown recently—within eighteen months—in the fields opposite Tolworth Farm. The elm drags up its own roots, which are often only a fringe round its butt, and leaves a hollow in the earth, as if it had been simply stood on end and held by these guy-ropes. Other trees do, indeed, fall in course of time, but not till they are obviously on the point of tottering, but the elm goes down in full pride of foliage. By this pond there is a rough old ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... mules were trotting off in the direction where Jose and I lay; seeing which, some of the banditti came in pursuit of them. On seeing that I was alive, a savage-looking fellow lifted his carbine, and was about to give me a quietus on my head with the butt of it, while another threatened to perform the same office for Jose, when a shout, different from any I had before ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... would fain be "distinguished" by Madame Schontz, but as for marrying her, that folly seemed debatable to a bachelor of thirty-eight whom the revolution of July had made a judge. Seeing his hesitation, Madame Schontz made the Heir the butt of her wit, her jests, and her disdain, and turned to Couture. Within a week, the latter, whom she put upon the scent of her fortune, had offered his hand, and heart, and future,—three things of about ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... house, near the spot where Edith was standing. She had placed her right foot on the second board of the fence just ready to jump, when Jerry arrived just in time to take advantage of the opportunity presented. With one strong butt he hoisted her clear of the fence, landing her on all fours on the soft, plowed ground on the other side. She jumped up quickly, spitting out a mouthful of the soft earth she had scooped up. Bob and Edith were doubled ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... he could get a shot, or Seth deal the deadly blow he contemplated with the butt-end of his rifle, Ernest Wilton uttered an exclamation that stopped them both—an exclamation of ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... was returned; and ere the smoke rose a cheer rang through the ravine, and Riley fell with a swoop on the intrenchments. With bayonet and butt of musket, the Second and Seventh drove the enemy from his guns, leaping into his camp and slaughtering all before them. Up rushed Smith's own brigade on the left, driving a party of Mexicans before them, and charging with the bayonet straight at Torrejon's cavalry, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... his breathing showed him fast asleep indeed, I slipped over to the black eunuch and crouched, right hand close to the butt ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... cultured men are to be pitied, for they are ever the butt, byword and prey of the untaught, who are often the knowing. As success came to Southey he lost the sense of values, that is to say, the sense of humor. He attacked Byron with great severity, and Byron's reply was the dedication of Don Juan, "To the illustrious Poet-Laureate, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... and seventh centuries, but never, to my knowledge, with any of a later age. They may, in fact, be considered as characteristic appendages, or accompanying features, to the ecclesiastical structures of those times. There is one at Rathmichael, near Dublin, where there is the butt of a round tower. I have seen many of them in various states of preservation, and I think all were about 4 feet both in breadth and height. They were, however, never arched, but roofed with large flags, ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... both sides going at a great rate, and infinite musketry ("ninety cartridges a man on our Prussian side, and ammunition falling done"), not without bayonet-pushings, and smitings with the butt of your musket, the Austrians are driven into Lobositz; are furiously pushed there, and, in spite of new battalions coming to the rescue, are fairly pushed through. These Village-streets are too narrow for new battalions from Browne; "much ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... perfect piece of wood in all the world. This he never finds, but the likest substitute is trimmed and balanced and poised to that ideal. One man I know has evolved very nearly the weapon of Umslopogaas. It is almost straight, lapped at the butt with leather, amazingly springy, and carries a two-edged blade for splitting and chopping. If his Demon be with him—and what artist can answer for all his moods?—he will cause a tree to fall upon any stick or stone that you choose, uphill or ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... girls can't very well understand. When one is a wife and a mother—I thought it all over during my illness. I had been neglecting my husband and Hughie, and it was too bad—downright selfishness. Art and housekeeping won't go together; I thought they might, butt found my mistake. Of course, it cost me a struggle, but that's over. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... formed his unimpassioned and polished periods. And as that old Earl, who in the time of Charles the First was the reigning wit of the court, in the time of Charles the Second was considered too dull even for a butt, so every age has its own literary stamp and coinage, and consigns the old circulation to its shelves and cabinets as neglected curiosities. Cleveland could not become the fashion with the public as an author, though the coteries cried him up and the reviewers adored ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bad. Papa was quizzed, mamma flattered, and the daughters' simplicity amused these young lordlings. Rebellion was whispered in the small ears of the Gay weathers. The little heads, too, of the Gay-weathers were turned. They were the constant butt, and the constant resource, of ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... both, for we're fed every day out of the ship's stores. There's the scuttle butt on deck nearly full o' water, and there's grub down in the lazarette, but ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... my life hung that I often marvel that I escaped so easily. Had not the rifle of the leader of the party swung from its fastenings beside his saddle in such a way as to strike against the butt of his great metal-shod spear I should have snuffed out without ever knowing that death was near me. But the little sound caused me to turn, and there upon me, not ten feet from my breast, was the point ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a triangular indentation, which, with footmarks, was imprinted in the soft yellow sand at the foot of a small boulder; and taking the butt of his Winchester rifle, ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... as hard to find as Chagres. The California acted as if she were going to butt right into the beach; and the passengers, crowded along the landside rails, eagerly waiting, could make out no harbor. Yet Acapulco was said to have the finest harbor between Panama and San Francisco; and there was Acapulco itself—the ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... are very important. The American tuna rod is an excellent piece of workmanship. It is made in two pieces, the tip and the butt. The tip, according to the rules of the Tuna Club, must not be less than 6ft. long, and fits into the butt just above the reel. It is made of split cane, but with no steel centre, and is very strong and ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... the young man who had waded ashore, whom his comrades addressed as Kirkwood or Kirk, walking behind the wagon with the dog in his arms, responding to his whimpering claims for attention with teasing caresses. The dog, it seemed, was the butt as well as the pet of the party. As they approached the house he scrambled out of Kirkwood's arms and lingered to take a roll in the sandy path, coming up a moment afterward to be received with blighting sarcasms upon his appearance. After his ignominious wetting he was quite unable to bear ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... peculiar. It is bad enough to have to bear the burden of one's own transgressions without learning of those of other people, that is, unless one is a priest and must do so professionally. So I jumped up to escape and make arrangements for a wash, only to butt into old Billali, who was standing in the doorway contemplating Robertson with much interest and ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... A butt weld (Figure 52) is made between the ends of two pieces of shaft or other bar shapes by upsetting the ends so that they have a considerable flare and shaping the face of the end so that it is slightly higher in the center than around the edges, this being ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... to guess that "Jazz" is the mascot of "X" squadron, accepted by pilots and mechanics alike as talisman for good at some training camp back home. This office he has performed with exceptional skill from the day "Fuzzy" permitted him to "butt ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... Morning Sitting gave only possible fillip to interminable Debate on Land Purchase Bill. BRER FOX still away, so comparative peace reigns in Irish Camp. TIM HEALY no one to butt his head against; COLONEL NOLAN too busy deploying his army of five men; showing them how to retreat in good order when Division-bell rings, and how, when it is decided to vote, they shall pass out through one door, march in at the other, cross the floor, and look as much as possible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various
... to Christina's infinite disgust, than the very Count Ericson whose acquaintance she had already made, and whom she infinitely and unappeasably disliked. He was the most awkward, stupid-looking young man she ever saw, and had furnished her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries ever since she had known him. He rose to lead her to her seat. "How different from Adolphus! If he is no better performer in the battle-field than at the supper-table, the King must be very ill off for soldiers. What can papa mean by asking such a horrid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... at him and he added reassuringly: "Oh, don't mistake me. I don't want to butt into your set—not for social purposes, anyhow; but if ever it should come handy to know any of 'em in a business way, would you fix it up for me—AFTER ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... to within twenty yards, the other to within ten yards, of the Austrian front line. Here every one spoke in a low whisper or by signs. They warned me to keep well down, as the Austrians hated khaki worse even than "grigio-verde," as one is always apt to hate third parties who butt in against one in what one conceives to be a ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... frowning as he recalled how Fanarin, examining him as a witness the year before, in the most polite manner made him the butt of ridicule. ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... the wounded man had dragged himself up the trail, finally staggering to his feet, and with a caution which he had not exercised a few hours before Howland continued slowly between the thick forest walls, one hand clutching the butt of the revolver in his coat pocket. Where the trail twisted abruptly into the north he found the charred remains of a camp-fire in a small open, and just beyond it a number of birch toggles, which had undoubtedly been used in place of tent-stakes. With the toe of his boot he kicked among ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... started all wrong, Bi did. He came to college from a Western university and entered the junior class. That was his first mistake. A fellow can't butt in at the beginning of the third year and expect to trot even with fellows who have been there two years. It takes a chap one year to get shaken down and another year to get set up. By the time Bi was writing his "life" he had just ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... tease Joy, perhaps because she flushed so prettily as her slight anger rose. But whatever the reason she was always the butt for their good natured teasing. And no matter how much she resented it, she turned it off with a joke. Yet it could be seen that she always turned to Shirley ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... aside the chart, kicked the lead under the seat, and, kneeling on the dripping coils of line, sounded continuously with the butt-end of the boat-hook, a stumpy little implement, notched at intervals of a foot, and often before used for the same purpose. All at once I was aware that a check had come, for the dinghy swerved and doubled like a ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... one another in the same way; bears wrestle and box; chickens have mimic battles; colts run and leap; fawns probably do the same thing; squirrels play something like a game of tag in the trees; lambs butt one another and skip about ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... ire he rose to mete out justice to this highwayman. Had the butt of his whip hit Shelby he would have seen more stars than twinkled overhead. But it didn't. It was caught in one hand, given a dexterous twist and sent flying into the road as Shelby said in ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... moment's hesitation, he let go his sheet and began to paddle back. This bolsa was nothing but a bundle of tule, or bullrush, bound together with grass-ropes in the shape of a cigar, about ten feet long and about two feet through the butt. With these the California Indiana cross streams of considerable size. When he came ashore, I gave him a good overhauling for attempting to desert, and put him to work getting breakfast. In due time we returned him to his ship, the Ohio. Subsequently, I made ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... orthodox and extremely old-fashioned as to dress and habits. They felt perfectly at home in my shop, and would rather work for me and be underpaid than be employed in an up-to-date factory where a tailor was expected to wear a starched collar and necktie and was made the butt of ridicule if he covered his head every time he took a drink of water. These, however, were minor advantages. The important thing, the insurmountable obstacle which kept these three skilled tailors away from the big cloak-shops, was the fact that one had to work on Saturdays ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... is!" cried a voice from the landing; "here he is! I see him!" The brigadier had put his eye to the keyhole, and had discovered Andrea in a posture of entreaty. A violent blow from the butt end of the musket burst open the lock, two more forced out the bolts, and the broken door fell in. Andrea ran to the other door, leading to the gallery, ready to rush out; but he was stopped short, and he stood with his body a little thrown ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that opened behind the arras at the rear of the throne, and passing into The Hall of Chiefs took his place upon the back of a riderless thoat, whose warrior was in I-Gos' repair room. When O-Tar entered and came near him Gahan fell upon him and struck him with the butt of a heavy spear. He thought that he had killed him and was surprised when O-Tar appeared to ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Afghanistan (22. Mr. Blyth, in 'Land and Water,' March, 1867, p. 134, on the authority of Capt. Hutton and others. For the wild Pembrokeshire goats, see the 'Field,' 1869, p. 150.), rear on their hind legs, and then not only butt, but "make a cut down and a jerk up, with the ribbed front of their scimitar-shaped horn, as with a sabre. When the O. cycloceros attacked a large domestic ram, who was a noted bruiser, he conquered him ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Californian replaced the targets with new ones—old tin dinner plates this time—and voiced a philosophical regret over his recent defeat. The Texas man, ready at last, took his place beside Pete and raised his gun till the butt of it was level with his ear, the barrel pointing up and back. Johnson swung up his heavy gun in ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... begged me to come with her, and I went. The phaeton was waiting, but we had scarcely started when some fellow seized the horses' heads, and a couple of ruffians attacked us. One of them I beat over the head with the butt of the whip, so that he dropped the cudgel with which he was about to strike me; then lashing the horse, I shook off the others and got safely away. I cannot imagine who they were or why they should ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is but sluttish if it smell so strongly as thou speak'st of: I will hencefoorth eate no Fish of Fortunes butt'ring. Prethee alow the winde ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... missing to complete the attire. It is the revolver, which Austrian law compels them to leave behind on entering her land. They are obviously ill at ease without that familiar weapon, for ever and anon a hand strays unconsciously to the empty belt seeking its wonted resting-place on the butt. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... and there began to be straggling passengers along the road, some of whom came slowly, as if they had received hurts; all seemed wearied. Among them one form appeared which Rose soon found that she recognized. It was Robert Hagburn, with a shattered firelock in his hand, broken at the butt, and his left arm bound with a fragment of his shirt, and suspended in a handkerchief; and he walked weariedly, but brightened up at sight of Rose, as if ashamed to let her see how exhausted and dispirited he was. Perhaps he expected a smile, at least a more ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the presence of the men until they were directly behind him. Then he turned, only to be met with a blow on the head with the butt of a pistol, and he sank to the ground ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... said to be so mighty and powerful, had never to do with me. As to the other, I know it by sight, and that's all. Beasts feel it; the shepherd Cratis, having fallen in love with a she-goat, the he-goat, out of jealousy, came, as he lay asleep, to butt the head of the female, and crushed it. We have raised this fever to a greater excess by the examples of some barbarous nations; the best disciplined have been touched with it, and 'tis reason, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne |
