"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by metal or simply painted with a saturated solution of alum. The glass portions of the pump I have contrived to anneal completely by the simple means mentioned below. If the glass is not annealed it is certain to crack when subjected to heat, thus causing vexation and loss of time. The mercury was purified by the same method that was used by W. Siemens (Pogg. Annalen, vol. ex., p. 20), that is, by a little strong sulphuric acid to which a few drops of nitric acid had been added; it was dried by pouring it repeatedly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... board, in any style of piano, sometimes causes trouble due to the vibrating edges of the board coming in contact with each other. Insert the point of your screwdriver in the crack, holding it there firmly; if the rattling stops, the difficulty is discovered, and may be remedied by placing a screw or wedge in the crack, or a wedge of wood, cork or rubber between the sound board and iron plate or casing, if the location of ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... ship: the present her maiden cruise. The greatest pains having been taken in her construction, she was accounted the "crack" craft in the French navy. She is one of the heavy sixty-gun frigates now in vogue all over the world, and which we Yankees were the first to introduce. In action these are the most ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the son of the family, who cut off—or cut at—Georgiana's toes, I remember. With him a sort of cousin, who lives in New York State; and after a few days of toploftical strutting around town, and a pussillanimous crack or two over the back-garden fence at my birds, they went away again, to the home of this New York cousin, carrying Georgiana with them to spend ...
— A Kentucky Cardinal • James Lane Allen
... his nose is thin, And it rests upon his chin Like a staff, And a crock is in his back, And a melancholy crack In his laugh. ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... flurried and yielded, scarcely knowing what he did. In another second he was in the darkened room behind the curtains, through the crack in which he could command the lighted scene before him, and Sir Eustace was back at his place before the fire, reflecting that in his ardour to extricate his brother from what he considered a suicidal engagement he had let himself in for a very pretty undertaking. Suppose she accepted ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... what jolly things he knows! He knows everything you can imagine. It appears he has been rich in times past, and if he wished—But dame! he loves to have his work all finished, and go off on sprees. He's a crack billiard-player, I can ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... cramp of the leg, compulsory movement usually causes relaxation very quickly; therefore the animal should be led out of the stable and be forced to run or trot. Sudden, nervous excitement caused by a crack of the whip or smart blow will often bring about immediate relief. Should this fail, the anodyne liniment may be used along the inside of the thigh, and chloroform, ether, or laudanum given internally. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Judgment feeling in the air. It began with the donkeys waking up and trembling; I noticed that and thought it queer. Then the drivers jumped up—I saw the terror in their faces. Then a roar.... I remember noticing a big black crack in the convent-wall opposite—a zig-zag crack, like a flash of lightning in a wood-cut.... I thought of that, too, at the time; then all the bells in the place began to ring—it made a fearful discord.... I saw people rushing across the square ... the air was full of crashing noises. The ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... Every night I hear the crack of the rifles—the sound of the volley that was my brother's death. Soldiers I get, men of the devil-dare kind, to stay with me. They do not come back; they tell that they hear tramp, tramp, tramp of ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... we stared, everyone being too bemused with terror to do aught to protect ourselves, even had we been possessed of weapons. And as we remained thus, an instant, like silly sheep awaiting the butcher, I heard the framework creak and crack, and there ran splits all across the glass. In another moment, the whole thing would have been torn away, and the cabin undefended, but that the bo'sun, with a great curse at us for our landlubberly ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... much could not be spanned; Fell thunderbolts often on every hand, And verily the earth quaked in answer back From Saint Michael of Peril unto Sanz, From Besencun to the harbour of Guitsand; No house stood there but straight its walls must crack: In full mid-day the darkness was so grand, Save the sky split, no light was in the land. Beheld these things with terror every man, And many said: "We in the Judgement stand; The end of time is presently at hand." They spake no truth; they did not ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... one of the divisions of the fork would have to be cut asunder. A few blows of my axe and the tree began to settle, but as I was about to descend, the fork split and the first joints of my left-hand fingers slid into the crack so that for the moment I could not extricate them. The pressure was not severe, and as I believed I could soon relieve myself by cutting away the remaining portion, I felt no alarm. But at the first blow of the axe which I held ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... but there is most always a streak of humor in them somewhere. Now in the coronation—in the stirring coronation, just after the little king has got his crown back again papa brings that in about the Seal, where the pauper says he used the Seal "to crack nuts with." Oh it is so funny and nice! Papa very seldom writes a passage without some humor in it somewhere, and I ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... along the beach the two saddle mules and the four pack mules of Don Senor Johnny Armstrong stood, patiently awaiting the crack of the whip of the arriero, Luis. That would be the signal for the start on another long journey into the mountains. The pack mules were loaded with a varied assortment of hardware and cutlery. These articles Don Johnny traded to the interior Indians for the gold dust ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... Dumpling, who asked him if he had a quick Hand at Writing: he excused himself, being naturally as Lazy as the other was Indolent, so they contrived to ease themselves by sending for a Hackney Writer out of Temple Lane to be the D—'s Amanuensis, while he and his new Acquaintance crack'd t'other Bottle. ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... and fascination about those fearless and richly imaginative theories which explained all the great changes in the crust of the earth by magnificent cataclysms, upheaving, exploding, overwhelming. The crack of doom meant something after all! What had been should be again. Old times had stories to tell of sublime catastrophes, the crash of systems, and the swallowing up of chains of cloud-capped mountains in the yawning abysses of a world ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... realized how ridiculous I must look to Callahan to be unable to tear a flimsy sheet of paper. I suppose I lost my temper a little. I gathered as much of the paper as I could in each hand, bent over to put my hands on the inside of my knees, and pulled until I heard my back muscles crack. I let out my breath explosively and ...
— The Professional Approach • Charles Leonard Harness
... the crack of a postilion's whip, the well-known rumbling of a traveling carriage, the racket made by the hoofs of post-horses, and the jingling of their bells! Oh, she could doubt no longer, the bells made her burst ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... likely to go on, Mr. Levy, if all cribs are as easy to crack as that lawyers' office of yours in ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... on guard to see that no one bothered the Clutching Hand at his work, was overcome by curiosity to see what his master was doing. He opened the door a little bit and gazed stealthily through the crack into the room. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... the attacking party had done their work; and now, alarmed by the sudden appearance of a resistance stronger than they had expected, were making their escape. Once in a while there was heard a loud derisive shout, now and again the crack of a spiteful rifle, resounding in ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... might have got wrecked accidentally, of course. But the way he took off shows he planned to disappear—a crack-up on top of that would be too much of a coincidence. So any one of umpteen thousands of organizations in the Hub might be the one that has that ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... fortunate for Thure that he made that backward jump; for, at the crack of his rifle, El Feroz made such a tremendous lunge toward him, that the creaking limb bent nearly double, and, with a sound like the report of a gun, broke off close to the trunk and crashed to the ground on top ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... the whole of the back seat, and Jo was squeezed into the crack which was left. Jan was perched on a sort of ledge, facing them. The carriage was narrow, six legs were two too many for the space. Jan's were the superfluous ones. He tried this pose, he tried that, but in spite of his contortions he endured much of the seven hours' journey in acute discomfort ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... rock. She stared at the side of the frost-split fragment with dilated eyes. The crack between the loose outer bowlder and the main mass showed very black and wide in the moonlight. Could it be possible that it had widened—that it was slipping over? And her brother down there ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... before insertion in the oracular columns we pin our faith on! Thus it is that criticism,—literary criticism, at any rate,—is a lost art,—YOU know that. A man must either be dead (or considered dead) or in a 'clique' to receive any open encouragement at all from the so-called 'crack' critics. And the cliquey men are generally such stupendous bigots for their own particular and restricted form of 'style.' Anything new they hate,—anything daring they treat with ridicule. Some of them have no hesitation in saying they prefer Matthew ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... out and grasped a ball smaller than a golf-ball, and pulled carefully, keeping an eye upon Ione. There was resistance to his pull, but gradually the ball came. It seemed heavy. There was a crack as of breaking wood, and he fell backward, with a wave of nausea sweeping strongly over him. He gazed in amazement at a heavy wooden stick that he held in his hands. The only thing about it that suggested the ball for which he had reached ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... single title to land or town, your highness!" cried Leuchtmar, "for you have said that you would substantiate your titles, and give kernels to the empty shells; therefore the Swede shall not crack a single one of ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... credit of his State," chaffed a big Ohioan. "He wants to crack up these fellows, seeing they're his comrades. I say, Johnny, are all the white men down your way such little shavers ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... amazed himself,—yet Rodomant exulted in it, his audacity expanded with it, broke down the last barrier of reason. He added stop after stop,—at the last and sixtieth stop, he unfettered the whole volume of the wind. That instant was a blast, not to speak irreverently, which sounded like the crack of doom. To her standing stricken underneath, it seemed to explode somewhere in the roof with a shock beyond all artillery,—to tear up the ground under her feet, like the spasm of an earthquake,—to rend the walls, like lightning's electric ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... glass, and so soon as he had done so began immediately by saying: "I do suppose you think you were treated mightily ill to be so handled last night. Well, so you were treated ill enough—though who hit you that crack upon the head I know no more than a child unborn. Well, I am sorry for the way you were handled, but there is this much to say, and of that you may believe me, that nothing was meant to you but kindness, and before you are through with us all you ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... impatiently pushed her sister aside that she might take a peep at the unconscious Mr. Peabody. As she put her eye to the crack between the curtains she uttered a little shriek that she tried ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... our trains has been a fearful work. I have left the whole business with B., and he has lost two stone over it. I used to think at one time that my own dear native Bradshaw was a sufficiently hard nut for the human intellect to crack; or, to transpose the simile, that Bradshaw was sufficient to crack an ordinary human nut. But dear old Bradshaw is an axiom in Euclid for stone-wall obviousness, compared with a through Continental time-table. Every morning B. has sat down with the book before him, and, grasping his ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... take my life, I would applaud the wisdom of my fate, Which knew to value me at such a rate, As at my fall to trouble all the sky, Emptying upon me Jove's full armoury. Serve in your sharpest mischiefs; use your rack, Enlarge each joint, and make each sinew crack; Thy soul before was straitened; thank thy doom, To show her virtue she hath larger room. Yet sure if every artery were broke, Thou wouldst find strength for such another stroke. And now I leave thee unto Death and Fame, Which ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... out the candle. Darkness swallowed us. There was nothing left around us, nothing save night and a thin thread of flame in it, as a crack in the wall of a prison. We stretched our hands to the wire, and we saw our fingers in the red glow. We could not see our body nor feel it, and in that moment nothing existed save our two hands over a wire glowing in a ...
— Anthem • Ayn Rand
... shall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; a' were as good crack a fusty Nut ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... one In Palestine Who gave a certain kiss. More, fine friends, do you give who live In a land not far from this! For what he had done He hanged himself— Shame made a sick heart crack. But you will muster and ride again— And shoot—shoot ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... hole any where, nor any other place where it could go. Just as we were within a stone's throw of the cliff, the river turned sharply to the right and went behind a high point of the mountain that seemed to stand squarely on edge. This was really an immense crack or crevice, certainly 2000 feet deep and perhaps much more, and seemed much wider at the bottom than it did at the top, 2000 feet or more above our heads. Each wall seemed to lean in toward the water as ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... now." Jack sat up and placed his hand to his forehead. "Bloody, eh? Say, that was a crack, all right!" ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... enemy's neck, the hand gripping the nearer side of the jaw, and the other hand pushing at it, he strove to break his neck. Little by little he twisted it. Gradually the chin pointed to the shoulder, almost past it. It seemed that with the fraction of an inch more the vertebral column must crack like a stick of candy. But the hand on the jaw slipped, and the chin, released, shot back again, to be tucked desperately ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... nights and a day, sir, and every one of us with the ulcers right up the arms. It was warm business, I can tell you, sir. My ulcers are all going away now, with this warm cabin, but they were throbbing all night before. When I come down such a crack I was makin' a run for the taickle, for fear we might let the gear drop, and I saw a flash in my eyes, and nothing more till ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... gone Trever, that lov'd you, hence is fled: And Right, which long lay sick, is dead. Trever! whose rare and envied part Was both a wise and winning heart, Whose sweet civilities could move Tartars and Goths to noblest love. Bold vice and blindness now dare act, And—like the grey groat—pass, though crack'd; While those sage lips lie dumb and cold, Whose words are well-weigh'd and tried gold. O, how much to discreet desires Differs pure light from foolish fires! But nasty dregs outlast the wine, And after sunset ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... left hand and Casey clasped it soberly, though he wanted to jump up and crack his heels together,—as he confided afterwards. Injun Jim laid the blade of his ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... the back stairs, for Mr. Pringle objected that she woke him as she passed, whereas the carpet on the front stairs was so thick that there wasn't the least chance of waking the family. As she passed Mrs. Farron's room she was surprised to see a fine crack of light coming from under it. She paused, wondering if she was going to be caught, and if she had better run back and take to the back stairs despite Pringle's well-earned rest; and as she hesitated she heard a sob, then ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... uncomfortable, but not frightened. The noise seemed to proceed from a large carved oak coffer or chest (as old as the house), which stood on a landing, about half-way up the stairs. I approached the chest, and from it appeared to come again the word 'Hush!' Could it be the wind whistling through a crack? No; it was far too loud for any such explanation. I opened the lid of the chest and found it empty. Again the noise, now from under the chest. I was just strong enough to move the chest; I turned it over and slid it down the stairs on to the next landing. ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... camped in Owl Gulch, a steep, narrow defile, little more than a crack in the huge walls of surrounding rock; and the next day, after much arduous and violent climbing for horses and men up the gulch and over the low back of a mountain, they passed down into a quiet little valley, just as the sun sank behind the tops of the mountains ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... taught by thee, when Caxton bade His silent words forever speak; A grave for tyrants then was made, Then crack'd the chain which yet shall break." Ebenezer Elliott, "Hymn for the ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... notice, serves as a guide to them. When they have found the troop they follow it silently as shadows; they creep and crawl and sneak along the woodland paths as cautiously as leopards. They never tread on a twig which might crack, they never brush against a leaf which might rustle. The elephants, for all their fine scent and sharp hearing, have no suspicion of their proximity. The men lie in wait in a close thicket where the elephants can only move slowly, throw a noose of ox hide before the animal's hind leg, and draw ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... momentum, it could be arrested at any point with even greater ease than any instrument used by hand. While capable of forging an Armstrong hundred-pounder, or the sheet-anchor for a ship of the line, it could hammer a nail, or crack a nut without bruising the kernel. When it came into general use, the facilities which it afforded for executing all kinds of forging had the effect of greatly increasing the quantity of work done, at the same time that expense was saved. The cost of making anchors ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... with Miss Savine, or get that crack-brained aunt of hers to cure your neuralgia. There are also two young premium pupils, sons of leading Montreal citizens, in Mr. Savine's service, who dance attendance upon the fair Helen continually. It shouldn't ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... of purification," said Solomon Eagle, who was present during these proceedings; "one that shall search every nook within it—shall embrace all those columns, and pierce every crack and crevice in those sculptured ornaments; and then, and not till then, will it ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was peeping over Rod's shoulder, gave a howl of delight when through the little puff of smoke that followed the feeble crack of the revolver he saw the big leader suddenly crumple up, and, falling in a heap, bring every one of his companions down in a ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... broken by the clear blast of the postillion's horn, reminds the visitor lingering lovingly over the shores at Cahirciveen that the coach for the coast tour is ready. With a crack of the whip that would do credit to Will Goldfinch, in the coaching days of old, the driver urges on his team, and the blooded four-in-hand cut their way clear of the town. The tour along the Atlantic between Cahirciveen and Kenmare is nearly ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... and gone There pictured tiles in the fireplace show, Great beams sag from the ceiling low, The dresser glitters with polished wares, The long clock ticks on the foot-worn stairs, And the low, broad chimney shows the crack By the earthquake made a century back. Up from their midst springs the village spire With the crest of its cock in the sun afire; Beyond are orchards and planting lands, And great salt marshes and glimmering sands, And, where north and south ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... you," said Major Hunt-Goring, his eyes boldly passing her to rest upon Violet. "Managed to crack my thumb tinkering at my old motor. Dr. Wyndham tells me that you have been kind enough to ask me to lunch. How do you do, Miss Campion? Charmed to meet you! Someone told me you ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Astro, struggling through the hatch from the power deck. "One more crack like that and I'll stand you on your head and blast you off with ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... a stroke, that crack on the third finger of my left hand, above the top joint, opens and pains me," he declared to anybody who ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... you really think so, Jack?" cried the sad one, his face lighting up with a new hope. "It's awful good of you to crack your brain thinking up such a bully idea for me. And how silly that I never once jumped on that plan. I'm going to try it the very next time our engine kicks up a shindy, and holds ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... know how I fell into these reflections, excepting one thought produced it—that these continual separations were necessary to warm your affection. Of late we are always separating. Crack! crack! and away you go! This joke wears the sallow cast of thought; for, though I began to write cheerfully, some melancholy tears have found their way into my eyes, that linger there, whilst a glow of tenderness at my heart whispers that you are one of ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... straw which breaks the camel's back; Mrs. Brinkley felt her moral vertebrae give way; she almost heard them crack; but if there was really a detonation, the drowned the noise with a harsh laugh. "Oh, he had other friends in Washington. I met him everywhere with Miss Anderson." This statement conflicted with the theory of her single instant with Dan, but she felt that in such a cause, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... use a strong solution of alum, and in it to immerse the plate for any length of time; the gelatine is considerably hardened—which is not necessary—and more liable to crack by time in being thoroughly desiccated. We discard the common alum which we found liable to ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois
... being over twenty, and well-found in beard; but he was not more than four-and-twenty, fresh and ruddy looking, with a short nose and keen blue eyes, and a merry waggish jerk about him, as if the world were not in earnest. Yet he had a sharp, stern way, like the crack of a pistol, if anything misliked him; and we knew (for children see such things) that it was safer to tickle than ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... raised to strike when something happened. A lithe, muscular form glided under the upraised fist, and the next moment there was a sharp crack as the newcomer's fist collided with ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... remains soft, the flea becomes entangled in its tenacious folds, and is rendered perfectly harmless; but it will soon form a hard, smooth coating, entirely impervious to his bite. Should the coating crack at the knee or elbow joints, it is merely necessary to retouch it slightly at those places. The whole coat should be renewed every three or four weeks. This remedy is sure, and having the advantage of simplicity and economy, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... them, so as to get exactly the colour or thickness of material that he wanted. And when he had spent hours and hours mixing his substances and seeing that he had put in just the right quantity of each, and no more, perhaps the fire would be a little too hot and the glass would crack, or a little too cold and the mixture would not become solid glass, and then the poor man had to begin the whole process again from the beginning. Bernard stood by and watched, and noted the patience under failure, as well as the ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... there to believe? There stood the gate with the pebble holding it away from the post; and here stood half the neighbourhood, staring at that pebble and at the all but invisible crack it made where an opening had never been seen before, in a fascination which had for its motif, not so much the knowledge that these forbidden precincts had been invaded by a stranger, as that they ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... himself up and began to rattle, when K[)u]t-o'-yis cut him into pieces with his knife. Then he turned around and killed all his wives and children, except one little female snake, which escaped by crawling into a crack in the rocks. "Oh, well," said K[)u]t-o'-yis, "you can go and breed young snakes, so there will be more. The people will not be afraid of little snakes." K[)u]t-o'-yis said to the old woman, "Now you go into this snake's lodge ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... little girl with long bleached tresses and a rather sour face. His legs were much swollen, and he could hardly walk. Carlier, undermined by fever, could not swagger any more, but kept tottering about, still with a devil-may-care air, as became a man who remembered his crack regiment. He had become hoarse, sarcastic, and inclined to say unpleasant things. He called it "being frank with you." They had long ago reckoned their percentages on trade, including in them that last deal of "this infamous Makola." They had also concluded not ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... I cried; 'that fellow Looey the Fifteenth has been doing a lot of work around here hasn't he?' but the waiter was so busy watching the finish of the change he handed me that he didn't crack a smile. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... escaped; for up there no horseman could follow. But as a trooper came galloping in pursuit, he turned deliberately. There was no defiance in his attitude; of that I am sure. What followed must have been mere blundering ferocity. I saw a jet of smoke, heard the sharp crack of a firearm, and Joseph Laquedem flung up his arms and pitched forward at full ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... This was suggestive. Procuring a stick of proper size, I crossed over to the rear street, and stood back of the tent watching my opportunity. Presently Dunn's head came bobbing against the canvas, and I brought the stick down on it with a good, sharp crack. The effect was all that could be desired. There came an unearthly bellow, accompanied, I grieve to say, with many exclamations suggestive of the future prospects of the culprit who had cracked the head of the festive dancer. Out they poured through the little ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... cure for a blase state of mind. It cannot be described; the sound, the sense of being hurled along without the smallest regard to 'this side uppermost'; the beauty of the whole scene, and the occasional crack and bear-away of sails and spars; the officer trying to 'sing out', quite in vain, and the boatswain's whistle scarcely audible. I remained near the wheel every day for as long as I could bear ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... toward Denver, that me, the boys and the sheep were going to Montana. He said, "Alright, Mr. Ryus, we will drill on, as you say, but we will take possession of those sheep before you get into Denver." I told him to "crack his whip," and to go to that warm place from which no "hoss trader" returned if he wanted to, but for him not to interfere with me or the sheep. Away he went. My temper was at its best and thoroughly under control, so I told the boys to not feel the least alarm, no ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... use gittin' mad 'bout it. Thet blamed quarter ye giv me rolled down a crack in the stoop, an' got lost. Sure. Got ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... don't get mad at me, but if you will let me put in your suitcase just one little box of that salve for your finger tips, so they don't crack—" ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... France, meant social ostracism; and he had refused a peerage. The son had enjoyed the usual advantages of the young Englishman in his position. He had been educated at Eton and at the university of Cambridge. Three years in a crack cavalry regiment at a time when all England was under arms could have done little to lessen his feeling for his caste. A Gretna Green marriage with an heiress, while he was yet a minor, is characteristic of his impetuous temperament, as is also a duel which he fought with a Mr ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... Sir John [Falstaff], the very same. I saw him break Skogan's head at the court-gate, when he was a crack not thus high.—Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... take them off into your own territory, and keep the shining blessing to be the source of fertility in your own garden, and of coolness and refreshment to your own thirst, your garden will be parched, and your lips will crack. There is a 'broad river,' and there are also 'streams'; which, being brought down to its simplest expression, just comes to this—that we may and must make God our very own property. It is useless to say 'our God,' 'the God of Israel,' ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... chest, pressing him down with the weight of a giant. Duncan already saw the knife gleaming in the air, when a whistling sound swept past him, and was rather accompanied than followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. He felt his breast relieved from the load it had endured; he saw the savage expression of his adversary's countenance change to a look of vacant wildness, when the Indian fell dead on the ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... thus make a public exhibition of herself for the amusement of a very mixed crowd, set the fastidious, old-world temper of the man on edge. For all that he was in his place, well before the appointed time: and from the first crack of polo-stick on ball his eyes never left his wife's flushed face and lightly ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... on his feet almost as quickly as Dick. Even yet, he did not understand what had happened. At this moment there was the crack of another pistol, and then Ibrahim came running towards them, having shot a man who had suddenly drawn his sword, and tried to cut him down. At his heels came the six men who had, up to this point, been standing in a group ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... and occupy positions that you must attack and from which they can escape. If I could have had my own way on arrival I should have pushed through Bethulie to Bloemfontein, but the fat was in the fire before I got out. Kimberley I believe will be saved. Ladysmith is a terrible nut to crack, but I hope it will (? be relieved). Then I would propose to attack Bloemfontein from Kimberley, and I think an army holding Bloemfontein based on Kimberley will be better off than one which holds Bloemfontein but has allowed Kimberley to be again invested. ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... Flanders, Where you go, Gathering your wounded from among her dead. Grey night falls on your going and black night on your returning. You go Under the thunder of the guns, the shrapnel's rain and the curved lightning of the shells, And where the high towers are broken, And houses crack like the staves of a thin crate filled with fire; Into the mixing smoke and dust of roof and walls torn asunder You go; And only ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... rose up right before the boat. Blue lightning streamed on a lane of tumbling waters at its foot. Was this the entrance? With the vague notion of shortening sail, I let the sheet go from my hand. There was a jerk, the crack of snapped wood, and the next flash showed me Castro emerging from the ruins of mast and sail. He uprose, hurling the wreck from him overboard, then flickered out of sight with his arm waving to the left, and I bore accordingly on the tiller. In a moment I saw him again, erect forward, with ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... recognized the once elegant young man in this latter stage of his existence. Form and features, complexion and expression, were alike degraded. The garments worn by him, who had once been the boasted patron of crack West-end tailors, were now shapeless and hideous. The dandy of the clubs had become ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... dispute is there, which is everything. Enfin they are harmless beings, such as come in useful for padding purposes in country houses during the winter and autumn seasons, being, according to their friends' account, crack shots, "A1 at billiards," and ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... white turpentine, 1-1/2 lbs.; gum shellac 1-1/2 lbs.; venice turpentine, 1 gill; let these stand in a jug in the sun, or by a stove, until the gums are dissolved; then add sweet oil, 1 gill; lampblack, 2 oz., and you have a varnish that will not crack when the harness is twisted like the old shellac varnish. It is good also for boots and shoes, looking ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young
... as I have already said, but that is no great matter. Remember that under the pretext of education you have been stuffed, my dear sisters. You have been varnished too soon, like those pictures painted for sales, which crack all over six months after purchase. Your disposition has not been properly directed; you are not cultivated; you have been stifled, pruned; you have been shaped like those yew-trees at Versailles which represent goblets and ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... quoth the other loudly, "do maintain the good sense and extraordinary wisdom of that most learned William against the crack-brained fantasies of the muddy Scotchman, who hath hid such little wit as he has under so vast a pile of words, that it is like one drop of Gascony in a firkin of ditch-water. Solomon his wisdom would not suffice to say what ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of those around me, however feeble and insipid such a feeling may be. It is a sort of play acted by ourselves and others. No one is deceived by it, since both sides shrink from the word which might crack the plaster and bring the house about our ears. There is an inward equivocation which fears to see clearly in itself, wants to make the best of everything, to reconcile old instincts and new beliefs, mutually destructive forces, ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... There was a sharp crack, a loud rustling, and the man darted back with only half his staff in his hand, to run out of the tent, and leave me alone with the body of the first serpent, which I half fancied was moving slowly toward where I lay helpless, if it happened to have still vitality enough left ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... reflected for sometime. Overwhelmed with affection for his son, he summoned all his kinsmen and said, 'That man who will cause the head of my son to fall on the earth while the latter, struggling in battle, will be bearing a great burthen, I say that the head of that man will certainly crack into a hundred pieces.' Having spoken these words and installed Jayadratha on the throne, Vriddhakshatra, repairing to the woods, devoted himself to ascetic austerities. Endued with great energy, he is still engaged in the observance of the austerest of penances outside this very Samantapanchaka, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... rear. Standing in the post-office door only just one month before, she herself had seen children scurrying like rabbits through the back-yard fences, men running silently here and there, men dodging into doorways, fire flashing in the street and from every house—and not a sound but the crack of pistol and Winchester; for the mountain men deal death in all the terrible silence of death. And now a preacher with a long scar across his forehead had come to the one little church in the place and the fervor of religion was struggling ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... sofa watching Smith, who stood before me. He had not changed countenance and seemed neither troubled nor surprised; but two drops of sweat trickled down his forehead, and I heard an ivory counter crack between his fingers, the pieces falling to the floor. He held out ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and saucers. Then she dusted the parlour, including all the bric-a-brac, which made dusting here an engrossing occupation. Later she helped grandpa hoe the cabbages, and afterward "puttered around" with grandma in the flower-garden. Then she and grandma listened, very quietly, through a crack in the nearly-closed door while grandpa conducted a hearing in the parlour. To tell the truth, Missy wasn't greatly interested in whether Mrs. Brenning's chickens had scratched up Mrs. Jones's tomato-vines, hut she pretended to be interested because ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... topped about thirty-two inches from the ground, having from sixteen to twenty leaves on each stalk, after this the suckers are broken off, and the plants kept clean till cut. When ripe the leaves are spotted, thick, and will crack when pressed between the fingers and thumb. It is cut at any time of the day, after the dew is off, left in the row till wilted, then turned, and if there is a hot sun, it is often turned to prevent burning; after wilting it is put into small ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... not reply. The Captain, to reinforce his courage, stepped back into the dining-room. Miss Pipkin walked over and closed the door. This spurred the seaman to action. He cautiously pushed the door open again, and peeped through a narrow crack. ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... race dying out, some fifty years before this, had become the property of a certain Mr. Armstrong, a civilian who had made a great fortune in the East, in an age when great fortunes were commonly made by East-Indian traders. His only son had been captain in a crack regiment, and had sold out of the army after his father's death, in order to marry Lady Laura Challoner, second daughter of the Earl of Calderwood, a nobleman of ancient lineage and decayed fortunes, and to begin life as a country gentleman under her wise governance. The Armstrongs ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Jacob is our Refuge,' and so we may say to the storms of life, and after them to the last howling tornado of death—Blow winds and crack your cheeks, and do your worst, you cannot touch me in the fortress where I dwell. The wind will hurtle around the stronghold, but within there ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of rye or wheat was sown, and hacked in with hoes, the roots of the trees preventing the movement of the harrow. The process of "junking" was a tedious one, as the burnt logs soon covered the axe-handle with smut, drying up the skin of the hands so they would often crack ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... seems like drops of water that fall into a room through some crack, and when in its return it is scattered and disordered much like the twine of a cord which is unravelled, the bones are dried up even to ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... airy, trivial one. Again, stout individuals never take a back seat, but always a front one, and, wheresoever it be, they sit firmly, and with confidence, and decline to budge even though the seat crack and bend with their weight. For comeliness of exterior they care not a rap, and therefore a dress coat sits less easily on their figures than is the case with figures of leaner individuals. Yet invariably fat men amass the greater ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... the sheltered pool, where the yachts lay in summer, they skirted the dark piles of the long pier, around which the black water gurgled treacherously. Beyond the pier there was a snakelike, oozing crack, which divided the inshore ice from the more open fields outside. This they followed until they found a chance to cross, and then they sped away toward the little island made by the "intake" of the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... what was going on behind him, got out of the way, smiling kindly at the friend of his master, who thus found himself freed from the material obstacle which had prevented his reaching D'Artagnan. Porthos made his sturdy knees crack again in rising, and crossing the room in two strides, found himself face to face with his friend, whom he folded to his breast with a force of affection that seemed to increase with every day. "Ah!" he repeated, "you are always welcome, dear friend; but just now you ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... action so long deferred, found shrewdly the heel of a jawbone, just beneath the ear. Its victim dropped without a cry, but the impact of the blow was loud in the nocturnal stillness of that bystreet, and was echoed in magnified volume by the crack of a skull in collision with a ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... the rescue of the expiring conversation, and seizing forcibly upon the topic of the weather, inserted that useful wedge into the rapidly closing crack, and waited for Verty to ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... ceased and a gleam of light came from under the dome of silver. A crack appeared between its lower edge and the rocky floor of the cavern, and through this crack there shone a light of dazzling brilliancy—a warm light of rosy hue. Wider grew the opening until there was a full three feet between the floor and the bottom of the dome. Impelled by some irresistible force ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... not true of a month before. We climbed into the deep pit, and then stood upon a vast floor of lava, rough, jammed together, broken, jagged, steaming out a hot sulphurous breath at almost every seam, revealing rolls of later lava injections at every deep crack, with caverns and high ridges where the great mass, after cooling, was forced together, and with a steep mountain-side of lava at our left, along the ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... think of the smartness of that?" exclaimed Andy. "And so of course poor old Cadger, who is as honest as the day is long, never suspected any trick, but went and opened the door a crack?" ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... how Peter Cheever, talking to the headwaiter at the head of the stairs, saw his wife and Jim Dyckman with their heads together at a table. He wanted to go over and crack a water-bottle over Dyckman's head. He did not do it, for the excellent reason that Zada L'Etoile was at his side. She had insisted on his taking her there "to lunch with the bunch," ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... sweep of their wings as they went. But as I sat there, on that wild crag and that wild morning, I noticed a tuft of dog-violets, growing out of a fissure in the grey rock, and shaken and pounded by the bitter wind. How wonderful is the tenacity of nature. A few grains of dust blown into a crack of barren rock, a few seeds wind-carried also, and then germination in the rain and sun, and when the spring comes, this little clump of flowers in its due season, part of the intricate and mighty forces of renewal ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... found it difficult to sleep on account of the owner's loud snoring. At day-break he lay looking out on the camp through a crack in the cover. He saw the girls rise and depart, and the boys follow them. Thinking it about time for them to be moving, he woke Abrahams and went off to ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... had once before obliged the commonwealth of taste, with a very agreeable comedy in his City Politics, yet, in Sir Courtly Nice went far beyond it, and very much surpassed himself; for though there is something in the part of Crack, which borders upon farce, the Spanish author alone must answer for that: for Mr. Crowne could not omit the part of Crack, that is, of Tarugo, and the Spanish farce depending upon it, without a downright affront ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... inward to the sources of creation, She'll take the reins of the world in hand. She'll stop The sun like Joshua, turn the moon to blood, And if I have to swallow half the herbs In Sherwood, I shall stalk a giant yet, Shoulder to shoulder with thee, Little John, And crack thy head at quarter-staff. But don't, Don't joke about it. 'Tis a ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... room at his right; not that from which he had entered, but one still beyond this where he was. He sprang towards the wall and examined it swiftly. Finding a division in the tapestry, he ran his fingers quickly and heavily down the crack between. It came upon the button of a spring. He pressed it, the door yielded, and, throwing it back, he stepped into the room-to see a woman struggling to resist the embraces and kisses of a man. The face was that of the girl who had looked out of the panel ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he had agreed to do, was riding at a leisurely pace, when, without the least warning, the sharp crack of a rifle broke the stillness of, the woods on his right, and the bullet zipped so close to his forehead that it literally grazed the skin, leaving a faint mark, which was visible ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... in Ohuivo live in houses. The few caves that are occupied are not improved in any way. One cave contained ancient habitations, and tradition says that there the Tubares had once established themselves. The cave is nothing but a nearly horizontal crack in the rock, situated on the southern side of the river, some 300 feet above the bottom of the valley. It runs from south-east to north-west to a length of about 200 feet, interrupted perpendicularly by a crevice. Entering the cave at the southernmost end I found twelve low-walled ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... the surface wet and chilled even in the height of summer. In yet other regions, abundant moisture combined with heat covers the ground with a pad of fertile humus, while some hundred miles away drying trade winds parch and crack the steppe vegetation, convert most of its organic substance into gases, and leave only a small residue to enrich the soil. Rain itself modifies the relief of the land, and therefore often decides in a slow, cosmic way what shall be the ultimate destination of its precious store of water. ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... wait for the Premier to utter them. Only by an effort of will could he lift them to a plane of high interest. He could sketch great issues with the solemn hand of a great preacher pronouncing a benediction; but he never could utter an aside, or crack a joke, or tell a story, or forget that once upon a time Fate had picked him to be a leader and so help him he would go through the motions of shepherding while the other men were the real collie dogs of the flock. If only Borden could ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... pains at her heart. If, during her walk, she saw two little boys having a scrimmage, she had to run to them with pence and entreaty, leaving them dumfounded, whilst she leaned blue at the lips against a wall. If she saw a carter crack his whip over the ears of the horse, as the horse laboured uphill, she had to cover her eyes and avert her face, and all ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... He knew Bradshaw was in pain, because bleeding into high vacuum was always painful. The crack in the Englishman's helmet had let most of the air out, and his own blood pressure had done the rest. He would carry the marks for days. A few more moments, and all air and all heat would have been gone, with fatal results. ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... Demetrio, who stood over him, knife in hand. The victim raised his wrinkled Indian face; there was not a single gray hair in his head today. Demetrio recognized the spy who had lied to him the day before. Terrified, Luis Cervantes quickly averted his face. The steel blade went crack, crack, on the old man's ribs. He toppled backward, his arms spread, his ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... spurs and crests of many-fountained Ida quaked, as also the city of the Trojans and the ships of the Achaeans. Hades, king of the realms below, was struck with fear; he sprang panic-stricken from his throne and cried aloud in terror lest Neptune, lord of the earthquake, should crack the ground over his head, and lay bare his mouldy mansions to the sight of mortals and immortals—mansions so ghastly grim that even the gods shudder to think of them. Such was the uproar as the gods came together in battle. ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... dark and duskie brown colour; nor could I perceive that those parts which seem'd to have been Wood at first, were any thing wasted, but the parts appear'd as solid and close as before. It was further observable also, that as it did not consume like Wood, so neither did it crack and flie like a Flint, or such like hard Stone, nor was it ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... but that Prudence said something that thou hast told her—that Pastor Tappau defiled his hands by whipping the witch Hota. What evil thought has got hold of thee? Talk to us, and crack not thy skull against the learning ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... situated, and horribly expensive. Take Toad. I say nothing against Toad Hall; quite the best house in these parts, as a house. But supposing a fire breaks out—where's Toad? Supposing tiles are blown off, or walls sink or crack, or windows get broken—where's Toad? Supposing the rooms are draughty—I hate a draught myself—where's Toad? No, up and out of doors is good enough to roam about and get one's living in; but underground to come back to at ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... from the danger like a frightened thing—and the pilot was lucky if he managed to "straighten her up" before she drove her nose into the opposite bank; sometimes she approached a solid wall of tall trees as if she meant to break through it, but all of a sudden a little crack would open just enough to admit her, and away she would go plowing through the "chute" with just barely room enough between the island on one side and the main land on the other; in this sluggish water she seemed to go like a racehorse; now and then small log ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner |
