"Clinched" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... head. Then remembering, in the midst of her anguish, some words she had been reading that morning, she repeated them with a bitter emphasis,—"What can wringing of the hands do, that which is ordained to alter?" As she did so she tore asunder her clasped hands, to drop them clinched by her side,—the gesture of despair substituted for that ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... minute the log was so close that the nimble-footed Ben leaped ashore and strode straight for the valiant Rutherford, who immediately threw himself in "position." His attitude was certainly artistic, with his left foot thrown forward, his right fist clinched and held across his breast, and his left extended ready to be shot forward into the first opening that his ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... once witnessed a sight which rose before his eyes many times afterward and would not be blotted from his memory. It all came back to him now once more,—the agonized, horribly glaring eyes, the clinched hands and quivering throat, and the convulsive sobbing and gasping which would not cease tearing the wasted frame until death should bring the only possible help. It made him sick at heart to think that the gentle unselfish girl who was even then forgetting herself in her care for others would be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... ale first gave way to tea, and then to coffee as a breakfast beverage. The Boston "tea party" clinched the case for coffee; but in the meantime, coffee was more or less of an after-dinner function, or a between-meals drink, as in Europe. In Washington's time, dinner was usually served at three o'clock in the afternoon, and at informal dinner parties ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... impose upon any elder family male. Among these was this twanging bow with its light shaft, better fitted for a child's plaything than for real work among men. As for him, give him a heavy spear, with the blade well set in thongs, or a heavy ax, with the head well clinched in the sinew-bound wooden haft. There was rarely miss or failure to the spear-thrust or the ax-stroke. And now, in proof of the soundness of his old-fashioned belief, he staked ruggedly his life. There were few spears left. There were only axes on either side. And there stood old Hilltop upon the ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... multitude of farmers and dwellers in country towns, with here and there a sprinkling of city-folk, crowded about the stand where "Old Abe" and the "Little Giant" turned and twisted and fenced for an opening, grappled and drew apart, clinched and strained and staggered,—but neither fell. The wonder grew that Lincoln stood up so well under the onslaughts of Douglas, at once skillful and reckless, held him off with so firm a hand, gripped him so shrewdly. Now, the wonder is ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... time I thought he'd taken hisself off like a good boy, to run along an' mess his clothes 'pon the Quay. . . . Come 'ee forth, my cherub, an' tell your mother what they've a-been doin' to 'ee? . . . Eh? Why, what's that you've a-got clinched ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... as unpatriotic, even if it was given, is to read duties defined at a much later date into the first feudal chaos; to make such blame positive and personal is like expecting the Ancient Britons to sing "Rule Britannia." William further clinched his case by declaring that Harold, the principal Saxon noble and the most probable Saxon claimant, had, while enjoying the Duke's hospitality after a shipwreck, sworn upon sacred relics not to dispute the Duke's claim. About this episode also we must agree that we do not know; yet we shall ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... between the northern slopes of the Vosges and Luxemburg was too narrow for the deployment of Germany's strength; the way was also barred by the elaborate fortifications of Verdun, Toul, and Nancy. Strategy pointed conclusively to the Belgian route, and its advantages were clinched by the fact that France was relying on the illusory scrap of paper. Her dispositions assumed an attack in Lorraine, and her northern fortifications round Lille, Maubeuge, and Hirson were feeble compared with those ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... of recollection Flint remembered the startled look that had come into his assailant's eye after they had clinched. It was the same man who had too late realized that his antagonist was not Fowler. "Thank God! you are forever safe from any exposure from that man," he said, gravely, "and the name of Fowler has never been known in San Francisco save in all respect and honor. It is for you ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... he would pass me and never would speak. Then a shuddery breath like the coming of Death crept down from the peaks far away; The water was still; the twilight was chill; the sky was a tatter of gray. Swift came the Big Cold, and opal and gold the lights of the witches arose; The frost-tyrant clinched, and the valley was cinched by the stark and cadaverous snows. The trees were like lace where the star-beams could chase, each leaf was a jewel agleam. The soft white hush lapped the Northland and wrapped us round in a crystalline dream; So still I could hear quite loud in my ear the ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... expended in wielding his club now began to be apparent. His movements became slower, his breath hissed through his clinched teeth, and the surprised savages drew nearer in order to render assistance. Jack observed this movement. He felt that his fate was sealed, and resolved to cast his life upon the next blow. The chiefs club was again ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... leads us by far. I was profitably entertained in the main temple as I listened to one of the famous orators discoursing to an audience of eighty thousand. Not only did his canary-like voice penetrate to all parts of the large room, but his objective illustrations clinched the truth remarkably well. ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... also took the trouble to inform me that the country was alive with Indians, and that the man who went there took big chances; and, if I were at all timid, I had better not accept the position. My friend gave me a strong recommend and I clinched the matter by telling the gentleman that I was not afraid of man, ghost or Indian. He replied that I was just the man he was in search of, and would give me five hundred dollars in gold, a good horse and pay all expenses; that I should ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... General. He claimed that my hogs had been gettin' into his field, and I told him that I didn't feel disposed to keep my hogs up when everybody else's were runnin' at large, and then he called me a scoundrel and we clinched. I took him so quick that he wasn't prepared for me, and I give a sort of a hem stich and down he went, right in the middle of the road. And there I was right on top of him. He didn't say a word, while I was wallowin' him, but ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... the accentuated thunder of forty voices, the men's hoarse and straining, the women's rich, falsetto, and musical. In the stern the old chief swayed with every rush of the boat, one sinewy hand clinched on the tiller, the other enfolding a little child. In the bow a handsome boy stood erect and graceful, throwing a rifle in the air and dancing to the song of his comrades. Dip, swish, bang! On they came with an increasing ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... for a man to kiss a girl at will, whether she chose to permit it or not. The maiden was firm in maintaining that such was not the case. Finally, it was decided that the only solution of the question must be by a practical demonstration one way or the other. So, they tried it. They clinched, and the battle was on. After a lively tussle, they broke away. The girl had been kissed—ardently for a period of minutes. Her comment showed ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... clinched and the job is done, son, and I feel sure that, being a healthy young American citizen with plenty of cash to pay your way, you're not going to let go that cash ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... bear upon him by the press, by many of his friends, and by such a man as Emerson, whom he deeply reverenced, to change or omit certain passages from his poems, seems only to have served as the opposing hammer that clinched the nail. The louder the outcry the more deeply he felt it his duty to stand by his first convictions. The fierce and scornful opposition to his sex poems, and to his methods and aims generally, was probably more ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... Morton, then breaking off short as though at loss for descriptive of sufficient strength. He seemed to swell with passion as he clinched his fists and fairly stood upon his toes an instant, his strong white teeth grinding together. "It would be—simply hell!" he burst in again, hoarse and quivering. "It would ruin—everything! Can't the General give the order to-night?" ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... now, took slow catlike steps toward me, backing Don almost against my knees. He was so close I smelt him. His wonderful eyes, clear blue fire circled by yellow flame, fascinated me. Hugging the wall with my body I brought the revolver up, short armed, and with clinched teeth, and nerve strained to the breaking point, I aimed between the eyes and ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... American ship—the Baltimore—two days out from New York for Shanghai, whose skipper backed his yard in answer to the tug-captain's offer to give him a sailor, and whose third-mate received Scotty—not with open arms, but clinched fists, as he dropped, swearing, to the deck in a ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... peculiarly intense this morning, rendered the Eye more monstrous than it was. It expanded to horrible size, growing mountainous; it turned into a volcano in the tropics, and yet it stared at him, indubitably an Eye implacably hostile to all rights of privacy forever. Penrod blinked and clinched his eyelids to be rid of this dual image, and he managed to shake off the volcano. Then, lowering the angle of his glance, he saw something most ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... Norman clinched his hands and the muscles of his jaw in the effort to control himself. "Dorothy," he said, "I've not acted as I should. Tetlow will tell you that there is good excuse for me. I know you don't understand about those things—about the ways of ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... what he done, teacher. He took the best, and when he got tired on't, he threw it away,"—the brawny hand at George Olver's side was clinched so as to appear almost colorless, yet there was little discomposure in his voice—"but cursin' him ain't a goin' to help us now. When a thing that's allays been precious to us has once fell, we can't never make it quite like it was afore, but we can keep care on't patient, a waitin' ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... been of wax, and the natural expressions forced their way; some got flushed with triumph, others wild and haggard with their losses. One ghastly, glaring loser sat quite quiet, when his all was gone, but clinched his hands so that the nails ran into the flesh, and blood trickled: discovering which, a friend dragged him off like ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... put it that way," said Charlie, visibly moved by the thought of the books. The bargain was clinched with an agreement that he should at unstated intervals come to me with all the notions that he possessed, should have a table of his own to write at, and unquestioned right to inflict upon me all his poems and fragments of poems. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... four or five miles when the decision was reached, and they straightway turned back and raced into Dry Lake again, so that Andy might write the letter that clinched matters. Then, whooping with the sheer exhilaration of living, and the exultation of being able to ride and whoop unhindered, they galloped back to camp and let the news spread as it would. In a week all Chouteau ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... athlete was enjoying himself hugely. "Now—I must remind you that I'm taking a big chance in doing this. If you make a noise, I shall treat you as any desperate man would treat you!" There was a look in his eyes which clinched ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... heavier than the youth who thus dared him, hesitated only a moment. Then he rushed at Henry Burns and they clinched. The struggle seemed over before it had hardly begun, however, for the next moment Benny Ellison found himself lying on his back in the road, with Henry ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... St. Leger taunted, as he often was, with the frailties of his mother or the errors of his father, but my heart was all in a flame—my fist clinched—my cheek burning. Many a fellow have I laid prostrate upon the earth with a sudden blow who dared, in my presence, to chase the color from St. Leger's cheek by alluding to the subject. There was this remarkable in St. Leger, by the way, that he never colored when his mother's shame ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... smarting from a glancing blow on the nose, Dick darted in and clinched with his adversary. It was bad judgment, but punishment had ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... men! They astounded the girl; she could not define them to her understanding. Their motives, their tastes, their vanity, their tyranny, and the domino on their vanity, the baldness of their tyranny, clinched her in feminine antagonism to brute power. She was not the less disposed to rebellion by a very present sense of the justice of what could be said to reprove her. She had but one answer: "Anything but marry him!" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sweet face That bent above me in my hiding-place That day amid the grasses there beside Her pleasant home!—"Her pleasant home!" I sighed, Remembering;—then shut my teeth and feigned The harsh voice calling me,—then clinched my nails So deeply in my palms, the sharp wounds pained, And tossed my face toward heaven, as one who pales In splendid martyrdom, with soul serene, As near to God as high the guillotine. And I had ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... back against the wall with a dismal groan, the Hindoos fell on their knees begging piteously for mercy, Colonel Carrington seemed dazed, stupefied, Guy clinched his hands and made a desperate effort to bear up bravely, while Melton's face wore ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... wrote an epistle to the commander, demanding the reason of his anchoring in the harbor without obtaining previous permission so to do. This letter was couched in the most dignified and courteous terms, though I have it from undoubted authority that his teeth were clinched, and he had a bitter sardonic grin upon his visage all the while he wrote. Having despatched his letter, the grim Peter stumped to and fro about the town, with a most war-betokening countenance, his hands thrust into his breeches pockets, and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... place." Just behind, upon a sorry mule, escorted by a mixture of negroes and Yankees riding his own fine horses, came Colonel M——, his head erect, his eyes blazing scornfully, glancing from side to side, or drawing a sharp, hard breath between his clinched teeth as he overheard some ribald jest. His house and gin-house had been burned, his fields laid waste; he had left his young daughters without protection and without shelter. What the ladies felt as they saw this sad cavalcade pass out of sight may not be told. ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... on the bed with the others. Was it still there, or had it been stowed away in drawer or closet, irrespective of its danger from moths, for a reason he would give his eyeteeth to know but dared not inquire into till he had clinched his friendship with this old woman so thoroughly that he could ask her anything—which certainly was ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... was of consequence, I often had a bad time after I'd made a risky deal. Used to think I'd been a fool, and I'd be glad to pay a smart fine if the other party would let me out. Yet if he'd made the proposition, I wouldn't have clinched with it." ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... the Eve of the Laurel family, so that all these trees you meet in the world at present must be rational beings, since they are the descendants of the beautiful Greek maiden Daphne. And to satisfy you that this is no foolish legend, but, on the contrary, a well-authenticated fact, clinched and riveted in the boiler-head of historical truth, permit me to assure you,—for I have seen it myself,—that in the Villa Borghese, near Rome in Italy, is an exact representation of the wonderful incident, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... in his veins, and wild words rushed to his tongue, as he stood opposite the man who had just given him the lie, and who waited his reply with clinched hands, and laboring breast, and fierce eye. But the discipline of the last year stood him in good stead. He stood for a moment or two, crushing his hands together behind his back, drew ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Their debates were clinched by a final letter from Marcia, sent from no other place than her recently left home in the Isle. She informed him that her father had appeared suddenly at her aunt's, and had induced her to go home with him. She had told her father all the circumstances of their elopement, ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... change of manner, she arose from her chair and began to pace the floor, distractedly beating her clinched hands against her bosom. Twice I heard ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... said Rotha, stepping back a pace and throwing up her head, while her hands were clinched convulsively,—"and even so," she repeated. "Death comes to all; it will come to him among the rest, and how could he die better? If he were a thousand times my brother, I could give him up to such ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... clinched fist down upon the little table near by, with such violence that the thin plank was shivered. His cheerful face ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... "They clinched it when they said I wor a mammy's girl," she muttered. "There ain't no funk in me, but there was a look about mother this morning that I couldn't a-bear. No, I ain't a mammy's girl, not I. There was never nought so good about me, and I have give away my last shilling,—flung it into the ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... insisted that, as Holy Scripture declares that Lot's wife was changed into a pillar of salt, and as she was necessarily made up of a soul and a body, the soul must have become part of the statue. This argument was clinched by citing that passage in the Book of Wisdom in which the salt pillar is declared to be still standing as "the monument of an unbelieving SOUL." On the other hand, it was insisted that the soul of the woman must have been incorporeal ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... point. And indeed, even before he clinched the fact in this ingenious way the old lady was ready to admit that she had been unwisely hasty in making ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... hunter close upon his game. The line once interposed, he rode in the twilight among the disordered groups above mentioned, and the sight of him aroused a tumult. Fierce cries resounded on all sides, and, with hands clinched violently and raised aloft, the men called on him to lead them against the enemy. 'It's General Lee!' 'Uncle Robert!' 'Where's the man who won't follow Uncle Robert?' I heard on all sides—the swarthy faces full of dirt and courage, lit up every ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... furnished with a strong lock, it will prevent the losses which in some localities are so common from human pilferers. Such losses may be guarded against, by fastening a wrought iron ring into the top of each hive, well clinched on the inside; an iron rod may run through these rings, and thus with two padlocks and fixtures, (one at each end,) a dozen or more hives may be secured. I am happy to say that in most localities such precautions are entirely ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... Ward-room that the work contained reflections somewhat derogatory to the dignity of the officers, the volume was seized by the master-at-arms, armed with a warrant from the Captain. A few days after, a large nail was driven straight through the two covers, and clinched on the other side, and, thus everlastingly sealed, the book was committed to the deep. The ground taken by the authorities on this occasion was, perhaps, that the book was obnoxious to a certain clause in the Articles of War, forbidding any person in the Navy to bring any other person in ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... not gone far before she called him. He turned to find her still standing where he had left her, her little hands clinched at her side, and her widely opened eyes staring at him. Suddenly she ran at him, and, catching the lapels of his coat in both ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... continued Van Klopen. "We have: a morning-dress, a travelling-dress, with trimmings——" And he went on and on, gasping for breath, rattling off the ridiculous names which he gave to his "creations," and interrupted every now and then by the blow of a clinched fist on the table, or by ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... among Fijians and Australian blacks. Lord Lyttelton's uneasiness and apprehension are conspicuous in all versions; his dreams had long been troubled, his health had caused him anxiety, the 'warning' (whatever it may have been) clinched the matter, and he ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Maud rushed upstairs and locked herself in her room. She threw herself into the first chair she stumbled over in the dimly lighted apartment, and sat there motionless, her eyes fixed on the empty air with an expression of desperation, her hands clinched so tightly that the nails bit the palms. She breathed only at considerable ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... kneeling as usual at the foot of his bunk, Damase crept up softly behind him, and springing upon his shoulders, brought him sprawling to the floor. In an instant Frank was on his feet, and when the others saw his flashing and indignant countenance and noticed his tight-clinched fists, the roar of laughter that greeted his downfall was checked half way, and a sudden silence fell upon them. They all expected him to fly at his tormentor like a young tiger, and Damase evidently expected it too, for he stepped back a little, and his grinning face sobered ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... abominable!" cried the host, addressing the soldier, who pressed his clinched fists in despair against his bald forehead. "You expose this good man to be devoured by his beasts, and then you wish to beat him into the bargain. Is this fitting conduct for a graybeard? Shall we have to fetch the police? You showed ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Cadwalader, has become an Adams! An Eva whose name, as well as that of the long-buried Evelyn, was to be heard in constant repetition in the place where the murdered Felix lay with those inscrutable lines in his own writing, clinched between his teeth! It is a snarl, a perfect snarl, of which we have as yet failed to pull the right thread. But we'll get hold of it yet. I'm not going to be baffled in my old age by difficulties I would have laughed at ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... no one else could understand but of which the Nabob himself well appreciated the insult; for, as he raised his head again, his tanned face was of the colour of baked earthenware as it leaves the furnace. He stood for an instant without moving, his huge fists clinched, his mouth swollen with anger. Jenkins came up and rejoined him, and de Gery, who had followed the whole scene from a distance, saw them talking together with ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... from under the litter flew at him with a snarl, the Molossian replied with a louder snarl, the two dogs clinched and tore each other, snarling, and hung to each other, worrying and growling and snarling, to the delight ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... the coin was flying from his hand through the air. The beggar, with a livid face and clinched cane, confronted the Congressman like ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... plague—a second source of danger to myself!" screamed the Elector, striking with his clinched fist upon the arm of his chair. "It was not enough that my brother-in-law Gustavus Adolphus brought me into trouble and distress, and caused the Emperor's wrath to flame forth against me, so that I was really afraid ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... Talleyrand-Perigord. It was on the occasion of Archie's first absence that this interest took root. It was vastly deepened when Kirstie resented his curiosity at breakfast, and that same afternoon there occurred another scene which clinched the business. He was fishing Swingleburn, Archie accompanying him, when the latter looked ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tear open your collar and then grope at nothing; you press your hands on your wound and take two reeling steps forward; you call feebly for help and stumble against the sofa which you fall upon, and finally, still groping wildly, you roll off on the floor, where you kick out once or twice; your clinched hand comes down with a thud on the ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... blessing indeed in this dry weather. In the far West and Northwest the buffalo grass has often to contend with drought for months together, so that it has learned to strike deep in quest of water to quench its thirst. It is a by-word among the ranchmen that the roots go clear through the earth and are clinched as they sprout from the ground in China. Joking apart, they have been found sixty-eight feet below the surface of the prairie, and often in especially dry seasons cattle would perish were not these faithful little well-diggers and pumpers constantly ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... to the likes of me, Bill Crowdy!" she cried passionately, a small fist clinched. "You get those calves out into some fresh air just as quick as the Lord will let you! Into a pen by themselves. Doc Tripp will attend to them ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... time by gesture only. The hand that had made the sign clinched itself when it rested afterward on the table. His eyes looked downward, under frowning brows. At the name of Winterfield, remembrances that poisoned every better influence in him rose venomously in his mind. Once more he loathed the deceit that had been practiced on him. Once ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... the trial by combat suddenly commenced. There are very few rules attached to it in that country, where men do not fight by formula but with the one purpose of deciding the matter in the quickest way possible; and in another moment the two had clinched. They fell against the tree stump and reeled clear again, swaying, gasping, and striking when they could. It is probable that the Canadian was the stronger man, but, as it happened, his antagonist had been born among the dales of northern ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... victory. But in an impromptu turn-up like this one, the combatants show a tendency to ignore the rules so carefully mapped out by the present Marquess of Queensberry's grandfather, and revert to the conditions of warfare under which Cribb and Spring won their battles. Kennedy and Walton, having clinched, proceeded to wrestle up and down the room, while Jimmy Silver looked on from his eminence in pained surprise at the sight of two men, who knew the rules of the ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... seem disappointed. He was rather like a man who had already heard bad news and now only finds it confirmed. He knew before. Now the fact was simply clinched. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... his chair, his clinched fists on his knee. He was frowning with eagerness, and his ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... mediaeval glove idea, and had not previously explained to Alf that to fling one's glove in a foeman's face was one proper form of deadly insult preceding mortal combat, for, ignoring lances, steeds and all about them, the assailed personage immediately "clinched," and the boys rolled over in a struggle, earnest, certainly, but altogether commonplace. It was with the greatest difficulty, while defending himself, that Grant was enabled to explain that his act was one rendered necessary by the laws of chivalry and a part of the preliminaries of the ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... I've been particular about being civil to all of them. Still they don't like me, and they see that Minnie does, and they're trying to break up the engagement. But by the living jingo!" and the Baron clinched a good-sized and very sinewy fist, which he brought down hard on the table—"by the living jingo, they'll find they can't come it over me! ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... furrows knotted between his eyebrows and at the corners of his eyes. His sou'wester still covered his head. At his mouth was a down-drawing, as of disgust before some offensive sight or smell, and the hand which had held the fish was clinched. He swallowed and found speech hard. Then ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... and save herself. Difficult and dangerous as it was in the pitch dark with the deck slippery with ice, and the dizzy angle at which it stood, the only certain way to save the situation was to let go that sheet. Frantically he struggled with the rope, firmly clinched though it was round its cleats with the ice that had made upon it. Knowing how sensitive the vessel was and that she would answer to a half-spoke turn of the wheel, and utterly at a loss to understand her present stubbornness, he still ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... boy's eyes filled with tears. They dried in anger before they reached his flushed cheek. He clinched his hands, turned, and walked hotly out of the room. In the door he ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... voice seemed to die away suddenly and a drop of blood oozed from her lip. She wiped it away and clinched her teeth again, fiercely, as if hedging ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... then asked, to which they both sharply replied, and clinched in a rough fight, screaming, "You an' I, you an' I! Spit! spit! Meow! meow!" and there was a roll and tumble, and scratch, and a howl, and the air was filled with dust and ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... his way through the press, his clinched fists waving over his head, was young, pallid, typically an academic devotee of radicalism, a frenetic disciple, obsessed by furor loquendi He was calling to the mob, trying to rouse followers. "You have been standing here, freezing in the night, damning tyrants, boasting ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... a large induction coil which I had borrowed to make some experiments with. One day I got hold of both electrodes of the coil, and it clinched my hand on them so that I couldn't let go. The battery was on a shelf. The only way I could get free was to back off and pull the coil, so that the battery wires would pull the cells off the shelf and thus break the circuit. I shut my eyes and pulled, but the nitric acid splashed ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... LaGrange to her own reflections, which seemed anything but pleasant. The look of terror returned to her face; she clinched her hands until the jewels cut deeply into the white fingers; then, springing to her feet, she paced the room wildly until she heard the footsteps of her son approaching, when she instantly assumed her ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... killed him. I jumped on my horse and just then I met another Cree. We had a fight on our horses; he shot at me and I shot at him. When we got close together I took his arrows away from him, and he grabbed me by the hair of the head. I saw him reach for his dagger, and just then we clinched. My war-bonnet had worked down on my neck, and when he struck at me with his dagger it struck the war-bonnet, and I looked down and saw the handle sticking out, and grabbed it and killed the other Indian. Then we rushed the Crees into the pit again, and my father came up ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... have to begin low down so as to get a grasp upon the details and technical points of the financial side of the business; but I'm willing to learn. Here comes the governor now; I guess he has it clinched." ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... of mercy, Henry Brake!" I cried, "what is the meaning of this? Don't you hear a word I say? Don't you feel me?—There!" I gripped the broker by the shoulder, and clinched both hands upon him with all my might. "Don't you feel me? God Almighty! don't you see ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... distance between,—a man's honor, and faith to his friend, Fred Lawrence thought, never allowing his secret soul to swerve. There were midnights when he softly paced the floor, his lips compressed, his brow ghostly white, and his hands clinched in the throe of a man's deathless love. Then he thought he could not endure it, that he must stay away. But circumstances were stronger than will. Did God mean that this anguish should redeem that other old treachery, that his soul should be purified ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... and he rose from the heap of fish nets with the folded paper clinched like a club in his hand. He was going to get out of that boathouse if he had to butt a hole through its boards ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... instant. The doctor stopped short and leaned against the fence in front of the adjutant's quarters, his face purpling with wrath and indignation, his lips twitching, his hands clinched. Miller looked at him in amaze, and ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... man could still see in the convulsively clinched fingers of Rosa the yellowish leaf from that Bible on which Cornelius de Witt had with such difficulty and pain written these few lines, which, if Van Baerle had read them, would undoubtedly have been the saving of a man ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... Robespierre, the ranks opened to make way for these idols of the populace, and shouts of the most enthusiastic greeting fell upon their ears. When the names of Vergniaud, Brissot, and others of the leading Girondists were mentioned, clinched fists, brandished daggers, and angry menaces declared that those who refused to obey the wishes of the people should encounter dire revenge. The very sentinels placed to guard the deputies encouraged the mob to insult ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... their eyes met—his blazing dark and stormy in the clear, bright moonlight, and his face white and wrathy; even his hands were clinched fiercely. ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... a great deal more than that patient observer and deep thinker Charles Darwin ever claimed, nor have his wiser disciples claimed it for him. It is familiar that he explained how variations once arisen would be clinched, if favourable in the struggle, by the action of heredity and survival; but the source or origin of the variations ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... With the weapon clinched as if in a vise, the chief thrust his left foot forward for a single pace, but did not advance farther. He was debating with himself how best to dispose of this intolerable youth. A quick death would be too merciful; he would first wound and then prolong ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... queen, gnashing her teeth, and making up her little hand into a clinched fist. "He has held me fit for ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... he managed to articulate, as though it somehow clinched the proof of ownership and the ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... sweltering in the sun and bending under the weight of his load of books, she gave an involuntary start, and Madam Imbert, on whose arm she leaned, felt that she was trembling with excitement. Cox stood beside his wife in the door-way with his teeth clinched. His wife looked unutterable things, but ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... when suddenly his pursuer was attacked in turn; a fierce fight and struggle ensued, a pistol was discharged that lit up rock and bush for a second, and showed two figures grappling together; all was then darker than ever. The contest continued, the combatants clinched each other, and panted and groaned, and rolled among the rocks. There was snarling and growling as of a cur, mingled with curses, in which Wolfert fancied he could recognize the voice of the buccaneer. He would fain have fled, but he was on the ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... there was a dangerous glitter in his eyes. He drew back his clinched fist, in spite of the fact that the cocked revolver was edging closer and closer to him, and the constable held his struggling ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... Lindsay would have reflected how characteristic was the gentle neatness of that, and might have resented with amusement the pulpit tone of the little epigram. But this moment found him only aware of the consent in it. His hand on Arnold's elbow clinched the agreement; he half pushed the priest into the room, where they dropped into seats. Stephen's hand went to his breast instinctively—for the words in the air were holy by association—and stopped there, since even the breadth of his sympathies did not enable him to cross himself before ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the old lady's lean fingers clinched into his arm; her eyes grew bright; her mouth opened and she stopped in the middle of her drone. Jerome grew rigid. And no wonder. From the middle of the room not ten feet away came the tone of a bell, a great silvery voluminous sound—and music. A ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... too if you won't tell the truth!" thundered Pratinas, in an ungovernable passion. Agias heard a blow as of a clinched fist, and a low moan. It was enough. One spring, and the ponderous cover flew back. The toga, the innocent cause of the catastrophe, lay on the chair close at hand. Agias grasped the whole picture in ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... wounds were not specially painful; I never saw any sign that they were; the dressing of them was always borne very quietly. That was not uncommon, but involuntary tokens of pain were sometimes wrung from the sufferers; a sigh, or a knit brow, or a pale cheek, or a clinched hand, gave one sorrowful knowledge often that the heroism of patient courage was more severely tested in the hospital than on the field. I never saw any of these signs in Mr. Thorold. In spite of myself, a hope began to spring and grow in my heart, which at the first ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell |
