"Crank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what you want—but you can't people—no, not even when you've helped to bring them into the world. No matter how straight they come at birth, they're all just as liable as not to take an inward crank and go crooked before the end." He looked thoughtfully at the sparrow hopping about on the green table, and his face, beautiful with the wisdom of more than seventy years, was illumined by a smile which seemed ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... FREEZER.—Scald the can, the cover, and the dasher of the freezer; cool it before the mixture that is to be frozen is placed in it. Adjust the can carefully in the bucket; put in the dasher; pour in the mixture, cover; adjust the crank. Crush the ice for freezing by placing it in a strong bag and pounding it with a wooden mallet. Mix the ice with rock salt in the proportion given below. Then pour the ice and salt mixture around the can of the freezer. The ice and salt mixture should be higher around the can than ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... carefully educated man shall, like Mr. Pecksniff, squint at a sheet of paper, and that the results of that squint shall set a vast number of well-fed, contented operatives (they are ashamed to call them workmen) turning crank handles for ten hours a-day, bidding them keep what gifts and education they may have been born with for their—I was going to say leisure hours, but I don't know how to, for if I were to work ten hours a-day at ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... great interest, for both Joe and Tony were ambitious of knowing how to handle tools. One day he took hold of the coffee-mill, which some clumsy fellow had only half nailed up in the kitchen, so that, whenever the coffee was ground, whoever turned the crank was sure to bruise his knuckles against the wall. Mrs. Spangler and her daughters of course did all the grinding, and complained bitterly of the way the mill was fixed. Besides, it had become shockingly dull, so that it only cracked the grains, and thus gave them ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... does not appreciate you at all. He regards you as an erratic philanthropist with a crank for ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... had called there once, two hundred years in advance of the Glarus—a ship not much unlike the crank high-prowed caravel of Hudson, and her company had landed, and having accomplished the evil they had set out to do, made shift to sail away. And then, just after the palms of the island had sunk from sight below the water's edge, the unspeakable ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... can be made very simple, of two wooden rollers, fastened in a square frame, running against each other, and turned with a crank and cog-wheel. The rollers should be about nine inches in diameter, and set far enough apart to mash the berries, but not the seeds and stems. A very convenient apparatus, mill and press, is manufactured by Geiss & Brosius, Belleville, ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... inaugurated a more scientific era. In his "Treaty of the Admirable Power of Art and Nature," he puts forth the idea that it is possible "to make flying-machines in which the man, being seated or suspended in the middle, might turn some winch or crank, which would put in motion a suit of wings made to strike the air like those of a bird." In the same treatise he sketches a flying-machine, to which that of Blanchard, who lived in the eighteenth century, bears a certain ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... a while, when he comes to visit us in Philadelphia, a few people call him a crank, because he lives out here and dresses like a settler; but I call ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... position. All that is necessary in the construction of this part of the work is to make a set of ways, and a sliding platform that will run with ease from one side of the stage to the other. A rope attached to the platform, and fastened to a crank below the stage, will propel the Goddess to her position. The ways and platform can be hidden from view by a strip of board, painted to imitate the floor of the room. A small quantity of the whitish-blue fire may be burned near the spot ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... A sand crank is a fissure in the horn of the wall of the foot. These fissures are quite narrow, and, as a general rule, they follow the direction of the horny fibers. They may occur on any part of the wall, but ordinarily ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... to take it, madame, if I got it. My uncle of Provence has nothing to give me. He merely says—'My dear dauphin, if Europe knocks Napoleon down, will you kindly take hold of a crank which is too heavy for me, and turn it for the good of the Bourbons? We may thus keep the royal machine ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... four stories below I heard something—music. I raised the sash and looked out. An Italian had halted in front of the boarding house with a grind organ and he was turning the crank and the thing was playing. It wasn't much of a grind organ as grind organs go. I judge it must have been the original grind organ that played with Booth and Barrett. It had lost a lot of its most important works, and it had the asthma and the heaves and one thing and another the ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... was a crank, at least so many people said; a few thought he was a wonderful person: these were mostly children, old women, and people not in the directory, and persons not in the directory do not count for much. He was in fact a singular fellow. It was all natural enough to him; he ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... if you have to crank this island or whether it has a self-starter," he drawled in his amusing way. "If they don't get back by one or so, we'll have to make some root sandwiches. What do ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... imitate English poetry, German sentimentality or some other imported product. It came also with good grace from one whose life was noble, but it had a weak or dangerous or grotesque side that Emerson overlooked. Thus, every crank or fanatic or rainbow-chaser is also an individualist, and most of them believe as strongly as Emerson in the Over-Soul. The only difference is that they do not have his sense or integrity or humor to balance their individualism. ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... to leave. A prisoner stepped forward to crank my car, and all of them, the dauntless Frenchman in the center, lined up and gave us the military salute. Before reentering the woods I looked back and saw the blue-coated figure offering a light to the green coat. From cigarette tip to cigarette tip the fraternal ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... your mother's big churn, that goes with a crank. You whittle out a wheel twice as large as that, and set it a little stronger, and raise your dam a few inches, and you ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... paralysed by its owner's efforts at parody. It had been jerking and bucking like a playful mustang for some time past, and behaving in an altogether curious manner, but now it was stiller than the dead. Tryon waggled the levers to no avail, then flung himself out of the car and got busy with the crank. Not a move. Druro then got out and had a go at the crank. No good. Thereafter, the two made a thorough examination of the beast, but poking and prying into all its secret places booted them nothing. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... But that doesn't change the distinction between men and animals. He is your son, madam—and he's going to be mine. But, fine boy as he is, I call him a crank ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... who made it knew his business; therefore he is a student of this type of explosives; therefore a police agent, a—what you call—crank like myself, or a destroying criminal—that is, an anarchist. Therefore he is the last named, since neither of the others would want to blow up a gentleman's yacht. It seems clear to you?" he asked, without raising his eyes; but ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... our lives in learning pilotage, And grow good steersmen when the vessel's crank! Gap-toothed he spake, and with a tottering shank Sidled to gain the sunny bench of Age. It is the sentence which completes that stage; A testament of wisdom reading blank. The seniors of the race, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... local doctor, a most extraordinary individual with a crank. He had started a Montenegrin temperance society, called the "Band of Good Hope." At present, I believe, the three hundred odd members were all from Kolasin, and it was meeting with very little encouragement. The cultivation of plums for the manufacture of spirits is a staple ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... a word out of him. He's a Socialist and a crank, you know, and you'd be surprised how ugly some of them fellows can be. As soon as I get the story complete I'll report to you, but meantime there's no ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... I don't care whether it's in a saloon or a church or pickling snakes in a museum. I tell you, Tommy's case has made a prohibition crank of me. Talk about it's being a man's lack of will and moral strength—bah! I never knew a man who had more will power than he, or who was more on the ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... In the phrase of his religion he 'turned the wheel of the law.' One of his titles is Chakravartin, which means 'the turner of a wheel.' The doctrines of the Buddha are written out on a wheel, which is set in motion with a crank, though it is sometimes operated by horse-power; and such machines are sometimes seen in front of religious houses in Thibet, and the ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... to get out and crank the engines, which he calmly proceeded to do. The man who had called himself Algernon Tobey perceived his intention and urged his pony to the front ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... out of the question! I'm not strong-minded enough to crank my own motor-car and study woman's suffrage. I prefer to suffer at the hands of some cruel man and trust to beguiling him into doing just as I say. I like men, can't help it, and want one for my own. I don't ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Research people about my being asked to be President, because I should certainly feel compelled to decline it. I never go, willingly, to London now, and should never attend meetings, so pray say no more about it. Besides, I am so widely known as a "crank" and a "faddist" that my being President would injure the Society, as much as Lord Rayleigh would benefit it, so pray do not put any obstacle in his way, though of course there is no necessity to ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... girls in our State, and received an appropriation from the New York legislature on the recommendation of the Governor, De Witt Clinton. Mr. Sage gave us a description that night of the time his office was blown up with dynamite thrown by a crank, and of his narrow escape. We found the great financier and his wife in an unpretending cottage with a fine outlook on the sea. Though possessed of great wealth they set a good example of simplicity and economy, which many extravagant people ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the barkeeper. "He's the most cantankerous crank in the township. And say, let me give you a pointer. If the subject of 1812 comes up,—the war, you know,—you'd better admit that we got thrashed out of our boots; that is, if you want to get along with Hiram. He hates ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... braving the elements foolishly. Not that the section-boss esteemed his aged guest. On the contrary, Dallas' evident interest in the stranger had stirred the unnatural jealousy in her father's wizen brain. Already, he hated David Bond, and had set him down for a crank. But Dallas needed a lesson. It was all very well for her to do the outside duties as if she were a man; that did not privilege her to ride roughshod over his opinions, or to rule affairs in general with a heavy hand. However, he found no opportunity for questions. ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... been nothing but a hermit like those of the fourth century—he was naturally and constitutionally so odd. Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau were three consecrated cranks: rather be crank than president. All the ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... we were looking the Great Panjandrum Himself, with his little round button-at-the-top on his head, was turning a crank in the side of the wonderful Pantoscopticon, which had a hopper on the top of it like that of an old-fashioned coffee-mill. As he ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... longer," he stated bitterly. "He's too old and peevish—that's whut ails him! Fur one, I'm certainly not never goin' to vote fur him again. Why, it's gettin' to be ez much ez a man's life is worth to stop that there spiteful old crank on the street and put a civil question to ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... I felt that I ought not to keep such a good thing to myself, but that I should preach the doctrine far and wide. I soon found, however, that it was an impossible task to try to save men from themselves, and I acquired the unenviable sobriquet of "crank"; but I was not dismayed. From my native friends I turned to the foreign community in Peking, thinking that the latter would possess better judgment, appreciate and be converted to the sanitarian doctrine. Among the foreigners I appealed to, one was a ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... revolving axle, called a crank. This contrivance does not differ in principle from the common winch, or from the key which winds a clock. The motion of the piston-rod backwards and forwards turns such a winch. At each termination of the stroke, the piston, from the peculiar position of the crank, loses all power over it. To remedy this two cylinders and pistons are generally used, which act upon two cranks placed on the axle at right angles to each other; so that at the moment when one of the pistons is at the extremity of its stroke, and loses its power upon one crank, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... even a youth then, but he has been strong since childhood. When he was twelve, he used to rest a crossbow on the ground, press it against his chest and turn the crank. None of the Englishmen, whom I have seen in ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... with four little slave girls who were in it. In this way they passed one night, almost in despair of seeing the morrow. But day came, and they repaired the ship by binding other sails that were carried for that purpose. After this storm the ship was very crank, and even in fair weather its sides were under water, although it had a high freeboard. Consequently, it shipped so much water that the waves washed over the decks with great noise and uproar, and entered the berths where the better-class passengers are generally ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... such a wheel; it was turned by a crank; it did the work perfectly; so, in the year 1793, he had invented the machine ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... bell; another call to Bobo, who, for his own safety, pretended to be deaf on this occasion. And now a third ring at the bell, which unhitched the crank and broke ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... the attributes of one, for she proved a death-trap for successive crews on three trial trips. As there were no electric motors or gasoline engines in those days, she was run by hand, eight men crowded together turning a crank-shaft which operated her propeller. After repeated sinkings, she was raised, manned by new men, and sent forth again. Finally, in Charleston harbor she succeeded in destroying the United States man-o'-war Housatonic, but at the same time went down, herself, drowning or suffocating all on ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... the Russians turned and fled toward their trucks. McCready ran along the ravine until he was within fifty yards of the standing machines. As the Russians approached, one of them stepped to the truck crank. McCready's pistol spoke and he dropped. A second shared his fate. With cries of despair, the Russians climbed into the remaining truck whose motor was running. Rapidly it drove away across the plain. McCready rose from the ravine and ran toward the standing truck. ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... her to him, he buried his face in her neck, mumbling her name over and over: and neither of them knew that he was rapturously kissing the coonskin collar of his own greatcoat. The launchman, motor crank in hand, paused, staring; he was still open-mouthed when Dan, catching sight ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... packages, Kennedy took three black boxes. They seemed to have an opening in front, while at one side was a little crank, which, as nearly as I could make out, was operated by clockwork released by an electric contact. His first problem seemed to be to dispose the boxes to the best advantage at various angles about the counter where the Kimberley ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... yellowish individual, turning the crank, "look, Nor Juan, how with merely my own strength I can raise and lower the great stone. It's so well arranged that at will I can regulate the rise or fall inch by inch, so that a man in the trench can easily fit the stones ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... rarely," said Alice, who had not heard her sister's last burst of eloquence, and whose thoughts were still running on her nephew, and his various talents. "He's found out summut about a crank or tank, I forget rightly which it is, but th' master's made him foreman, and he all the while turning off hands; but he said he could na part wi' Jem, nohow. He's good wage now; I tell him he'll be thinking of marrying soon, and he ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... ownership. This was called the Dred Scott decision, and did much to irritate Abolitionists like John Brown, whose soul as this book goes to press is said to be marching on. Brown was a Kansas man with a mission and massive whiskers. He would be called now a crank; but his action in seizing a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry and declaring the slaves free was regarded by the South as thoroughly representative ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... what? Simply that they will not have her in these preachy domestic parts, that's all. Every time she tries it she gets a 'knock.' I complain, I advise to the contrary. Does it do any good? No. She must chance it, all to please this crank, this reformer." ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... "crank in," and the "kiss of the Jack," All—save, as you say, that darned bend in the back— About the old game is delightful. We thank you for "trolling the bowl" once again, Ah! it were a pleasure to play it with PAYN— (By Jove, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... man of the Ford if his engine had suffered. No, he thought it was all right; he would crank up and see. Good! She started off with a clutter, and he asked me if I wanted to ride. I had not far to go, but gladly accepted, for I was rather struck with this young fellow's grip on himself. It took self-control to avoid making the air blue with abuse. The way that ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... also call attention to the improvements that we have just made in our mill. Last week we put a handle in the upper burr, and we have also engaged one of the best head millers in Pompeii to turn the crank day-times. Our old head miller will oversee the business at night, so that the mill will be in full blast night and day, except when the head miller has gone to his meals or stopped ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... one there was a dreamer born, Who with a mission to fulfill Had left the muses' haunts to turn The crank ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... intelligent person could fail to be interested in politics, once he or she appreciated what it meant. And people of our class owe it to society to take part in politics. Victor Dorn is a crank, but he's right about some things—and he's right in saying that we of the upper class are parasites upon the masses. They earn all the wealth, and we take a large part of it away from them. And it's plain stealing ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... printer. There was an old damaged press, on which Franklin exercised his skill in repairing, and a small worn-out font of type. Keimer himself, who seems to have been a grotesque compound of knave and crank, was engaged at once in composing and setting up in type an elegy on the death of a prominent young man. He is the only poet to my knowledge who ever used the composition-stick instead of a pen for the vehicle of inspiration. The elegy may still be read in Duyckinck's ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... the talk of the flight across the Atlantic, a means has been found to allow the aviator, or some helper with him, to start the engine once it has stalled in midair. This is accomplished by means of a sprocket chain gear and a crank connected to the engine shaft. The turning handle is ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... she comes coughin' up in that old one-lung machine,—to get her expression right, so the boss kept hollerin',—why, I gets sick and tired. If there's anything doin', why, I'm game, but such monkeyin'! There was that picture-machine idiot workin' the crank as if he was shellin' a thicket-full of Injuns with a Gatling, and his fool cap turned round with the lid down the back of his neck, and me and Collie, the only sensible-actin' ones of the lot, because we was actin' natural, jest restin'. I got sick and tired. The next time up coughs that crippled-up ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... seers and "Orphic" utterances; the air was full of the enthusiasm of humanity and thick with philanthropic projects and plans for the regeneration of the universe. The figure of the wild-eyed, long-haired reformer—the man with a panacea—the "crank" of our later terminology—became a familiar one. He abounded at non-resistance conventions and meetings of universal peace societies and of woman's rights associations. The movement had its grotesque aspects, which Lowell has described in his essay on Thoreau. ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... became a man of one idea, and that a false one. He was a gigantic crank,—an arch-Jesuit, indifferent to means so long as he could bring about his end; and he became not merely a casuist, but a dictatorial and arrogant politician. He defied that patriotic burst of public opinion which had compelled him to change his ground, that ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... triumphantly, "we are ready for a nice long talk, that is, if you feel equal to the task of talking. What I have to say will not take long. It is about a little interview between Mr. Allison and—Judge Thorn's daughter, and if I had been less of a 'crank,' I suppose you would have had another ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... What a particular, hard-to-please old crank!" said the young thing who served him after he, the traveling ray of sunshine, had departed with the most exclusive box of paper in the shop under ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... made another attempt but I listened once more, rather than butt in again, listened and heard, 'Just the sweetest shade of green, you know—' Trials of Job, I was getting out of patience, to put it mildly. I gave the crank a vicious turn but the same party was still talking, she said sweetly, 'I guess someone wants the line.' I assured her I did, it was a case of life and death. 'Someone dead, oh dear, is it any one ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... unwelcome, it does not stimulate him to renewed exertions as it did when he began his career. It is entirely different with the man who is trying to establish himself in the major league. An ambitious young player thinks that the game depends upon him, and is dead sure that every crank agrees with him. Give him a good send-off in the papers, or let his manager commend him for a creditable piece of work, and he will break his neck in his efforts to deserve another installment to-morrow. The public demands snappy ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... idea," said Harding. "Clarke's known as a crank, and he takes advantage of it to cover his doings. At first, I thought of the whisky trade; but taking up prohibited liquor would hardly be worth his while; though I dare say he has some with him to ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... who can turn a crank can manage a street organ. The arrangement of the instrument being entirely automatic, no knowledge of music on the part of the grinder is necessary. Another class of street minstrels are required to possess a certain amount of musical skill in order to perform creditably. These are the strolling ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... give him an audience, for he has such strong letters from the American Government that one might imagine he was a special envoy sent to offer armed intervention and to end the war. But in my opinion he is merely a crank or an impostor, who has succeeded in obtaining the support and ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... drew near he found this house and the other houses combined in a conspiracy of silence against the musical addresses of a swarthy foreigner who had a foothold a yard beyond the curbstone, and who was turning the crank of his instrument with all the rapid regularity of the thorough mechanician. The whole street rang. "'Ah, perche non posso odiarti!'" hummed Truesdale in unison with the organ, as the performer, after an intricate cadenza, returned to the original theme. "That's the ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... understand where she wanted to go. When finally he grasped the address, he tapped his most conspicuous feature with a horny finger, and, his engine having by this time stopped, descended with creaks and groans to crank it up. He was so long over the operation that she began to be alarmed. However, he was not drunk, only senile. Of the two, his taxi was far worse—rickety, spavined, with every evidence of decrepitude. It started with a jerk which threw its occupant ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... needed for a brilliant society woman. He was that absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no one's way, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression of the drawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as an advantageous background to his elegant ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the pump, F, is ignited; the expansion of the gases produced by the combustion acts upon the bottom of the piston, B, forcing it to the top of the cylinder, and thus, by intermediate mechanism, causing the crank shaft to revolve. By the same stroke a charge of air is forced by the compressor, C, into the receiver through the pipe, R. The cylinder is, of course, single acting, and on the down stroke of the piston, B—which falls by its own weight and the momentum of the fly wheel—the exhaust ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... and then turning about let himself down to arm's-length and dropped to the ground. "Thank God!" he said again. "The two men who were to have come with me didn't show up. I waited as long as I dared, and then came on with only the chauffeur. He's waiting outside by the car ready to crank up when I give the word. The car's just a few yards away, headed out for the road. How are we to get back over ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Corliss valves and Inglis & Spencer's automatic Corliss valve expansion gear. Referring to the general drawing of the engine, it will be seen that the cylinder is bolted directly to the end of the massive cast iron frame, and the piston coupled direct to the crank by the steel piston rod and crosshead and the connecting rod. The connecting rod is 28 feet long center to center, and 12 inches diameter at the middle. The crankshaft is made of forged Bolton steel, and is 21 inches diameter at the part where the fly-wheel is carried. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... a voice of distress, and though I am no dreamer and I think no crank, I could not get away from the idea that she was crying ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... you my Captain gave me a letter to an English Lord in Cape Town, and he fixed things so's I could lie up a piece in his house? I was pretty sick, and threw up some blood from where the rib had gouged into the lung—here. This Lord was a crank on guns, and he took charge of the Zigler. He had his knife into the British system as much as any American. He said he wanted revolution, and not reform, in your army. He said the British soldier ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... machine. Needless to say, the voice of the inventor, however imperfectly reproduced, was hailed with great enthusiasm, which those who witnessed will long remember. In this machine, the barrel was fitted with a crank, and rotated by handle. A heavy flywheel was attached to give it uniformity of motion. A sheet of tinfoil formed the record, and the delivery could be heard by a roomful of people. But articulation ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... intellectual effort can we of to-day realise the chimerical stamp which the proposition of Columbus bore, and which served to mark him as an adventurer and a visionary or, to use a forceful Americanism, as a "crank" in the estimation of sensible, practical people. He has himself recorded that he believed he was acting under inspiration and was merely fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah. The council of cosmographers summoned by the Queen's confessor, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... increased the popularity of the automobile, but the motor car still had a great drawback-cranking. Owing to the peculiar features of a gasoline engine, it must first be put in motion by some external power before it will begin to operate under its own power. This made it necessary for the driver to "crank" the engine, or start it moving, by means of a handle attached to the engine shaft. Cranking a large engine is difficult, especially if it is cold, and often results in tired muscles, and soiled clothes and tempers. It also made it impossible for the average woman to drive a car because she ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... provided pleasure for half the chauffeurs and drivers in Piccadilly Circus, and was the origin of much jocularity of a kind then fairly new. Lucas cursed the innocent engine, and George leapt down to wield the crank. But the engine, apparently resenting curses, refused to start again. No, it would not start. Lucas leapt down too. "Get out of the way," he muttered savagely to George, and scowled at the bonnet as if saying to the engine: "I'm not going to stand any of your infernal ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... had been a crank, too, in his day, so far as to have gone counter to the most respectable feeling of business in Boston, when he came out an abolitionist. His individual impulse to radicalism had exhausted itself in that direction; we are each of us good ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... sentiment of the country has closed the doors of every machine shop, cotton mill, and similar factories to all persons of color. Again, almost every class of labor which once was done by hand is now being turned off by the crank of invention. The old-fashioned washboard has been turned into a steam laundry and the old spinning wheel has given place to the American cotton mills. The same is true along all lines of common labor. The Negro, however, either by contact or in the schools of theory, has learned ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... exasperating to a degree. There were fully five hundred policemen in the streets round about, just as if there was danger of an attack by a ferocious mob; and yet though they had throngs of policemen inside, too, an elderly and harmless crank actually got inside with them to present me some foolish memorial about curing the German Emperor from cancer. Inasmuch as what we needed was, not protection against a mob, but a sharp lookout for cranks, the arrangement ought by rights to have been for fifty policemen outside ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... was Cora's answer, as she stooped over to crank the motor. It started on the first turn and soon the Chelton was chugging a course over the sun-lit waters of ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... at an angle the wrong way, and set the worm shaft at an angle double the amount, rather than at 90 deg.. Such a worm gear will, I fancy, outwear a dozen of the scientific sort. It would likely be found a convenience to have the head of a planing machine traverse by a handle or crank attached to itself, so it could be operated like the slide rest of a lathe, rather than as is now the case from the end of the cross head. The principle should be to have things convenient, even at an additional cost. Anything more than a single motion to lock the cross head ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... main floor above, into it. Here, too, should stand the stone slabs, where the butter is worked, and the churns, to be driven by hand, or water, or animal power, as the two latter may be provided, and introduced into the building by belt, shaft, or crank. If running water can be brought on to the milk-shelves, from a higher level, which, for this purpose, should have curbs two or three inches high on their sides, it can flow in a constant gentle current over them, among the pans, from a ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... to you like that," she exclaimed. "She old crank, anyway. You not like her. See me—I young, strong; I cook, wash, iron, clean. I do everything. You do notting. I cook good, too; not so much fancy, but awful good. My last madam, I with her one year. She sick, go ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... before the eyes of the people as these composers do: the names of Salieri, Marschner, Meyerbeer, Spontini, Spohr and Weber would be much more familiar than his; even in Vienna he was regarded mainly as a deaf, surly old crank who had the support of highly placed personages. So there is the amazing fact: Wagner, who worshipped Weber's operas, had not, when fourteen years old, heard of the existence of a musician a thousand times mightier than Weber. The great ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... placed his other passengers in the tonneau, and was trying to crank the motor. Blount was thankful that the new Italian engine was refusing to take the spark. The delay was giving him an added moment ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... books on vivisection yet published is by Dr. Albert Leffingwell, entitled 'An Ethical Problem.' It is not the book of an extremist or a crank. Dr. Leffingwell admits the necessity of vivisection in certain circumstances and for certain purposes. His endeavour is not so much to get rid of vivisection as to prove that the problem connected with it is an ethical one; that the practice ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... tower. The pigeon bore a letter dictated by Admiral Boisot, though she recognised the handwriting of Captain Van der Elst. It stated that the fleet led by an enormous vessel, the "Ark of Delft," with shot-proof bulwarks, and moved by paddle-wheels turned by a crank, had reached the Land-Scheiding, and that he hoped, ere long, the large dyke would be broken through and that the way would be opened to the very walls of the city. The Prince also sent a message urging the citizens yet longer to hold out, reminding them that with Leyden all Holland must ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the rudder is communicated to the steam cut-off by means of the shaft, C, crank, J, rod, K, crank, I, and the hollow valve spindle. When the tiller is amidships the valve handle, H, is at right angles to the cylinder, and parallel to the tiller. By moving the lever, H, to right or left, steam is admitted to one end or the other of the cylinder, which, acting ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... convulsions—but he was interested in strong types of human character. We young men had not had experience enough to understand this kind of a man. It seems to me now that we looked at Whitman simply as a kind of crank, if the word had then been invented. His talk to us was chiefly of books, and the men who wrote them: especially of poetry, and what he considered poetry. He never said much of the class whom he visited in our wards, after he had ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... no plowman, nothing but the farmer to crank the tractor and start it on its way," Dick exulted, as the uncanny mechanism turned up the brown soil and continued unguided, ever spiraling toward the field's center. "Plow, harrow, roll, seed, fertilize, cultivate, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... it may be drawn off by opening a trap door. The newly formed aluminum oxide (alumina) floats as slag on top. The applications of the thermit process are innumerable. If, for instance, it is desired to mend a broken rail or crank shaft without moving it from its place, the two ends are brought together or fixed at the proper distance apart. A crucible filled with the thermit mixture is set up above the joint and the thermit ignited with a priming of aluminum and barium peroxide to start ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... map of it right here?" said Elam, tapping his ditty-bag, which was hung across his chest under his shirt. "I am nearer to it now than I have been before, and you had better talk to those who have made fun of me all these years. 'Oh, Elam's a crank; let him alone, and when he gets tired looking for the nugget he'll come to his senses and go to herding cattle.' That's what the folks around here have had to say about me ever since I can remember; but I'll get the start of all of them, you ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... is," said the woman. "My husband, he was a crank for buyin' fine cattle. I used to tell him he was wastin' his money, but he would do it. Same way with ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... the Countess he had walked down to the garage and stayed until dinner-time. What he had been doing there he did not deign to state; but I had a dim idea that when you went to call on a motor-car in its den, you spent hours on your back bolting nuts, or accelerating silencers, or putting the crank head (and incidentally your own) into an oil bath; and I supposed that Terry had been doing these things. When he returned on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, spending several hours on each occasion, I went on supposing the same; but when at nine ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... week of Selwood's secretaryship to Jacob Herapath. Herapath was a well-known man in London. He was a Member of Parliament, the owner of a sort of model estate of up-to-date flats, and something of a crank about such matters as ventilation, sanitation, and lighting. He himself, a bachelor, lived in one of the best houses in Portman Square; when he engaged Selwood as his secretary he made him take a convenient set of rooms in Upper Seymour ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... of the right hand was crushed by the crank of a steam-engine. The proximal phalanx was completely shivered; its fragments were removed, the cartilage of the proximal end of the distal phalanx, and also of the head of the metacarpal bone, were pared off with a strong knife. The digit was put up on a splint fully extended. ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... which will secure him an interview during to-day. Here is that line. Norgate is a young man for whom I have a great friendship. I consider him possessed of unusual intelligence and many delightful gifts, but, like many others of us, he is a crank. You can listen with interest to anything he may have to say to you, unless he speaks of Germany. That's his weak point. On any other subject he is as sane as the best ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rhythmically forward and back, was a clockwork figure as mad as myself, but didactic and gibbering in his madness. Then the boat-hook he wielded with a circular sweep began to take grotesque shapes in my heated fancy; now it was the antenna of a groping insect, now the crank of a cripple's selfpropelled perambulator, now the alpenstock of a lunatic mountaineer, who sits in his chair and climbs and climbs to some phantom 'watershed'. At the back of such mind as was left me lodged two insistent thoughts: 'we must hurry on,' 'we are ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... sanded by permitting its lower surface to pass over dry sand in a box standing on the floor. A workman rolled off the paper, and with his hand he strews sand on the upper surface. The rolling taking place on the edge of a table, by means of a crank, the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... martyr was thrown to the lions not because he was a Christian, but because he was a crank: that is, an unusual sort of person. And multitudes of people, quite as civilized and amiable as we, crowded to see the lions eat him just as they now crowd the lion-house in the Zoo at feeding-time, ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... psychological phenomena I have witnessed, none has appeared to me more curious than a susceptibility of certain minds to become imbued with a violent antipathy to the theory of gravitation. The anti-gravitation crank, as he is commonly called, is a regular part of the astronomer's experience. He is, however, only one of a large and varied class who occupy themselves with what an architect might consider the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... over-zealous adoption of automatic machines for most every line of industrial activity. You are now getting to the stage where the most simple and elementary mathematical problems are solved by merely pressing a few buttons or turning a crank, the operator understanding little or nothing of the fundamentals underlying the solution of the problems in hand. This means, in the near future, brain atrophy ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... passed under Fritz Braun's watchful scrutiny. The disguised criminal trembled lest some ugly-minded detective or crank journalist might entrap him into ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... instant, you can keep it up all day." Alas! it is just at this point that the fatal defect of Mr. Collins's mechanism appears. But for the artisan's hand, the complicated work would not start at all, and we perceive that, if he lifted it for a moment from the crank, the painfully contrived dream would drop to pieces, and the beautiful bad woman would come to a jerky stand-still in the midst of her most atrocious development. A perpetual literary motion is therefore out of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... curious timidity, feeling a kind of awesomeness about every form in the room, he stepped softly to the bureau, applied its key, and following carefully the directions the earl had given him, for the lock was Italian, with more than one quip and crank and wanton wile about it, succeeded in opening it. He had no difficulty in finding its secret place, nor the packet concealed in it; but just as he laid his hands on it, he was aware of a swift passage along the floor without, past the door of the room, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... me!" said Rimrock with a guilty grin. "You're so smart you make me afraid. I'll crank her up, too—do you think that would help some? Huh, huh; ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... girls stood well in their classes; and they were liked by all the instructors—even by Professor Krenner, who some of the girls declared wickedly was the school's "self-starter, Lakeview Hall being altogether too modern to have a crank." ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... know you're a crank from Crankville on some subjects. Let us have it for all you're worth. I'm ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the skipper. "You are right, George; it is high time for us to be off. You may make sail at once. Those brigs sail fairly well in moderate weather, but they are very crank, and I believe we can run away from them in such weather as this. Here is one of them hereaway now, who looks as though she would like to have a word with us. Give the little hooker all that she will bear, ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... the whine of a hand-organ. An armless beggar was turning the crank of an organ with his bare feet. The plateau was fairly alive with beggars, hopping about in the dust like fleas. Some were armless; others legless. They swung along at our heels on long, muscular arms, with leather on the ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... rod is attached to a long cast-iron crosshead, from which two bent connecting rods extend downward, the one to a crank, and the other to a crank-pin inserted in the flywheel. The connecting-rods now on this engine were supplied by Mr. Webb, the original ones—which they have been made to resemble as closely as possible—having been broken ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... old crank!" she thought; but she answered civilly, and tried to identify the particular spot, as he seemed ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... of the "Nancy" turned and recognized the countryman whom he had called a "crank" ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... was the only son of Dr. Nancarrow, a man much respected in St. Ia, but whom Admiral Tresize regarded as a crank. For Dr. Nancarrow was a Quaker, and although he did not parade his faith, it was well known that he held fast by those principles for which the Society of Friends is known. For one thing, he hated war. To him it was utterly opposed to the religion which ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... he was sorry Professor Harmon had asked that old crank to help. Laurie didn't say 'old crank,' but I say it, and I mean it," continued Jerry vindictively. "Don't breathe it to anyone, though. It was a brotherly confidence and Hal would rave if ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... exercises which had become a second nature to him, or else defy London's unwritten law and brave London's mockery. He had not hesitated long. Physical fitness was his gospel. On the subject of exercise he was confessedly a crank. He decided ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... against temptations; but the surest is cowardice Goody-goody puerilities and dreary moralities Habit of assimilating incredibilities Human pride is not worth while Hunger is the handmaid of genius If the man doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank Inherited prejudices in favor of hoary ignorances It is easier to stay out than get out Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to Meddling philanthropists Melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy Moral sense, and there is an Immoral Sense ...
— Quotations from the Works of Mark Twain • David Widger
... invented to save labor, but a number of these are in such common use, produce such good results, and save so much time and effort that they should be found in every kitchen. Among them is the rotary egg beater shown in Fig. 1 (a). This is so made that one revolution of the wheel to which the crank is attached does about five times as much work as can be done with a fork or with an egg whip, which is shown in (b). Another inexpensive device that is a real help is the potato ricer. This device, one style of which is shown in Fig. ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... RUNG. The old-fashioned telephones, still often used in the country, have little cranks that you turn to ring for central. The crank turns a coil of wire between the poles of the magnet and generates the electricity for ringing the bell. These little dynamos, like those in automobiles, ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... drawing-room. She spends all her time up in the attic bedroom reading the Bible and writing Christmas stories for children for the religious papers. We don't see her for weeks at a time, and actually forget she lives in this house. She's quite a religious crank, and you won't ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... computrons!" This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See {bitty box}, {Get a real computer!}, {toy}, {crank}. 2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit quantity of computation or information, in much the same way that an electron bears one unit of electric charge (see also {bogon}). An elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons has been developed based on ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... clothes, eradicating almost instantly every particle of dirt. We guarantee a wash can be done in the "1900" Machine in less than half the time required by any other washer. There is no bending, no hand-car motion, no turning of a crank worse than a grindstone, no backache, no headache, no standing on tired feet but work easily done by the aid of motor-springs and ball bearings, sitting in a comfortable position at the side ...
— The Mayflower, January, 1905 • Various
... the gauntlet of pseudo-designers, crank inventors, press "experts," and politicians; of manufacturers keen on cheap work and large profits; of poor pilots who had funked it, and good pilots who had expected too much of it. Thousands of pounds had been wasted on it, many had gone bankrupt over it, and others ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... a perfect crank about keeping time as that grandfatherly clock of yours. It hasn't skipped a second in two centuries, I'll swear. You see, I was playing off the odd ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... out of the train, walking up toward the engine. About it were men and women, and the children saw a man with a black box on three legs grinding away at a crank. ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope |
