"Knuckles" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have his eyes out. The age is a fast one, you know; so, when the man feels like having his glims doused, he just jumps into the midst of a crowd of real b'hoys, runs his head, good-naturedly, you know, against a pair of knuckles, and the business is settled with "neatness and despatch," as the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... clenched so violently that the knuckles grew a bloodless white, and the look of pain, lying deep down in his eyes, changed to ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... so intent were the thieves on fleecing each other, that they took no manner of notice of us, but continued their scoundrel work, eagerly stretched over the table, thwacking down their cards with filthy knuckles, and at every stroke bawling out, "there's a ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... playing single-stick with bone poles instead of wooden ones. Two men stand apart, and pommel each other with their fists (a hard bunch of knuckles permanently attached to the arms, and made globular, or extended into a palm, at the pleasure of the proprietor), till one of them, finding himself sufficiently ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... law knows neither hate nor love. You watched it paw, Frantic with lust of life, the yielding air And were amused. God's Image! Did you care, pitying one moment, see the swift hands claw For life and darkness, know and hate your trap? I saw your knuckles gleam, your hand swing free; A cry; The blind face crashed against the wall. Then death and stillness and—— You grinned. Mayhap, Snaring the blind mole of humanity, God made you in His image ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... mind, after all, it is only like a game of marbles, played with a little leathern ball instead of a stone, and a stick instead of one's knuckles," sneered Blackall. ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... scarred and battered, as if they might perhaps retire from active service in ten years' time, or so. But the tan shoes were not Jerry's only concession to the social amenities. An unwonted attention was given to grimy knuckles and finger-nails. More than once he made his appearance with his usually frowsy hair as sleek as the coat of a water rat, and dripping, in further likeness to the animal mentioned. Peggy, whose original interest in Jerry had been intensified by the favorable impression ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching the light upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the antennae of busy insects, put his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... plumes of the golden-rod. You can almost touch with your cane the low edge of the broad, overhanging eaves. The batten shutters at door and window, with hinges like those of a postern, are shut with a grip that makes one's knuckles and nails feel lacerated. Save in the brick-work itself there is not a cranny. You would say the house has the lock-jaw. There are two doors, and to each a single chipped and battered marble step. Continuing on down the sidewalk, on a line with the house, is a garden masked from ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable
... It sounded like the tiny knuckles of a fairy's hand, knocking lightly and playfully on the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... Burglar or no burglar, he was the best airman out, and I was muchly desirous to know the precise nature of the apparatus under his ulster. A back-hander from Judlip's left caused me to hop quickly aside. The prisoner was squealing and whimpering. He didn't like the feel of Judlip's knuckles at his cervical vertebrae. ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... the principle that the usual time has arrived, and therefore the plants must have water. But do they need it? Press the fingers firmly on the surface; if particles of soil adhere it is too dry. Or tap the pots smartly with the knuckles or with a stick, when a clear and unmistakable answer will be obtained. Plants differ widely in their demand for water. Some are very thirsty, others require less frequent attention. The season of the year and the state of the atmosphere have also to ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... the emboldened gang as they formed behind him, with bludgeons and iron knuckles, billies and slings, and whatever would ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... hairpins, and imitation ivory; out of the shinbones and other big bones they cut knife and toothbrush handles, and mouthpieces for pipes; out of the hoofs they cut hairpins and buttons, before they made the rest into glue. From such things as feet, knuckles, hide clippings, and sinews came such strange and unlikely products as gelatin, isinglass, and phosphorus, bone black, shoe blacking, and bone oil. They had curled-hair works for the cattle tails, and a "wool pullery" for the sheepskins; ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... old woman, "that I should have a son with so little wit as to beat a gravestone till his knuckles are sore! Now if he had covered it with something black that it might not alarm timid women or children, that would at least have been an ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... recollect a passage in the writings of a modern Whig bishop—in which, for the sake of creating a charge of falsehood against Milton, the author has grossly mis-translated a passage in the Defensio pro Pop. Anglicano: and, if that bishop were not dead, I would here take the liberty of rapping his knuckles—were it only for breaking Priscian's head. To return over to the clerical feud against the Long Parliament,—it was a passage in a very pleasing work of this day (Ecclesiastical Biography) which suggested to me the whole of what I have now written. Its learned editor, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... precious greasy old lot of cards they were; and so many dirt-spots on them, that it required a fellow with sharp eyes to make out the dirt from the Clubs and Spades. However, we got on somehow. When one was ready to play, he knocked the table with his knuckles, as a signal to the other; and for hours and hours we shuffled and dealt and knocked until it was late in the night, which I ought to have told you was Saturday night. At last, just as we ended a game, and when we were listening if a boat ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... you ain't even square with me—after I have worked politics with you for twenty-five years!" He marched up to the table and rapped his hard little knuckles on it. "It's this way, gents," he said, "and I'll be short and sweet. What's the matter with politics when a man like I've always been gets ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... replied; "we all works our way up regular, the same as my lad is beginning for to do. New-fangled ways is not accepted here. We puts the reforming spirits scrubbing of the steps till their knuckles is cracked and their knees like a bean. The old lord was the man for discipline—your grandfather, if you please, miss. He catched me when I were about ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... from beside the chair where he had flung himself on his knees when Walden had entered his mother's cottage,—and rubbed his knuckles hard into his eyes with a long and ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... remember, with those seventeen-year-old hands that were all knuckles and bone and chapped skin, twisting those hands and shifting his weight from one ...
— With a Vengeance • J. B. Woodley
... Lanyard grumbled resignedly; and tossing the man a five-franc piece, applied his knuckles to the door of an outwardly commonplace hotel particulier in the rue Chaptal between the impasse of the Grand ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... very fond, and which Bill Rice kicked into the fountain. The Boy got mad, which was wrong and foolish of The Boy; and The Boy, also, got licked. And The Boy never could make his mother understand why he was silly and careless enough to cut his under-lip by knocking it against Bill Rice's knuckles. Bill subsequently apologized by saying that he did not mean to kick the top into the fountain. He merely meant to kick the top. And it was ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... its loudest, tears streamed down its scarlet face, and it dug its clenched knuckles furiously into ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... rise to order,' said the barber in a soft voice, and looking round him with a conciliatory smile as he leant over the table, with the knuckles of his left hand resting upon it, - 'if I MIGHT rise to order, I would suggest that "barbers" is not exactly the kind of language which is agreeable and soothing to our feelings. You, sir, will correct ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... made a last effort to control himself. His knuckles tightened on the edge of the vat. "I don't know what you've been talking about," he grated wildly. "But I want to get out of here! I want to go back where I came from! Do you understand—whoever, ...
— The Eternal Wall • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... to remember, means obsession, lunacy. So the problem I faced in solitary, where incessant remembering strove for possession of me, was the problem of forgetting. When I gamed with flies, or played chess with myself, or talked with my knuckles, I partially forgot. What I desired was entirely ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... trouser pockets, and rattling his money looked at me with an enquiring air. I returned his gaze for a while, lost in a delirious wonder. I tried to speak. Something stuck in my throat. I broke into a blubber and dried my eyes with my knuckles. ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... he installed his secretary and overwhelmed him with work. The young man spent his nights in writing, and, like all great workers, he contracted a bad habit, a trick—he took to chewing paper. The late M. de Malesherbes use to rap people over the knuckles; and he did this once, by the by, to somebody or other whose suit depended upon him. The handsome young secretary began by chewing blank paper, found it insipid for a while, and acquired a taste for manuscript as having more flavor. People did not smoke as yet in those days. At last, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... White Linen Nurse was on her knees in the grass. "You don't hold her right, sir!" she expostulated. Deftly with little soft, darting touches, interrupted only by rubbing her knuckles into her own tears, she reached out and eased successively the bruise of a buckle or the dragging weight on a little ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... which answered that rude bid for his attention. He saw in the dim light Ennar's face and was savagely glad to note the discolorations about the right eye and along the jaw line, the signatures left by his own skinned knuckles. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... the ashes in a basket an' a pail, An' from cellar door to alley he just left an ashy trail. Then he pulled apart the chimney, an' 'twas full of something black, An' he skinned most all his knuckles when he tried to put it back. We could hear him talkin' awful, an' Ma looked at us an' said: "I think it would be better if ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... for Benedetto, was strumming with his knuckles a piece of his own composition, accompanying the sound with horrible contortions of lips, nostrils and eyebrows. Upon hearing a gentle knock at the door, he neither answered nor stopped playing. Having finished ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... that the bewildered Max sighed, and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, as though hardly knowing whether ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... took one of her hands in his. Instinctively she clenched it; and he wrapped his strong hard fingers around the small white fist, then deliberately inserted a hard finger joint between her second and third knuckles, slowly increasing the pressure. And watched with absolute indifference the lines of agony grave themselves upon her smooth unwrinkled forehead, and the color leave her cheeks, as the pain grew too exquisite. Then, suddenly ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... his superior, sternly. "Don't you see I'm quiet?" and he twisted his knuckles viciously into Leander's throat. "If you ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... doubling up as he struck. He had been hit squarely on the jaw with a force that made even Tom Reade's hardened knuckles ache. ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... his sheep should go through, since the free range was his as well as another's. On that long night march, when the men were behind the sheep, driving them, contrary to the usual custom, he told Sims of his interview with Beef Bissell, and the herder cracked his knuckles with rage at the position taken ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... look was a call for the ambulance; Anson slumped in his chair; little old Sillsbee sat twisted away so that his face was in shadow, but the knuckles showed bone white where his hand gripped the table top. None of them seemed able to speak; the young voice that broke startlingly on the stillness had the effect of scaring the others, with its tone of nonchalance, rather than reassuring them. Worth Gilbert leaned forward ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... hand, and, to her own intense surprise when she thought of it afterward, Mrs. MacDonald gave hers. Over the prominent knuckles the old skin lay soft and loose. The grim woman was vaguely pathetic to Somerled in his youth and strength and full tide of success. The touch of the would-be iron hand in the velvet glove of faded age made him conscious of his ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... did the only thing he could—ran after him with the rope and tried to tie him hand and foot. Then it was that the unlucky girl ran in, and misunderstanding the struggle, strove to slash her father free. At first she only slashed poor Royce's knuckles, from which has come all the little blood in this affair. But, of course, you noticed that he left blood, but no wound, on that servant's face? Only before the poor woman swooned, she did hack her father loose, so that he went crashing through that ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... to fight," thought Tom Blount, as he rushed off in pursuit of Pete Warboys, this time with full intention, and not led into it by accident. "Fighting means knocking the skin off one's knuckles, black eyes, nose bleeding, and perhaps getting thrashed. And I may be, for he's a big, strong, heavy fellow, and I don't think I could hit him half hard enough to make him care. But it seems to me as if ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... Bob, wiping his bleeding knuckles. "I feel as if I had tasted blood, as they say, and I'm ready to fight now ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... Chapel of Masaccio. It was Buonarroti's habit to banter all who were drawing there, and one day, when he was annoying me, I got more angry than usual, and, clenching my fist, I gave him such a blow on the nose that I felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles; and this mark of mine he will carry with him to his grave." Cellini adds—"These words begat in me such hatred of the man since I was always gazing at the masterpieces of the divine Michael Angelo, that, although I felt ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... deux!" cries another, and presently the "Omnibus" in his black apron hurries to your table, holding between his knuckles, by their necks, half a dozen bottles of different aperitifs, for it is he who fills ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... extreme graciousness and personal popularity of the leaders not being sufficiently apparent to be esteemed an adequate set-off against the inveterate odium that attached to their opinions; that the Tadpole philosophy was the favoured tenet in high places; and Taper had had his knuckles well rapped more than once for manoeuvring too actively against the New Poor-law, and for hiring several link-boys to bawl a much-wronged lady's name in the Park when the ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... care to have him hanging around; makes it so plain, in fact, that a few weeks purely of sight-seeing on the Zone implies an adamantine financial backing. In his screened and full-provided towns, where the employee lives in such well-furnished comfort, the tourist might beat his knuckles bare and shake yellow gold in the other hand, and be coldly refused even a lodging for the night; and while he may eat a meal in the employees' hotels—at near twice the employee's price—the very attitude in which he is received says openly that he is ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... opportunity of testing and proving his invincibility; yet the desperate nature of the case did not induce him to draw his sword. He preferred his fists, as being superior and much more handy weapons. He received the first two savages who came within reach on the knuckles of his right and left hands, rendering them utterly insensible, and driving them against the two men immediately behind, with such tremendous violence, that they also ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... I'll carefully pull O'er my knuckles hereafter, to make them, well-bred; To mollify digs in the kidneys with wool, And temper with leather a punch ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... Georgina's hand to make it do the tapping, thinking it would please her to give her a share in the invitation, but in her touchy frame of mind it was only an added grievance to have her knuckles knocked against the pane, and her wails began afresh as the old man, answering the signal, shook his bell at her playfully, and ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a full minute he waited and again called, and then, as there still was no reply, he struck the door sharply with his knuckles. On the instant the voice of the Jew rang ...
— The Lost House • Richard Harding Davis
... were sitting about when Billy, sniffing and rubbing his knuckles in his eyes to such an extent that of necessity notice must be taken, ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... near where the knuckles of it dip out of sight into the bottom of the valley, one notices a line of heads. In some places they are clear and in others they cannot be seen. But we guess that it is the ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... that was my cue to walk out, kick the motorman in the knuckles, upset the car and send in a fire call, but ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... down his pen, taken his hat, and gone to see the unlucky apothecary. Now he took up the broken thread. To come to a decision; that was the task which forced from him his look of distress. He drew his face slowly through his palms, set his lips, cast up his eyes, knit his knuckles, and then opened and struck his palms together, as if to say: "Now, come; let ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... a most interesting stock indeed. Five black pieces of muslin, each with two peep-holes, several sets of false whiskers, two pairs of brass knuckles, three metal rings from each of which dangled more than a dozen keys of varying sizes, a box of revolver cartridges, a formidable knife, some twine and a number ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... the boy and seize the box!" His hand was outstretched to take the box from the table, when the same stick which had extinguished the lights gave his knuckles such a rap that he uttered a yell of pain. Though the lights were extinguished, through the windows the faint starlight dimly illuminated the scene. Charles Stevens saw the outline of his uncle, who seized the box and hurried with ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... man's hand appeared and gripped the window-sill. He stared at it, fascinated. It was so close to him that he could see the thin, yellow fingers, on one of which was a signet ring with a blood-red stone; the misshapen knuckles, the broken nails. He was on the point of throwing up the window when a man's face shot up from underneath and peered into the room. There was only the thickness of the glass between them, and the light from the gas lamp which ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... make it an adjunct to painting, they dragged it into the outskirts of science, and reduced it to the level of a problem in harmonic construction. Some who were learned enough took upon themselves to show a thing or two to past musicians. They found fault with Beethoven, and rapped Wagner over the knuckles. They laughed openly at Berlioz and Gluck. Nothing existed for them just then but Johann Sebastian Bach, and Claude Debussy. And Bach, who had lately been roundly abused, was beginning to seem pedantic, a periwig, and in fine, a hack. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... her finish. She drew the countess' large hand to her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it over and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the knuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, "January, February, March, April, May. Speak, Mamma, why don't you say anything? Speak!" said she, turning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her daughter and in that contemplation seemed to have ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... anyhow? I've been robbed, rooked, cleared out of everything I possess," and tormented by recollections and by the impotence of his rage the unfortunate engineer beat the oak table with the back of his hand until his knuckles bled. ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... slowly, smilingly forward. She saw Raymond's knuckles grow white and hard as his hands gripped the back of his chair. His eyes dilated, and for a moment he could ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... many-times tested theory that the bulk of English shoregoing institutions are based on conformable strata of absolutely impervious inaccuracy. I reflected and became aware of a drumming on the back of the front seat that Pyecroft, bowed forward and relaxed, was tapping with his knuckles. The hardly-checked fury on Hinchcliffe's brow had given place to a greasy imbecility, and he nodded over the steering-bar. In longs and shorts, as laid down by the pious and immortal Mr. Morse, Pyecroft tapped out, "Sham drunk. Get him ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... the "psalm book," and bade him copy the hymn carefully. He did not dare to touch the dainty little volume, for his hands were far from immaculate after his morning's work. He managed, though, with his knuckles to steady it against Baxter's "Saints' Rest" and "Thomas a Kempis," which in choice bindings found their place among Alma's devotional books, more in memory of her mother, to whom they had belonged, than for any special use they were to ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... a letter in which Mr. Darwin comments severely on Virchow. It is difficult to say which would have pained Mr. Darwin more—the affront to a colleague, or the breach of confidence in a friend.) I have read only the preface...It is capital, and I enjoyed the tremendous rap on the knuckles which you gave Virchow at the close. What a pleasure it must be to ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... however, that the full-grown man is not liable to be checked, reprimanded and rebuked, even as the schoolboy is. He has his wife to read him lectures, and rap his knuckles; he has his master, his landlord, or the mayor of his village, to tell him of his duty in an imperious style, and in measured sentences; if he is a member of a legislature, even there he receives his lessons, and is told, either in phrases of well-conceived irony, or by the exhibition ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... to the table and sat down behind the smoky lamp. There was a red spot on his forehead from a chance blow, and the knuckles of both big hands were raw. He breathed heavily for a full minute, and glared around ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... called. The Jam-wagon was bleeding about the knuckles. Several of Locasto's teeth had been loosened, and he spat blood frequently. Otherwise he looked as fit as ever. He pursued his man with savage determination, and seemed resolved to get in a deadly body-blow that would end ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... that is in the palm of the left hand (Fig. 72). On letting go the off rein with the right hand, we close the fingers of the left hand, turn the left hand inwards, and let it fall from the wrist in an easy manner (Fig. 73). When holding the reins in one hand, we should not keep the knuckles in a vertical position, because, by doing so, one rein will come up higher on the horse's neck than the other rein. On the contrary, both in one-handed and two-handed riding, the knuckles should be held more or less horizontally, as they would ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... capitalization small enough to make it possible for them to afford to be honest for thirty years—while our patents and contracts last, anyway." He put an elbow in the hollow of his hand, and the knuckles on his knee as he sat cross-legged, and drawled: "I wonder if it will work—" and repeated: "I wonder, I wonder. There's big money in it; she's a dead monopoly as she stands, and they have the key to the whole thing in the Commerce Department at Washington. They can keep her straight if they ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... being chained to their machines. In return for their services they got enough bad food to keep them alive and a sort of pigsty in which they could rest at night. Often they were so tired that they fell asleep at their job. To keep them awake a foreman with a whip made the rounds and beat them on the knuckles when it was necessary to bring them back to their duties. Of course, under these circumstances thousands of little children died. This was regrettable and the employers, who after all were human beings ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... is tattooed only on the arms. This tattoo begins close back of the knuckles on the back of the hands, and, as soon as it reaches the wrist, entirely encircles the arms to above the elbows. Still above this there is frequently a separate design on the outside of the arm; it is often the figure of a man with extended arms ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... hat in the closet, opened the incubator on his culture tubes, trying to look busy. He slammed the door after one whiff and gripped the edge of the work table with whitening knuckles. "Why?" ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... Sapt's waist and supported him out of the cellar, drawing the battered door close after me. For ten minutes or more we sat silent in the dining-room. Then old Sapt rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, gave one great gasp, and was himself again. As the clock on the mantelpiece struck one he stamped his foot ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... to make sure I got in my licks before the Solar Guard got hold of him," replied Roger, rubbing his knuckles and looking ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... up the poker, and dug the fire into a blaze. "What's doing on you, man? You've skinned your knuckles like potato peel. Man, man, what for ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... and more, and the ringmaster going round and round the center-pole, cracking his whip and shouting "Hi!—hi!" and the clown cracking jokes behind him; and by and by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady put her knuckles on her hips and every gentleman folded his arms, and then how the horses did lean over and hump themselves! And so one after the other they all skipped off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow I ever see, and then scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands and went ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... know the man whose demeanour is "always calm," but whose passions are strong. How do you know that his passions are strong? Because he "gives them away" by some small, but important, part of his demeanour, such as the twitching of a lip or the whitening of the knuckles caused by clenching the hand. In other words, his demeanour, fundamentally, is not calm. You know the man who is always "smoothly polite and agreeable," but who affects you unpleasantly. Why does he affect you unpleasantly? ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... ranks, and turning his rawboned, vicious-looking chestnut horse with its tail to the house-door, he pressed his knuckles sharply upon the animal's loins, just behind the saddle. The horse lashed out furiously, each kick of his iron-shod heels making the door crack and rattle, and striking out white splinters from the dark surface of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... folk, but kept the young people in their places, and well did every youngster know that did he not conduct himself in the sanctuary with becoming propriety, the cane the elder carried would likely come rapping down smartly on his unrighteous knuckles. J. P. Thornton's welcome was kindly but stately. He had grown stout and slightly pompous-looking during the passing years, and his fine, well-dressed figure lent quite an air of dignity to the whole church. But Lawyer Ed, ushering a stranger into the church, was ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... know it. Shorthand typists are not wanted these days, the schools are turning out thousands of 'em, all more or less bad; but I—I ain't talking about that, dear—" He took a step towards her, and then recoiled, seeing her knuckles shine whitely as she gripped ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... took a long spell at the oars, and gained a certain dexterity, though they are not easy to manage. The handles overlap by about six inches—in order to gain leverage, as the curagh is narrow—and at first it was almost impossible to avoid striking the upper oar against one's knuckles. The oars are rough and square, except at the ends, so one cannot do so with impunity. Again, a curagh with two light people in it floats on the water like a nut-shell, and the slightest inequality in the stroke throws the prow round at least a right angle from its course. ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... ye—fire, billets, and all—I've seen nothing like to warm my bare nose and knuckles since we left Halton, two long days agone. Verily, to my thinking, there's as much timber burnt there daily as ye would pile here for a ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... if we turned 'em down again we ought to have the Audubon Society after us. It won't do to put the crown aside too often. I know this is something like paternalism, but don't you think Opportunity has skinned its knuckles about enough knocking at ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... was, he managed to give his assailant a pretty substantial token of regard under the ear, with his knuckles. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... gone, Solomon laid his head down upon the desk before him, and remained in that position for some time. At length without at all raising it he began to play his knuckles against the lid, with a degree of alacrity which would not have disgraced the activity of a sleight-of-hand man. He at last rose, drew a long breath, and wore a very smiling face; but this was not all—O sanctity! O religion! Instead of ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... cross-beam between two pillars, are suspended the brazen gauntlets, the helmet, the wooden shield with its moulded leather covering, the velvet coat emblazoned with the arms of England and France, and the empty sheath. The gauntlets were once embellished with little figures of lions on the knuckles; these have been detached by "collectors," vandals almost as ruthless as Blue Dick and his troopers, and without their excuse of mistaken religious zeal. The helmet still has its original lining of leather, showing that it was actually worn. The sword which fitted the now ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... the very beginning, seek to avoid stiffness and bad hand positions, such as crooked fingers or broken-in knuckles. If these details are neglected the pupil is liable to go through his entire musical career greatly hampered. I would earnestly advise all teachers to discourage the efforts of pupils to attain virtuoso heights unless ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... forward, for no one could resist Lady Eleanor's smile, and opened his mouth confidently to speak; but he made only a few inarticulate sounds, and then thrust his knuckles into his eyes and began ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... cutlass from the pile, and someone, at the same time snatching another, gave me a cut across the knuckles which I hardly felt. I dashed out of the door into the clear sunlight. Someone was close behind, I knew not whom. Right in front, the doctor was pursuing his assailant down the hill, and, just as my eyes fell upon him, beat ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his knuckles on the table recalled her. She turned, slightly startled, and met his imperious ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... took a cane-bottomed chair and carried it into the extreme corner of the office. Then having looked steadily at the wall behind him, and rapped it with his knuckles, he sat down, still throwing an occasional apprehensive glance over his shoulder. "I've got a touch of the jumps," he remarked apologetically to his employer. "I likes to know as there ain't no ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hands clasped finger over finger, tightly, "till the knuckles whitened;" his lips were pressed firmly together; his breast heaved as though it would burst, as though it must be rid of its secret. Suddenly he sprang up, and in a voice that was a solemn chant, began: "In full daylight, long ago, on a slumberously-wrathful, thunderous ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... swallowed manfully and hoped for the best as it burned like acid down his throat into his middle, there to mix uncomfortably with the viands he had eaten. Weeks' thin face looked very white, and Dane noticed with malicious enjoyment, that Ali had an unobtrusive grip on the table which made his knuckles stand out in polished knobs—proving that there were things which could ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... trembling hands with abnormally large knuckles; a cruel and determined mouth—these were the features that most impressed Karl as he stared wordlessly at this Zar of the Eastern Hemisphere. The magnificence of the royal robe was lost on the young wearer ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... the face of Hodulf became ashy grey beneath the tan of wind and sea, and I saw that his hand clutched the hilt of his sword so that the knuckles of his fingers grew white. He had never thought to hear of that deed again, and he knew that he had to deal with the one whom he had thought dead. Some of the young chiefs in the hall laughed at that token, ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... on it the evening that he had sat with her in the little Twenty-third Street drawing-room. All the beauty that had forsaken her face seemed to have taken refuge in the long pale fingers and faintly dimpled knuckles on his sleeve, and he said to himself: "If it were only to see her hand again I should ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... been asked of me; I had made no statement. It had been all too sudden. Presently I heard footsteps in the corridor, and the door opened. It was mine enemy. He locked the door and thrust the key into his pocket. One of his eyes was decidedly mouse-colored. The knuckles of my hand were yet sore. I smiled; he saw the smile, his jaws hardening and ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... is conscious," said Del Norte. "I wished him to have his reason when he died. Look you, dog of a gringo, your time has come. I bear many wounds on my body and limbs made by the knife in your hand. You have only one scratch on your knuckles. But soon you will have this knife of ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... puffed up, with sponge-like knuckles, as after some terrific blow. What could I do? Though he put me down as a madman, I must tell him all. I sat by his bed and went over all my troubles from the beginning. I poured them out with quivering hands and burning words which might have ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fancied young Titterton's chuckles, And old Bottleby's hearty guffaws As he drove at my ribs with his knuckles, His mode of expressing applause: While Jean Bottleby—queenly Miss Janet - Drew her handkerchief hastily out, In fits at my slyness—what can it Have all ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... his chair, thumped his head with his knuckles, and finally announced with a groan ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... together; you have not stiffened by becoming stronger, but find yourself more flexible. When you first came here, you could not touch your fingers to the ground without bending the knees, and now you can place your knuckles on the floor; then you could scarcely bend yourself backward, and now you can lay the back of your head in a chair, or walk, without crouching forward, under a bar less than three feet from the ground. You have found, indeed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... self-confidence. His wiry black hair shone with grease, and no accuracy of razor-play would make his chin white. A man of immense strength, but bull-necked and altogether ungainly—his heavy fist, with its black veins and terrific knuckles, suggested primitive methods of settling dispute; the stumpy fingers, engrimed hopelessly, and the filthy broken nails, showed how he wrought for a living. His face, if you examined it without prejudice, was not ill to look upon; there was much good humour about ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... were a dozen others backing him up. It was him or me and it couldn't be avoided. In the affair I hurt my hand; while it was healing I went to 'Frisco and took in the theatres." He held up the member indicated, reversed this time for inspection. A white jagged scar ran diagonally over the knuckles. "It's entirely ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... the sleigh-bells on the startled horses beyond the door. The programme over, somebody called for Squire Town, a local pettifogger, who flung his soul and body into every cause. He often sored his knuckles on the court table and racked his frame with the violence of his rhetoric. He had a stock of impassioned remarks ready ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... walks from side to side without a moment's rest. Every now and then he stretches his arm out of the window, apparently throwing something away. He is certainly ill. His body and legs are badly swollen, and there are great lumps in the places where his joints and knuckles ought to be. Well then, if he is ill, why does he not lie still in bed and rest and get well? For even in this wretched cave-room there is something that looks like a bed in one corner. It has no white sheets or soft blankets, but still it has four legs and a sort of coverlet, and at ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... him on the knuckles with my thimble, told him he was naughty, and said we must not suffer merit to think itself neglected. Clifton began to sing Britons strike home; which he soon changed to Rule Britannia: sure tokens that he was not pleased; for these are the tunes with which ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... his knuckles upon a certain spot of the carpet in one corner of the space just mentioned, letting me know that a portion of the flooring, about sixteen inches square, had been neatly cut out and again adjusted. As he pressed, this portion rose up at one end sufficiently to allow the passage of his finger ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... down on dry tree knuckles, buttressed roots rising three feet from the soil, and discussed the situation gravely. After a short time Peter got up with a start and began prancing about the little ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... to apply her large red knuckles to the door in question when her intention was frustrated and her doubts were scattered by the door opening and Dominick ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... eager to show the generous lady how useful he could be. In less than half an hour, Iris and her maid were at the door of the farm-house. No such civilised inventions appeared as a knocker or a bell. The boy used his knuckles instead—and ran away when he heard the lock of the door turned on the inner side. He was afraid to be seen speaking to any living creature who ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... up to the door of the lodge and rapped with his knuckles. It opened and revealed a young woman, fully dressed. "What do you want?" she exclaimed, ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... step on the stair, a girl's low laughter, Rustle of silks, shy knuckles tapping the oak, Dinner and mirth upsetting my rooms, and, after, Music, waltz upon waltz, till the June ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... leaded casement window on each side of the front door. Unlike Hope Cottage, it did not look at all the residence of Miss Janet and Miss Anne. Its appearance, indeed, was woe-begone. Aristide, however, went up to the door; as there was neither knocker nor bell, he rapped with his knuckles. The door opened, and there, poorly dressed in blouse and skirt, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... with the one with which I have to content myself. Life is really too short for art—one hasn't time to make one's shell ideally hard. Firm and bright—firm and bright!—the devilish thing has a way, sometimes, of being bright without being firm. When I rap it with my knuckles it doesn't give the right sound. There are horrible little flabby spots where I have taken the second-best word, because I could n't for the life of me think of the best. If you knew how stupid I am sometimes! They look to me now like pimples and ulcers ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... advice, but we cannot give conduct," as Poor Richard says. However, remember this: "they that won't be counseled can't be helped," as Poor Richard says; and further, that "if you will not hear reason she'll surely rap your knuckles." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... employe who wears a high collar is not the one that knuckles down to hard work. Perspiration and high collars do not go well together. The dude employe does not like perspiration, so he sees to it that he does not exert himself enough ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... the story of a well-known Canon of Christ Church in my early days, who, when rowing on the river, saw a drowning man laying hold of his boat and nearly upsetting it. "Providentially," he explained, "I had brought my umbrella, and I had presence of mind enough to hit him over the knuckles. He let go, sank, and never rose again." Nobody, I imagine, would have vouched for the truth of this story, but it was so often repeated that it provided the old gentleman with a nickname, that stuck to ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... he brought the stick down on the knuckles which disfigured the edges of the trap. The intruder uttered a howl and dropped out of sight. In the room below there were whisperings and mutterings, growing gradually louder till something resembling coherent conversation came to Psmith's ears, as he knelt by the ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... speedily restore his equanimity. For the unknown who had so unceremoniously brushed against him on the dark stair had been attired in tartan clothes. It had been a bare knee that had touched him on the leg; it had been a plaid-fringe that had brushed across his face; and his knuckles had been rapped lightly by the protuberances upon the sheath and hilt of a mountain dagger. M. le Baron's proscription of arms seemed to have some strange exceptions, he told himself. They were not only treated with ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... called, because of fat old joints, and hams, and rounds, and barons of sea-beeves and walrusses, which then crowned the stratum-board. All piled together, glorious profusion!—fillets and briskets, rumps, and saddles, and haunches; shoulder to shoulder, loin 'gainst sirloin, ribs rapping knuckles, and quarter to none. And all these sandwiched right over all that went before. Course after course, and course on course, my lord; no time to clear the wreck; no stop nor let; lay on and slash; cut, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... her father's lodge. Two men sat with him, and the three looked at her with swift interest. But her face betokened nothing as she entered and took seat quietly, without speech. Tantlatch drummed with his knuckles on a spear-heft across his knees, and gazed idly along the path of a sun-ray which pierced a lacing-hole and flung a glittering track across the murky atmosphere of the lodge. To his right, at his shoulder, crouched Chugungatte, ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... earnestly, and a face almost as pale as the clerical bands beneath his somewhat receding chin. His forehead is high and narrow, his hair mouse-coloured. His hands are clasped tight before him, the knuckles standing out sharply. This constriction does not mean that he is steeling himself to speak. He has no positive intention of speaking. Very much, nevertheless, is he wishing in the back of his mind that he ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... donate to a citizen. He sthraps on three gatlin' guns, four revolvers, two swords, a rifle, a shot gun, a baseball bat, a hand grenade (to be used on'y in case iv thirst), a pair iv handcuffs, brass knuckles, a sandbag, a piece of lead pipe in a stockin', a rabbit's foot f'r luck, a stove lid an' a can iv dinnymite, an' with siveral iv his cillybrated knives behind his ears, in his hair, between his teeth, an' gleamin' fr'm his pockets, he sallies forth on his sacred mission, ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... that moment somebody took a swing at Joe and grazed his cheek. It was a good thing that was all he did; he was wearing brass knuckles. Joe went down a couple of feet, bending at the knees, and caught this fellow around the hips with both hands, straightening and lifting him over his head. Then he threw him over the heads of the people in front ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... knife!" The sheriff spoke the last word almost in a scream, and he beat Wambush's knuckles so furiously that the knife fell to ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... not yet broken to the habit of being a cripple. He could not remember that he must avoid the effort to use the right hand which he had always used. Now he reached down and picked up the envelope—still with the lettered surface turned up to sight—and rapping still swollen knuckles on the desk top, he let the envelope fall just as he ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... slowly and stiffly, making the sad mistake of jumping down from the height of the step. How that did injure my feelings! The only catastrophe I can remember comparable to it was when a teacher rapped my knuckles with a ruler after I had been making snowballs bare handed. My benumbed faculties next swung around to the proposition of proceeding up an interminable gravel walk—(it is twenty-five feet long!) to a forbidding flight of stairs—(porch steps—five of them!) I put this idea into ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... his knuckles git well, anyway," he mumbled disapprovingly. "If he goes to fighting, ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... farther wall was a settee with a high, arching back, which might have been put there for that special purpose. He inserted himself behind this, just as a splintering crash announced that the Law, having gone through the formality of knocking with its knuckles, was now getting busy with an axe. A moment later the door had given way, and the room was full of trampling feet. Archie wedged himself against the wall with the quiet concentration of a clam nestling in its shell, and ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... Erh suggested laughingly, "that you shouldn't put your foot in there! Every one, even up to Madame Wang, and Pao-yue, have alike received a rap on the knuckles, and are you also going now to fill up ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... next morning, the morning of the 19th of June, the knuckles of his valet on the door woke Jim from his slumber and a voice through ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... send forth the glad tidings of a hearty meal. Not less ready, or less eager, are the groups of listeners seated at their snow-white deal tables below, or the crowd surrounding the coppers, with their mess-kids acting the part of drums to their impatient knuckles. At the first stroke of the bell, which, at this particular hour, is always sounded with peculiar vivacity, the officer of the watch exclaims to the boatswain, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... witnessed the heavy and disabling strokes which the human fist, skillfully directed, hath the power to bestow—may easily understand how much that happy facility would be increased by a band carried by thongs of leather round the arm as high as the elbow, and terribly strengthened about the knuckles by a plate of iron, and sometimes a plummet of lead. Yet this, which was meant to increase, perhaps rather diminished, the interest of the fray; for it necessarily shortened its duration. A very few blows, successfully and scientifically planted, might ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... began to crawl and crawl down towards the bolt, but with infinite slowness and caution. In so doing they crept into the moonlight. The actual motion was imperceptible, but slowly, slowly, the fingers came out whiter and whiter; but the hand between the main knuckles and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... or two knuckles of veal, one or two shins of beef, and three pounds of beef, in as much water only as will cover them. Take the marrow out of the bones, put in any kind of spice, and three large onions. When the meat is done to rags, strain it off, and set it in a very cold place. Take off the cake of ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... broken head or livid bruise, and all testifying with one voice to a constant series of savage outrages during the voyage; or, it might be, they laid an accusation of actual murder, perpetrated by the first or second officers with many blows of steel-knuckles, a rope's end, or a marline-spike, or by the captain, in the twinkling of an eye, with a shot of his pistol. Taking the seamen's view of the case, you would suppose that the gibbet was hungry for the murderers. Listening to the captain's defence, you would ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... subaltern?' I whispered to Stalky behind my hand. His nostrils expanded, and he drummed on the edge of the Japanese jar with his knuckles. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... he caught a face clearly and did not forget it again—a baby in a blue-and-white blanket coat, that had bright red cheeks and that smiled and showed two brand-new teeth; a boy with bare hands and red knuckles (the Poor Boy sent him a pair of warm mittens from the village store), and ears (one bigger than the other) ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris
... slender fingers with their dimpled knuckles, daintily selecting the most eligible lumps out of the cracked blue-and-white china teacup which did service for a sugar-basin, unhesitatingly agreed with her; though Mrs. Sylvester seemed to think her argument that sugar-tongs could be so ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... month we English people are accustomed to repeat a rhyme: the Icelander has a different mode of calculation. He closes his fist, calls his first knuckle January, the depression before the next knuckle February, when he arrives at the end, beginning again; thus the months that fall upon the knuckles, are those containing thirty-one days, a somewhat ingenious ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... that, Ben? That's the thanks I get. You know the way I've tried to make this little home one a child could be proud of. Take the time that fine young Bryant fellow came to call. Why, that little parlor of ours was fit for a princess. His knuckles didn't suit her! They cracked, she said. I've heard of lots of excuses for not taking to boys, but that beats all. Three girls out of the sewing club already married and Flora engaged to that well-to-do Bankhead boy, and mine holds herself above ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... temporizing, and we knew it. The first drop of the trail was so steep that we could flip a pebble to the first level of it, and so rough in its water-and-snow-gouged knuckles of rocks that it seemed that at the first step a horse must necessarily fall end over end. We made it successfully, however, and breathed deep. Even Lily, by a miracle of lucky scrambling, did ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... the last card in the pack on my own pile and looked triumphantly at Dodds. I had, at all events, not made a misdeal. Dodds put his hand down on his cards with a bang. He has large red hands, which swell out between the knuckles and at the wrists. I saw by the way his fingers were spread on the table that he was going to speak strongly. I recollected then, when it was too late, that Dodds is an advanced Radical and absolutely hates the idea of imperialism. I tried to diminish his wrath by slipping in an apologetic ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... time her sobs subsided until they were no more than long, unsteady breaths. But she stayed at the window, staring down into the street. Once she dug the knuckles of one fist into her eyes ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... pharisaical. I ventured to pity my less fortunate neighbors, bound hand and foot to the slavery of mothers-in-law. I attempted to joke them, and poke them severely in the ribs with my knuckles, when the magic name was mentioned. So often did I congratulate myself on the shrewd stroke of genius displayed, that I fear even her respectability became sadly impaired in my mind, and depreciated to such an extent that I was ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... oftener, at will—has been suffering the greatest privation rather than trouble her hostess with a request for something which is so evidently not thought of in this house. With soap that "chaps," and a stiff nail-brush she has painfully scrubbed her cold knuckles to remove the grime which several days of imperfect ablution has rendered almost immovable—except as the skin comes with it. And as to her customary bath, she has substituted so much of hasty sponging as chattering ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... behind us, and then at each other. Margaret was now like the rest of us. She had lost her statuesque calm. All the introspective rigidity had gone from her; and she clasped her hands together till the knuckles were white. ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... father furiously spanking a son of about five years old, who was pitifully crying so as to break one's heart, and as if that were not punishment enough, he shook him violently by his little pig-tail, and pounded him on the head with his knuckles, a performance that would have killed, or, at all events, rendered insensible nine children out of ten of other nationalities; but no, to my utter astonishment, the moment the father, tired of beating, retired into the house, the little mite, wiping his streaming tears with the backs of his ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... confounded with another eccentric Bohemian, James Allen, brother to the Sheriff of Suffolk, who wrote under the inspiration of the West Indian muses—sugar, rum and lemon-juice—who "wore ruffles—and they hung in tatters about his knuckles." ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... the traveller said that all that the woman had related was perfectly true. Taking her to one side of the room, he told her to tap gently with her knuckles all over a wooden pillar. At one part the pillar gave forth a hollow sound. The traveller said that the money spoken about by the poor woman lay hidden in this part of the pillar. Then advising her to spend it only gradually, ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... still decorated with a bruise that young Mosher had planted there. The boxing of Dick & Co., this summer, was real work. It was done with bare knuckles, though, of course, without anger or the desire to do injury. Boxing with bare knuckles was Prescott's own idea for hardening himself and his chums for the rough ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... could move, old Daniels appeared at the door, a heavy Colt in his hand. For a moment he stood dumbfounded, but then, with a cry, jerked up his gun—a quick movement, but a fraction of a second too slow, for the hand of Dan darted out and his knuckles struck the wrist of the old cattleman. The Colt rattled on the floor. He lunged after his weapon, but the voice of Buck ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... furtively towards the bed as she fastened her mantle, to see if she had disturbed me. Then, thinking that I was still asleep, she slipped noiselessly from the room, and an instant later I heard a sharp creaking which could only come from the hinges of the front door. I sat up in bed and rapped my knuckles against the rail to make certain that I was truly awake. Then I took my watch from under the pillow. It was three in the morning. What on this earth could my wife be doing out on the country road at ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... any more," he answered. "I hurt my hands on his nose," he added, thoughtfully, as he glanced at his bruised knuckles. ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... lad, with the desperation of a cornered rat. "But I got a right to live. And I've lived worse'n a dorg on this bloody schooner. I'm fair striped an' bruised wi' boots an' knuckles an' ends o' rope. I'd 'ave chucked ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... quaint-looking hills, doubled one into another, like the upturned knuckles of some gigantic hand. Every now and then, at a bend in the track, the high lands, sloping away on either side, disclosed the distant town lying like a child's puzzle on the plain, with the shadowy flats and dim ocean ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson |
